Category: Uncategorized

Special Reconnaissance,
Warfare. 40-Feet
Towards the Tree-Line,
Bottle Rockets — On
Their Positions.
Secure the Spigot,
Ex-Patriate the
Remaining Troops.
Political Coup,
Buckets of Shampoo.
Assemble the Water
Witches. Witness
Total-Devastation,
Tapping Lines of
Communication,
Issue a Warning.
Thwarting Enemy
Expectations of Us
Conforming. Supplies
Frozen by Morning,
Victory is
Guaranteed.

Walls
Heavenly white,
Serene silence
Interrupted only by
Incessant beeping,
Rattling lungs
In a body,
Not as old
As should be,
Ears filled
With the beeping tune,
Tethered to life,
An annoying assurance,
Ropes unbind,
Blood runs cold
As the tune fades away,
Unmelodious melody,
Air escapes swiftly
As the last note plays.

My pen lies on peace sign sticks and drags
my Sicilian stump of a thumb no more.

In truth, it has touched no page in over a
decade, its ink a well done gone dry.

It has lived or did it die? among the crumbs
in the back of the granite-roofed, handled
junk drawer where homeless stuff gets
shoved.

Capped, it has sat among stacks of recipes
ripped from magazines in waiting rooms,
who-knows-why kept guides for gadgets I
no longer have, and clipped coupons gone
bad.

My whorls have long been paralyzed by
little shovels.

Slotted, spurtle, serrated, scalloped, and then
more still by their miniature silicone-
covered others.

The ones that fly loops into lips.

So, I apologize if consonants and vowels
swigged down for nearly a fifth of my forty-
something total years come out now not how
I would like.

The letters surprise me.

They wing to the sheet, fast.

Just as they crash at the end of the sing-song
story with a coconut tree on its chunky
cover.

Boom.

All twenty-six fall from behind my brows, a
place I am not sure what to call yet.

My furrow chugs crosses and dots.

It mimics the pulls I take from the short
blue-capped bottles lined in back of the 9
shoe box that rests empty in my closet.

Barren, aside from the pair of gray tree
sticks I never tossed out.

Flat-hatted, this friend sits in front of my
stash, on the bunny-riddled shelf above the
metal rack that palms my collars, pockets,
and sleeves.

I drop in alone, when life gets hard.

The cap I hold today does not twist; it rather
tugs from a fine-tipped shaft with an ad for
some man in a big windowless van’s
company drawn out across its barrel.

The nib drowns in its own blood, shiny
shroud down between nubby hangnails of
bread and lace swaddled in joy.

They were yesterday bound, goods ready for
exchange, but now they pad this tool’s feed.

When slid into its rightful place, it sets free.

A slimmer me smiles from a see-through
pane restrained on all sides by an exactly-
sized pewter frame.

She hangs above our hearth in need of a
scoop.

The rope which binds her there, from the
front, is blind looped and tacked to the
cinched brown paper backing.

She clutches Spring tied in thistle ribbon,
love in a cumber bun at her side.

My hands.

Hands well used.

Lover, they have caressed.

Mother, they have soothed.

They have been everybody’s hands the last
eight and ten years, but mine.

I am a girl of words with much to say.
Good to know you, again.

I scoot between the legs of my oval kitchen
table and palm the leaf, making it no longer
loose.

Maybe it is in this swish that the print finds
the page.

I look at the blue lines we all follow without
asking why we do.

Rules.

And then, the point hits the page.

Not just east of the thin red left stem which
reins in the three holes, but wow…
somewhere else.

Your hand is on my shoulder, passing through my weathered bones
I am standing in a quiet apartment and for the first time in my life
I am alone
Save for your ghost
For the first time since my seventh birthday
There is no baby in my arms,
No child at my side
It’s a hollow, sinking feel
A dead weight in the pit of my stomach
In the silence, a thousand voices ask
If I’m making a terrible mistake
But for the first time in my life,
I am alone
It is just me and your ghost
Your beautiful ghost has guided me this far
If this is a mistake,
I made it with you
And you and I see everything through
I shake my head, laugh a little
Listen to it echo off the walls
I wasn’t five feet tall when I told you I would chase my dreams
I would chase them into the setting sun and out of this town
Now, you sit five feet in the earth

And I am still running, running, running
Organs failing,
Still running
You held a degree, you made it to the edge of this town
So here I am,
Taking your ghost beyond the welcome sign
People won’t call your actions brave until you’re dead
In the meantime,
They call you a fool
And a coward
And a villain
I do not claim to be a hero
My lover squeezed my hand in that foggy night
He pressed his lips to my forehead,
Told me that I’m strong
In the distance, the smoke of grandmother’s cigarettes filled the air
How those sickly fumes ease her nerves,
I will never understand
But I have some grotesque vices myself
A tendency to inch away from mealtimes
Finding solace behind closed doors
A runner through and through
So who am I to judge?

