life is a salad, dearest boy
lettuce, love in true quintessence
toss fruited angst with salted joy
life is a salad dearest boy
creative content to employ
to vary upon a season
life is a salad, dearest boy
lettuce love in true quintessence
Sanhaim do leaves mourn their neighbors as passions flame out? pine o’er skeletal plummet scarlet breathes last to rust crumbled to prickly dust or do they celebrate leafy passings? dance a fluttering jig as they scuttle limb flutter earthward fancy meet crunching destiny I hear matrilineal whispers rising amongst wooded footfalls each rustle communes ‘twixt my soul and revenants’ do autumnal spirits howl as harvest shrivels to husks? bay as mooning coyotes writhe anguished in fields barren, stripped of yield or mark they these endings in ecstatic ululations? cavort, wild and free circle ends with begins lament not the cyclic spin my foremothers caress hollows of my provenance brisk autumn breezing ‘tween now and yesteryears
what say you? vines of my past
did you suckle the honey
from my kin
as they buzzed past you
oblivious
to how you rooted your scent
deep in my veins, the summer yellow
of childhood abandon
I was dropped from a black hole
part hurt fledgling – wild thing
bird of swift wing
part hothouse flower – wilting
salt crystalized in Death Valley
I am square peg in round hole
oft too dense of emotion
I vision my foremothers
stern and stout skirted
breaking ground and convention
setting down roots
of farm and family
twining their dreams
with my memories, sepia’d
I fit not well in the world, betimes
my spitfire tenacity ruffles
too many feathers while
my soft underbelly
is ripped raw from the teeth
of daily indignities
could they vision me?
those stalwart matriarchs
perseverance personified
who faltered not
from motherland to new world.
I trace our bloodlines
in the scars on my psyche
in moments, I imagine myself
unwelcome
as an overly plump raindrop
plunking cold and abrupt
on a spring sunned bosom
joined apace in feigned ennui
perhaps we are all cicadas
screaming at seventeen years
invisibility
cramming all the living we can
into each moment amongst the leaves
we shed our shells
in search of beauty
gather independence
cling to the trunks of our past
securing center
and soar
with our kin
there is a snort wrapped in your chortle
devaluing scoff of disbelief
prickling through trappings of merriment
find humor at my blush-ed expense
you heave invalidating skepticism
splashes of frigid indigo
ice my vulnerable disclosure
impromptu orchid proffering
you have colored me strident scarlet
as I retreat not from weighty debate
and stand toe to toe with any challenge
in my hollow of hallowed ground
I carry off vermillion verisimilitude
in tones more assured than dulcet
take the measure of men of stature
shrink violet from no deliberation
my soul is lilting lavender
clad as a rubied warrior
wilts exhausted in social commerce
blooms fragrant is solitude’s sun
you vision me caricatured cerise
pushing envelopes and limits
while I crave the blessed relief
of a meadowed azure retreat
I sowed the seeds of my own destruction
coated in the guise of a mother tongue
while the drizzle of doom
soft and silent
drips
drops
/my sibilant sis/
I ate from the cap of the amanita
scarlet brooding senorita
swooned to the tune
of a glass-looked fall
spat the spores
/blood admonition/
I dabbled in a dab of diablerie
swaddled as I was with faux coterie
dawdled long among tip-toed tulips
placed dibs on the crux of wizardry
I raise my glass
chipped, half-empty
toast with the devil
/wed moonlight/
I crunch
on the swath
of crisp cool air
that cuts
chilled and invigorating
through the swamp of my despair.
dust of leaves
coat my tongue
as I masticate
crow pie
long past
it’s sell-by date
I spit
breathe
the oak floating
reminders
humid cling of miasma
is not the haven
it self-proclaims
you were pushed from behind
I heard in the breathless notch
in your measured words
that catch
in your voice
the tremulous quaver
in your understated stand
I have felt those hands
(haven’t we all)
one knife-wielding
– in word or deed –
while the other lays claim
with eyes or clammy paws
to my plush backside
you are the embodiment
of cultured terror apparent
the carbon dated anguish
etched on your skin
your pain quivers
on articulated tips
of your educated tongue
I jump sky high
elbow cocked in self- defense
it fades yet never ebbs
that stretched rubber band
that inhabits cells
twangs unbidden
and we sproing!
he tantrums
spews vile rhetoric
wields his power
his privilege
in ways she would burn
at stake
were she dare give voice
were she to cry crododile
her ovaries would fry
ahhh those tantrums
we choke down
swallow hot with rancid bile
those that would label
rabid bitch
raving psycho
because well behaved women
may bare our ankles
here in 2018
shoulders even (Oh my!)
but we step NOT
upon the tender toes
of fragile male privilege
under pain of recompense
you gather your henchmen
close and closer
they
whose quals consist
\in whole and part\
of oft-shriveled
deified appendages
and an omnipresent
aptitude for grating
self-aggrandizement.
you flaunt
your petulant pedigree
while maggots squirm
on the flyleaf
pearling slime
on the stained
glass aperture
to your fears
I neither sway
nor hold self-same
relegated
as I am
thankless workhorse
\inflamed appendix\
held in abeyance
bend my back
with toil and trouble
work nimble fingers
to aching bones.
I break not
dear sir
limbo me not
to the lowest
of your lows
does anyone know how
to wait anymore?
in this world of constant contact
buzzing chiming hyper
stimulation
what happens if you sit
in silence?
alone with the thud of your blood
\thundering in your veins\
and the whisper
of your inner descant
erupts
a cacophonous harangue?
nay, you say
I run not from the fear
my flaming inner ear
as I suckle at the singing
\pinging ringing\
electronic sugar teat.
this generation who believes
navel gazing
is a search for pierc-ed bling
an alt-indie band
or a porn-spawned
sexual fetish
they might just give a try,
flee
\buzz on the back of a flea\
at the barest nod
to hush-ed introspection
heed not those
tongues of babel loosed.
what inner demons?
I built them myself
these walls
that circumscribe me
\hem my hagridden heart\
‘round me
safe and alone
bricked with mortal mortar
\angst echo chamber\
impervious to pounding pestle.
fingertips mangle
in the raucous
clawing
to breach
a bloody gap.
I just wish I hadn’t
scrawled such grotesque
graffiti
Arisen from the Conflagraton 