Vernal Fantasies

February

sheds its long grey cloak

moth eaten

in impatient expectation

of brighter days.

is that spring

I hear whispering

in the trilling chinook?

February Haiku

nursing hyetal

hernia, mother nature

bursts through all restraints

A Walk in Your Shoes -Unrealized

I am incredibly honored to have this piece featured on Spillwords today. Please be so kind as to vote for it here.

I slip my feet into your shoes

wrinkling my nose

while I distract myself

from the odor

of sweat and rough pebbled roads and

difference.

I remember the first time

a person of color told me

she had grown up

thinking white people

smell funny

like wet dogs

and cringe under barrage

of memory –

my defensive inner monologue

(thank the goddess it was my inner voice)

at how wet dogs smell

GROSS

I pride myself on being

clean

and my naivete clamoring

I don’t have a smell

though of course

we all smell of something

and perhaps I

reeked

of unacknowledged privilege.

 

I brace myself

embrace the experience

bury ringed and painted toes

in concrete shod heels

gird ankles as I lace up

tighten the knots

haves and have nots

reinforce resolve.

white-collared fingers

split and crack

while flipping the coarse hewn pages

in the atlas of your journey.

I mimic Nellie Bly

hell-bent on exposé

ferret out your footsteps

along the turbulent trail

I clamber to the summit

of perilous mounts

I could have sworn

(cursed prodigiously!)

were foothills which

barely broke my sweat.

there are serpents

camouflaged as flower stems

they struck at me

when I stopped to smell

ah, the roses!

as they invite us all to do.

 

winded,

eyes dust-caked

I stumble upon it

the X-marked spot

that place

that unites and divides us

no treasure here

you rubbed and rubbed

with spit and pencil stub.

it is blurred around the edges –

the twisted-tined fork

in your back road

that haunts you

as it ill-defines

you

contemptible or vile.

 

I have arrived

at the close

vaudevillian excursion

phenomenological circumnavigation

manifest and destiny

obscured

I tug your boots

from barking dogs

massage blistered

tenderfoot

contemplate chipped varnish

adorning well-mouthed toes.

Unseen

 

do you not see her?

the cowering fawn

peering cautious and doe eyed

behind flippant bang flips

biting back her fears

with her insolent lip.

 

she watches you

ancient soul

reading your exigencies

with survivor fluency

belied by halting

rhetorical cadence

 

do you not know her?

the ravenous infant

who suckles greedily

at the toxic teat

of counterfeit conceit

bloating on the surfeit

distended lies and

dismembered truth.

she masters you

the precocious conjurer

who spins chimerical yarns

as Van Gogh paints Poe

renders you heroine

victim of self-inflicted villainy

sutures your hara-kiri wounds

 

do you not hear her?

the rhythmic rocking

to her heartsick keening

the illegible lamentation

scrawled in bloodied

chicken scratch

writ literary boldface

in every listless shrug

and hangdog

‘I don’t care’

 

she echoes you

parroting perverse

perseverations

preening for the

mirror, mirror

who’s the mommy dearest

hanging malignant mercury

poisoning her future

Guest Barista Aurora Phoenix-Ebb

Trees’ barely perceptible de-greening Ebb of verdant vibrancy Lushness incrementally drains Life leeches slowly from limbs Silent yellowing testimony Dry with season’s perpetual march Toward exhibitionist flame-out Grandiose flamboyant finale Ritualistic disrobing For season’s hibernation Year’s end suspended animation

Sister Salty

I am salt of the earth

caked in tracks of the tears

wept by oceans

upon weary shores.

I am granualized granite

lodged as fungal spores

between the toes

and among the souls

of all who trespass

here. doting dowagers

crinkle their noses wrinkled

when I stick

beyond the brushing off.