My lover is content in this space
Do you want a hero?
That man is braver than any soldier
He is standing tall in my cursed town
He breathes in its toxic fumes,
Embraces my broken body,
Kisses my venomous lips
How courageous must you be
To love something that the world views as
A near corpse?
Leaving does not equate to bravery
It does not make you a hero to flee from the scene
But, maybe
Those babies that I bottle fed can understand my actions
Maybe they can see the dust rolling from beneath my tires
And understand that I am running to build a home for them
They will never know the way I ripped out my hair,
Terrified that by leaving
I had ensured that they would turn out just like me?
I never wanted to leave them in that house of screaming matches and
Tears
Yet, here I stand
Like a damned coward proclaiming to be a comic book hero

All because
I do not regret leaving
Put me back in this position
Run the timeline once more
I will pack up my bags again and again
Spit blood on the gravel and glare as the tears spill down my face
Just because this was my choice,
I am still allowed to grieve
I am still allowed to mourn
And leaving may not make me brave
But it doesn’t make me weak

Shopping is enlightening
Christmas gifts abundant
Put more emphasis on a toy than a can of tuna
My kid would rather have the toy
But he will complain his belly hurts later
Does one need to suffer no matter?
He is tired, and will be weak
Or bored and oblique
Felt left out of something
Food or drink, Play or make
He is lonely because nobody else to him is him
Kids do center the world around the self
But the self is made abundant under multiple observations similar
Hard of hearing he says he’s trying
Just had another, maybe it will cure my slumber
Slumber from the weather
Slumber from the pressure
Of being a good mom, or at least acceptable
But how if only one is possible
More sacrifice wouldn’t it be nice
If it didn’t hurt, just be able to blurt
What you feel, to get clarification it is real
I am enlightened, I bought the tuna.

I’m told this is where you lay
I’m not so sure
You were here just a few years ago
As the soaring birds in triangular flight
You were here just a few months ago
As the sparkles on the fresh snowfall
You were here just a few weeks ago
As the cloud that followed me all day
You were here just a few days ago
As the breeze that closed my eyes
You were here just a few hours ago
As the person with your same warm smile
You were here just a few minutes ago
As the smell of lavender raced out of the kitchen
You were here just a few seconds ago
As a memory

1. Pine needles sprinkled down like confetti.
2. -prom closed with reflective confetti.
3. Scattered rocks that shine [ motor oil.]
4. -black out/black liquid, everyone has different prom nights.
5. [deafening. ] Windshield vaporized.
6. -Can glass be confetti?
7. Antlers disappear into the door [ velvet versus sheet metal.]
8. -Bambi?
9. [yelling. ] Dad calls
10. -what the hell happened?
11. [stuck. ] Satin dress braided around the accelerator.
12. -what day of the week is it?
13. Blue and red stars blinking.
14. -have you been drinking?
15. no
16. [crimson. ] Shaded stains around uneven pupils.
17. -is it okay?
18. Fawn fur draped against bent angles [ metal versus nature.]
19. [static .] young adult female
20. [broken .] single vehicle accident
21. -is the deer okay? [silence .]

DROWNING

In the depth of my shattered soul I am lost, alone and cold The voices whispering in my head, saying things I cannot hold

They tell me I am unworthy, unwanted, and used They whisper of endings, of life no longer pursued

I try to silence them, but they only grow louder with each passing day I feel myself falling deeper into the dark abyss of my brain, my pain, my shame I am drowning in the sea of despair, and there’s no lifeboat in sight

I reach out for help, for someone to hold me tight But nobody’s there, no helping hand in sight Just whispers in the dark, saying it’s all in my mind They tell me to keep quiet, to put on a smile

I wear a mask of happiness, to hide the hurt within I laugh and joke, to pretend that I am fine But deep inside I am shattered, broken beyond belief The weight of the world on my shoulders, I can scarcely breathe

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

And so, in the face of this endless night,

I give up the fight.

The voices win, the depression takes flight,

And I surrender to the endless night.

“Goodbye to all, hope you had your fun,

Watching me squirm, cry and break undone.

The world can keep on turning, without me in sight,

As I drown in this void, this endless night.”

In a crater surrounded by death a young man
pulls the pin on his grenade
and presses it to his ear –

elsewhere, some older men throw their weight around.

Down a street in Tripoli runs the blood
of a bright eyed teenager
shot by one of Libya’s brave liberators –

elsewhere, a prime minister makes a speech.

At the Yemen-Saudi border
some crimes are suppressed
and the corpses continue to pile high –

elsewhere, a prince makes a new acquisition.

Everywhere and elsewhere –
everywhere there are cries
and elsewhere voices cry out.

In Beirut some stray shrapnel
leaves a child who is deeply cherished
permanently disfigured –

elsewhere, journalists talk of precision strikes.

In a neighbourhood in South Lebanon
(in what was a neighbourhood in South Lebanon)
a young woman holds her young son
(a young woman holds what was her young son)
to her broken heart, and screams –

elsewhere, a mass murderer makes a phone call.

In a bar in the city centre
a man with a miserable income tells a co-worker
that the UN is a shining beacon –

in New York, a mass murderer makes a speech.

Here, some fuckers try to convince us
that their enemies are our enemies –

elsewhere, those fuckers kill people like us.

Joseph Stalin,
The Man of Steel,
Living in the moment,
Texting during the ballet.

Tchaikovsky glances over to see
The Red Russian, drinking a Moscow Mule.
Devising plans in such a novel fashion.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky weep from the tragedy,
Perverted enough that even Nabokov squirms.
Everyone closes their eyes, trying to enjoy the song.

It has been years since the Cold War.
Americans standing at the edge of the world.
The devil with orange hair in a red tie,
Tweeting a manifesto that mesmerizes many.

During this nuclear winter,
I stand with you under the moon.
Hungry and cold next to a fire,
Missing the revolution