No one wants to get Scurvy

Seated at a cluttered dining room table, wine & whisky poured, sunlight streaming through the window on bi-color funerary roses in a chipped vase. Her back arched like a cat so her cheek could get kissed by the winter sun (its warmth is rare, and best to catch when you have the time…no one wants scurvy and limes are expensive at this time of year). He watched her and wondered if she would still tie her hair back in pig-tales when her hair has gone gray and if her hips were always as pronounced or if having children just highlighted her already existing curves (in the right way, the kind of highlights that make most housewives blush and long for a surgeon or join a gym…she just took up belly dancing in the living room or foggy mornings in the Spring). They talked about the past in the present, letting those days transfer with each breath. There was always something that led to the discourse of reality being good or being alive.

This time it started with a list in a chain email asking about “scandalous” activity…now what’s scandalous to some might be common practice to others. “Have you ever had sex in a church?”…she looked crooked at the computer screen and thought for a second or two, “nope, but I have been touched by the son of a preacher man while sleeping with a girl on the side”. (the next question was ‘have you ever had sex someone of the same sex’ followed by ‘have you ever cheated on anyone’?. She had the holy trinity). He never flinched, a coy grin appeared and his head cocked sideways and then came the chuckle. “I started in the middle and haven’t missed one!” They pressed lips and sipped their beverage, running those memories with the same flicker in their eye as old movie reels, getting more and more grainy but finding pockets of light in the remembered dialogue.

“Modern poetry is as lost as cats on a windowsill” he mumbled just above the glass. “Wait….what’d you answer about having sex for money?” They both stared blankly for a breath. She spoke first, “no I haven’t…or have I, you must remember. Have I? I suppose we all have in one way or another” (verbal run-off is a side effect of sulfites and sunlight). That’s the problem being a member of the touch generation, bodies are no longer off limits when your upbringing centers on freedom being equal to pleasure. Its hard to move past core principles even after a proper education (its hard to be good but so good to be hard). Together they counted change and came correct. They decree that laughter is nothing more than a public orgasm, it shows the willing what they are in for.

He sits back as she continues her work, like a monkey he picks pills from her sweater and piles them on the table. Its encouraging to have someone else care for your appearance when showers are rewards for hard work. The past is hard and can’t be washed off, like a stain on a favorite shirt that can be explained away as an abstract design, even if it clashes with the rest of the plaid.

They agree they have completed the list but can’t decide on the words…guilty…sinner…experimentalist…existentialist….nihilist…human…alive.

C R A S H

The commercial on the radio reminds her of her current obligation…”Hey kids, do you want Kid Cuisine for dinner?” A chorus of ‘yesssssss’ follows her as she walks barefoot into the kitchen with the saunter of her youth and the experience of her age. He sits and watches, caressing the pile of sweater bits, placing them in his pocket next to the pressed forget me not.

the decision tree

a reflection in a passing current,
today's hobo, yesterdays ashes, tomorrows time.
the path was a trap, it was the illuminated face that dictated the choice.
the choice was a vixen and the reward was light.

the bridge was the path less traveled by,
one, two, three steps.
hanging, splashing in troubled waters.

how clean a body must be to enter your house.

tea time

I.

table side alone
downward chord progressions
cup in hand, empty holding onto warmth.


II.

imagining
the glue, yourself to yourself.
the boat in the waves of uncertainty
the anchor abandoned at another port.

conversation

this is the conversation that finished the lessons poem. all i did was say "no" to atticus


"why don't you just take a breath, and maybe a sip and just give me what i want?"

"what DO you want?"

"those pumpkin knives. i promise, i won't get dead."

"Atticus, where did you come from?"

pause

"i came from the garden."

odd lessons for children ages four & two

Are YOU really my teacher



i am always one of your teachers,

i am your mother.



We have nothing to hold, nothing to make the music!



our instruments cannot be held, without a bottle to catch the echos.
we'll escape, if only through a crack above the blades of laughter...



from the grass shoots souls and shoes; in a sudden void we format
the traces of red under the nightingales song.
giving too, my everything.



think safe, be safe;
grace is the choas and torture of what's left behind.
think box, act out;
the moment rides on a lark, and the impulse bites.



the sun softens yeilding to the moon,
bearing the weight of the world, resting uopn a ring and a whim
with the promise, the light will come again.

basking

we kill the mundane with every beat and resurrect it in every breath, only to have it die again.

children speak their truth, under the glaring sun spotlight.
young lizards at high noon on quiet Mondays playing peek-a-boo with reality.
the beads of sweat necklace disguises itself as glitter.
casting prisms on hands, testing toes for a pulse post overdose of vitamin D and pheromones
allowed to waft freely in the temperamental breeze.

bats sleep and butterflies dance between the teeth of the dragon;
SNAPS with ill intentions, diverted into lavish distractions and perversions.
bending innocence under the weight of observation. the tears of possibility collect
in the pink poppy bowl. the garden corrupted and baptized by lightening;
the tongue of fire tastes of temptation.

we melt the penetrating fingers of a frigid nobody while feeding from pomegranate nipples!
laid out wet on drying chairs. "Nobody knows my Name, Nobody is my Name"
screams echo off the rustling trees. bathing in the central strain of anticipation;
tasting the dirt of her soul, sucking teeth in satisfaction.

undulating in a vat, dyed the color of hubris. dripping wet piled limb high
only to dunk and pile until satisfied, the spinning sisters unravel their weaving.
feeble fingers entangled in the knotted tapestry, deconstructing free-will. failing
to fight the disillusion of fate.

i've smeared the future into the face of the past and tasted the seeds;
embellished in the crust, present of the serene.

at rainbows end

ABYSS

i keep my weight under lock and key,
safe guarding each precious ounce. within every pound
a trapped poem resides.

the logos, in a holding pattern.
like the garden, saturated by twenty days of rain.
demanding the suns warmth to liberate the petals; the chrysalis of buds.

two red lilies in an ocean of orange
unseen ready to take flight.
a pea lost in a sea of tendrils
holding on as the siren speaks for truth.

we are at the half way marker without an ark.

LUMINIOUS

box is damaged, but i don't care

sing with me skipping stones among the flood.

having to choose between watching bats and fireflies is a fine quandary;
as is finding oneself stuck in the same spot following the moon
across the darkness. still as sleep,with open eyes watching
the tremble of flora shooting up. forever up.

everything is new again;
the keeper is on holiday.

TIME
is told by the rivers reflection upon the trees.
trapped by walls the jumping mimics the big-bang
and Atlas holds holds my burden. Love.

sleeps later than most days, hiding soft lips and acrid kisses.
the wind decides our placement in the pile of embraces, leaves, and memory.
under the weight of children, pressed like the last seasons flower
believing in life, as giggles become rain.

LOVE
tames the night in the garden. revealing its beauty only when the fireflies sting
the greenery like holiday lights. the moon hangs in a gallery of stars
framed by branches as the chorus of bats falsettos rise swoop like lovers
knotted in sheets.

the mortar of mud trying to swallow toes,
turning lustful maids into flowers.
first with petals erect, showing their wares to the sun.
dropping petticoats, yet always baring chests to showers
at sunset and rainbows.

she tendrils up a mulberry tree on the road to redemption.
her leaves eat only the fruit of life's pie. breathing rain
like fire, due west.
ready to come again into the layers and secrets.

back to the garden to find fate and destiny holding hands,
shielded behind a peacock fan in a bed of asphodel.