Month: January 2017

Can you see it?
A ghost of hope
in a world
where a fake smile
is traded for
ash
This smile is from
a heart
A smile made from
flushed cheeks and
riches that can only be found
in the soul
A smile that smells of
cream and orchids
Made by
a curve of lips
with just a dash of crinkling
from your eyes
A smile so
genuine
it speaks like a
song
Its a smile of birds
and mugs being clinked
A smile for an old brick house
A smile that doesn’t need to be from someone you know
because
a smile
is the freest thing
but can buy
an endless amount of
happiness and love.

 

1. Cut open your chest with a dull ceremonial blade

curved perfectly to fit ghostly hands in a futile grasp at revenge.

 

Molten metal pours out;

beads of mercury en masse,

silently poisoning the hand they happily roll down.

Magma, shimmering water that scalds the dirt to ash

before it buries its shinning head: a statue.

 

Watch it seep down into the ground

through a labyrinth;

tiny civilization, tiny Daedelus

plotting his escape on jeweled wings

as heroism breaks through the defensive lines

to cast the secrets of an empire in finite gold.

 

An anthill cast in gold.

 

2. Dig it up,

a shimmering metal creature,

a coral sprigs, tendrils of metal

where intestines once were.

Iron- filled veins trap the last whisper of blood

that could not quite escape the heat in time.

 

Pull apart the opening in your chest

and let it crawl inside.

Watch it nestle, settle, let out a great sign.

Watch its spidery fingers url around your ribs.

Watch it smile as they crack.

Easily mended, after all, with metal joints

that hold better than brittle bone ever could.

 

3. Sew shut incision with embroidery floss;

reclaim the woman’s craft. Congratulations-

the piece is mounted,

the installment is ready for opening night.

I buried myself in the backyard of your big yellow house
right under the swing set where, before I moved in,
you used to sit in the shade and sing to the trees,
sweet siren crooning to the wind
and taking solace in the echo.

We called the space between our houses a forest
even though it was barely a patch of trees;
the scattered foliage that separated your sphere from mine.
I emerge from the path into green splendor,
wind my way up to your backdoor,
knock on the glass but let myself in
before anyone has a chance to notice.

I used to be able to see the light of your bedroom window from mine.

In the stillness of the hot Texas nights,
dry air washing the hills in a lifeless dance,
I swear I still see a flicker-
and a flash of green live oak-
and I know your light is on
although I cannot see.

I hear your voice float to me,
lilting and dancing across the highways that lay between us-
only now, with a steady beat,
my heart keeps time.

 

Here is what you were never meant to know.
Here is the salt of Orion’s bloodlust,
here is the rubble of the tower,
here is the endless dance of the wheel:

There is a way to rearrange the stars,
reform constellations,
become masters of our own astrology,
write our fates in cosmic dust.

The gods are brittle.
You, too can move earth and sky,
shape water and spit sea foam
into the shape of the life you most desire.

Become a statue,
content to lounge among the stars forever.

Here is the secret,
pressed close to her breast,
that the psychic will never tell.
Here is the witch’s vice,
here is the magician’s heel.

Rewrite fate in an artificial masterpiece,
an expertly arranged terrarium,
succulents and blossoms encased in glass,
tea leaves to be read with a halfhearted smile.

Foresight renders a crystal ball an ornament;
omniscence makes stars sequins on black cloth.

Scatter our seed to the wind;
maybe we become the breeze
and we end up rooted together in the tall grass.

 

Radio waves nestle against my chest
as the dry hills whir up and down,
a seismic machine weathered with asphalt wrinkles.

The sky is bigger here;
a tapestry of blues and whites.
struggle to drink them in,
fearful that you will look upon the vast heavens
and find them hollow.

Where there is green, it is beige.
Where there is life, it is dry.
Where there is flora, it is a withered yellow rose,
and where there is sky,
it is hollow.

You want a tattoo?
Here’s your tattoo, Danny,
all inked in scar tissue
with a cattle brand needle
in the soft nape of your neck.

 

I poured gallons into you–
sickly-sweet honey, endless sticky flow–
Surely it made you sweeter,
a lighter taste on my tongue.

Yet I stayed floating in vinegar,
formaldehyde burns and the fetal curve of preservation
dyeing my skin in suspended decay.

I was a specimen you never cared to study too closely;
ornament, oddity, fascination,
sweet oddball, strange decor.
Glass jar on wooden shelf,
the perfect perch for perverse surveillance.

Paris looks upon Aphrodite and thinks her beautiful;
Eris looks upon the apple and finds it all too sweet.

There may be no island sanctuary within this amber sea;
you may carry me home on wax paper wings
and think me a fool for searching.

You heart evades me, your smile evades me, your skin evades me,
but, in honey or vinegar or sweet autumn cider,
your bones are mine.

 

Scattered,
spilled across scorched blacktop,
jump rope playground-sweepers keep time:
an early-September metronome.
I watch from my lamppost roost,
eyes low,
hands sticky
with childhood wonder,
head drooping into a book
to conceal the flush of longing.

These are our brief intermissions in monotony:
locked and loaded melodramatics,
playground politics,
telenovela conversations and
impromptu psychiatry.

This we relish; here we live
our futures in miniature.
Here we rehearse
for walk-on roles in network dramas.
Tetherball cords tangle,
hair braided around the edge of the ring
as the fiercest of gladiators egg each other on.

We’ve shaded our
crayon drawings since then,
buried our playground receipts
in Crayola crypts.
We dislodge each shard of mulch
indented into scabbed knees-
curtain closed on dress rehearsal.
Baby tooth lockets crack open at hinges,
good luck incantations sealed
at enamel roots with tiny knuckle kisses.

 

She is a Pegasus.
She is fast.
She will be there in a flash.
This blue pony is named Rainbow Dash.

 

My sister ate my homework.
It’s actually kind of a funny feeling
It makes my toes tingle
To where my feet begin to dance
Because my sister ate my homework
How could that be?

The dog and I worked on it endless hours
He helped me with my multiplication
And especially with the division
Oh my, that’s a whole other story

He’s quite the tutor or should I say tooter?
Anyway, maybe that’s why she got so jealous
Because he’s so much help
And smells a lot better!

I left my homework on my desk
I swear
I looked everywhere
Even at the dog
Who was definitely innocent
I swear

I turned to look at my sister
And I saw it with my own eyes
She swallowed it whole
All my hard work gone
In one bite!

 

My dogs are bad they get into my toys
When my dogs are bad they like to eat my food
When my dogs are upset they make a lot of noise
But sometimes my dogs could just be very rude

When my dogs are happy they run around the shed
When my dogs are sad they usually cry
When my dogs are sleepy they like to sleep in my bed
When my dogs do something bad they act very shy

Even though my dogs rip up my toys
And sometimes annoy me
That does not mean they are not my everything