I am powdered moondust

residue of a resurrection

silvering towheaded

locks of touted toddlers.

crushed, vaporized

or trod upon

I glitter on

MALEVOLENT MELODY- Blood Into Ink Curator Collaboration

(Aurora Phoenix)

Your Urgency Pierced My Marrow

 

with vanilla milquetoast

pleadings

you spun a web

the envy of Arachne

smeared in syrupy cajolery –

I supped on hand-dipped flattery

 

your urgency pierced my marrow with flim flam

 

(Kindra)

Dilly Dalliance Bound Me

 

Lavender dipped

indulgent tongue

dripped incantations,

salacious songs—

your abuse was tender

 

dilly dalliance bound me with feathers

 

(Sarah)

The Honey You Gave

Those words were sweet as honey and I drank them down like they were all for me. I fell for each one. But slowly, beneath my rose-covered eyes, they soured.
And, piece by piece, you took all you wanted from me. 

 

(My Valiant Soul)

Your Hands Are Stiff Wire

 

Cinnamon sticks plummeting

screeching lullaby with love and hunger,

A spasm spews on the back of an ant

The circle of disgust and disgust

My legs are broken, my arms are missing

yellow stingy archaic cry

Ruffling touch,

You disappear like a swollen pollen grain

As I chop my hair, chop the hideous you.

 

 

(1WiseWoman)

Lies and Propaganda

 

Anything goes, according to your arrogant agenda

Gaslight fueled, devotion fooled

Poisonous thirst for possession

And domination obsession

Believing exemption from

Sugar coated sin

As long as you win

 

Sticks and stones broke my bones, your lies and propaganda broke my spirit

 

 

(Christine)

No Longer Your Canvas

 

I throw out the bouquet of violets, salvia, red roses

you lay in empty contrition on our sheets of white linen

where I nurse the most recent bruises you have drawn with your fists

once you are gone, I adorn myself in essential oils

bittersweet for truth

thyme for strength

rosemary for remembrance

though my left eye may be swollen shut

I have never seen more clearly

than I do as I walk out the door, hidden suitcases in hand

 

I will no longer be the canvas for your unholy rage

Hermit’s Opus

 

I scuttled under the shelter

of your callused palm

• unrefined refuge

from a world coarser still.

I huddle within

the shell of your touch.

whorls of embrace

ward off predatory

claws while calamitous

downpours

run off my back.

no fenestrated gazebo

is more elegant shelter

than barnacle encrusted

briny whole hull

of you.

 

(art by Catalin Precup)

Americana, 2018

the starvation of a nation

growls

palpable and pulsating

in direct proportion

• inverted, perversion –

to gelatinous girths

and hours marinating

in the blue-ing mind-suck

glow

of that tube.

the one that tells you

(while it sells you)

of your fortune to be found

in the loss of every pound

that was packed on

in the purchase

hook, line and sinker

of the pre-packaged packaging.

sport this brand

name of fallacious

phantasmagoric fantasy

and watch your worth soar

while doubts dissipate

dissolved in hydrochloric

as you consume.

consume

Narnian nirvana

flash fried with your drive thru

once upon a dinner.

consume

reality pureed and spoon fed

in an internet WiFi IV

drip, drip, drip.

consume

encapsulated hypocrisy

gastronomic gall

panacea, poison or placebo

pop another pill.

 

the depravity of deprivation

endemic epistemic

epidemic

slurps Kant

with cream and sugar

throws back Locke in a jello shot

2 for a dollar

on the value menu

Guest Barista Aurora Phoenix-Sunset Sundae

My latest guest feature at the Go Dog Go cafe. Don’t forget to check out all of their confections 🙂

Go Dog Go Café

Strawberry apricot marmalade

Smeared butter knife slathers

Thickly coating tree trunks

Watered down dredges blend

Sugar milky clouds

Deliciously soaking the sky

Inviting hungry eyes

Lick the day good night.

---

Aurora Phoenix is a wordsmithing oxymoron. Staid suburbanite cloaks a badass warrior wielding weapon grade phrases. Read more of her confabulations at Insights from “Inside.”

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