Why Writers Stay Single

You're a rough draft.
A not good enough draft.
But, I'll make a man -
u-script out of you.

I'll cut,
edit,
and rewrite.
Discuss you with my crit group
on Thursday nights.

I'll purge,
polish,
and plot.
Develop whatever
character you've got.

Till happy or not,
we're ending.

To Winter

Late fall roses with frost etched leaves
barely bloom born; already
they're half gone
to winter, to winter -
I'm feeling my age
and something like rage that cruel
winter comes so soon.

A belated entry for Kerry's Mini Challenge.  Submitted to Open Link Monday at Real Toads.

Ghosting The Writer

Let me linger
here
at birth's bedside -

hands hovering at your brow,
but not daring
to smooth the furrows,

ear turned and tilted
to catch any wayward,
whispered word.

Let me linger
here with you
at birth's bedside

as midwife,
as muse,
or as mere

secondhand god.

Sunday Drive

image via Google

"Here we go to Sunday school, Sunday school, Sunday school.

Here we go to Sunday school

at 30 miles per hour."

--- little ditty my sister and I made up and sang when we were kids

Riding in the backseat

of my step-great-grandmother's '76 Pacer

on Sunday mornings,

I began to question my belief in God.

I was only nine,

but Nannie took her time

winding her unsteady way to the straight and narrow
little Baptist church on the county line,
with every minute being a thousand years
of swinging from ditch to ditch and swaying
to crackling honky tonk turned holy roller on the AM radio,

so I had plenty of time to think

of how the "tink, tink, tink"

of the right turn signal

blinking mile after mile

reminded me of Moses wandering around the desert for forty years

with the promised land forever

just up ahead . . .

and of how I would have gotten a map, 

instead.

True story.  To this day, traveling slower than the speed limit gives me felonious urges.  Written for Mary's "pet peeves" prompt at Real Toads.

Vultures

Black finely feathers blue.
Stealing shadows kill.
Rancid rain that pecks the eyes.
Stealing shadows kill.
Flooding the feet of the huntress fair.
Stealing shadows kill.
Till she's buried there in brainless number.
Stealing shadows kill.

A chant poem.

Simple

We are simple, really.

When the loudmouth neighborhood dog barks at 4 AM,
we want to know that we aren't the only one
awake and pissed.

When our hated high school rival of twenty years ago crosses our path at Target,
we want to see that she's aged badly
and her kids are ugly.

We want
the opposing quarterback on a stretcher,
an artfully stolen parking place,
and occasional sex in positions
(unsanctioned by any missionary)
where we come first.

Simple, really,

the petty offerings
that serve to sate
the complicated appetites
of our darker gods.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Water's Edge

Moonshine hollows the cypress tree
and pools pale on roots
rutting the mossy, muddy hips
of the dark, cradled water.

Gettin' my Jue Jue on for Real Toads.

Butterfly Lights

Butterflies against the light.
Capsuled breath and shadowed space.

Butterflies beneath the light.
I push the final pin in the place.

Reaping The Wind

random stolen photo

Gypsy dressed, the night sky 

smoothes her cloudy skirts

and waits for the wind

to lift her hem

and bare her crescent thigh

star-gartered.

But the wind, never shy before,

is silent, still, now

spoken for

to feed the mills

and fill the sails -

bartered

till it's

gone.

Some harvest whirly gig for Real Toads and a little enjambment for dVerse.

Ah, it's good to be back!

Mediterranean Homesick Blues

Mama's in the cafe
writing in her cahier.
Waitress is narrow-lipped
thinking poets never tip.
Dude in a raincoat,
barefoot, pants off
straight off the shamba
here to syphon off his drop.
Stupid little girl-
slinging your pearls
and tapping your casks
for any shivering fool that asks.
Politeness is destruction
taken critically to task.
Peering round the curtains
a sculptured mirror mask
watches Brandy pour the brandy
as the awning just collapses.

Flipside . . . for OLN at dVerse

I'm having surgery tomorrow, so I won't be around for a few days.  Wish me luck!

Partition

Vague has its own vibration.
Loneliness likes to hold hands.
Your eyes are a darkroom
where negatives seem to transcend
every pinprick of light
that I try to sneak in.

Damn this throbbing in my head;
overexposed again.

The quivering edge of the high note
hangs like a bracelet on the bone.
I'm huddled, small, in your sweatshirt.
And, I just want to go home
so I can build myself a partition
between you here and you gone

to keep myself from looking backward
and keep moving on.

A belated Flipside poem for Open Link Monday at Real Toads

Be

I can be your man.

Tall, dark, and handsy.
Magicked up as midnight.
A doorway to the dawn.

I can be your woman.

Brothel born and fancy.
String you south like starlight.
Suck the skin right off your bones.

Don't matter to me
what you want me to be
as long as you be
mine.

I can be your dog.

Panting just to please you.
Roll over on my back
anytime you say.

I can be your cat.

Curling round your legs
and getting all familiar.
Twitch my tail and strut away.

Don't matter to me
what you want me to be
as long as you be
mine.

One October Night

Jack
had a wife
and a butterfly knife.

John met both.

For Words Count at Real Toads

Skeleton Key

I gave a quick twist
to the skeleton key,
but the skeleton wouldn't start.
So I got down
on bended knee
and spoke to its absent heart.

"The bed is burned,
and the birthing knife
lies buried in the ash.
Undertakers on overtime
trade puny plots
for cash.
Worms wiggle wet
within my gut;
I'm eaten half alive.
And, dry rot claims
great chunks of brain
like a rich man
claims a bride."

Then I rested my bones
by the bones at rest;
some solace to await.
The skull just smiled -
a dead man's joke -
the living learn,
but learn too late.

For Open Link Night at dVerse