Poem-A-Day #7 : Tangle

Tangle

Everything smells like vanilla in the morning

          waters came then waters went and they took things with them

The purple eclipse slid through the stop sign

          driverless there were flashes of light from within like selfies being taken

Sargasso, the weed of deceit

          steam in pipes is leftover atom maneuvers

Poem-A-Day #6 : Nephology

Nephology

The lights in the dentist's office are covered in a sort of contact paper that has clouds on it

Each light has identical clouds - the lights cast a soft blueish glow - it turns an otherwise bright space into a dream-like experience

The clouds are pretty normal one is sort of spire-ish another resembles a lizard head - maybe a castle

It's hard not to think about floating into that space - climbing the castle steps - running the maze of hallways stomping each villain crossed until -

Would there be something at the end of the fight what would it look like to win that war - the one in a dentist's chair with clouds and castles - what does it feel like to finish

Poem-A-Day #5 : Winter Morning

Winter Morning

Hash of leaves      soft    under foot
      the pillows on the bed still smell like you

Pine is caramel      vanilla      tar
      [the sound of birds]      sunlight waxen      drips

Poem-A-Day #4 : Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

That moment in the murder mystery when the missing girl wanders in covered in blood or the cute dog scratches up a rib bone -

The veil is mist off the Avon smelling of sulphur from the Baths is green as the burning of boron and the room begins to look like a Lautrec painting -

The girl will be walking towards usher arms out pleading stumbling forward in the same clothes she went missing in she will have a knife she did not commit -

Parting curtains are stages of red are the sound of fissures opening after a long rain the emptying of sink holes -

Knives only hold on to blood for so long then they rust and become objects broken and un-mendable and the dog will ruin the evidence with its teeth -

Poem-A-Day #3 : bee sting

bee sting

          the red
      shoulder      the shoulder
where the red      hold
my hand I'm scared

          hold the red
      parts of my shoulder      in your hands
cup them      like tea sandwiches
overpriced and crustless

          my hand      slipping
      beneath my shirt
grabbing      at the knot of flesh
the animals keening endlessly

          where the bees
      in winter      go to red shoulder
drive off the edge of it
continue into a field of where

Poem-A-Day #2 : Limelight

Limelight

There's that moment where Charlie Chaplin is dressed as Hitler and he's about to speak at the podium and no one is sure what he's going to say and he doesn't even know if he can speak...

And the obviousness of it - Chaplin the great silent actor about to speak unable to speak fearing what may come out of his mouth...

The other day the students said they disagreed and I stared into the tiny high windows of the classroom and deep within my throat there was a catch a valve or some chord that was in neutral and the sound of the whirring fans in the heating ducts was the sound in my brain and I wanted to flip the table for no other reason than I could...

Each time the words begin there is that moment - who is this person daring to person on this space and who are you to sit there and read this...

It's the saddest metaphor ever phored - a crowd waiting for sound - sonic catching in throats - fists suspended above their heads waiting for a demagogue - the performer insecure as the sky - dressing up to deflect its emptiness...

Poem-A-Day #1 : Quis?

So. I'm doing this again.


Quis?

This box
sealed shiplap painted with tobacco
hinged and watertight

It houses a dead star

Collects the crumbs from a planet
chewed up by dueling black holes
on its surfaces

Bought in the back room of a store run by a blind man
taken into the house of a woman with a third leg

It trembles thinly

A metal sheet punched from an old can
scribbled on with a stick and tossed
into the mouth of a sulphur spring

It is your tongue
ripped from your skull and folded
into an airplane