6 resident ghosts so met my watch
at hours wont,

Alcohol

The devil jumps in me
every time I take a drink
The warm/slick glaze fills me
my heart begins to think.

She knew she was brilliant from the day she could know.
She knew she was different when she hated her bow.

Suicide sits and stares in my face
And gloats and acts as he owns the whole place
Bottomless holes that used to hold eyes
Are rimmed with hope that's wrinkled with lies
He rocks in his chair and leans closer to mine
And breathes through chapped lips
"My sleep is divine."

My love is like a kneeling tree
That bends at bark and not at knee
It sends a lark for all to see
That flies and acts as if its free
Yet always, it returns to me.

April 27, Tweet Length- A Light Switch

Light Switch
You are so difficult to turn off
for an insomniac
like me.

Embarrassing the Roommate
As you turn on
We turn off.

Sight
Who would think that the merest flip
could give you to me?

Light Switch
You tease me with sparks and flashes of light
when you short circuit.

April 26, Character Sketch- Silhouettes

"It was difficult to tell if it was a he or a she--that is usually your first question, is it not?-- But I would go with male because of the nose. It was strong, firm and prominent. Just as a nose should be. For a person of consequence that is. And I don't mean money or power but consequence of, what could you say-- being. It's true it was just a glimpse from behind one of those silk Chinese screens but that was all I needed. Observationary, that's me. One of the best. I can pick a ripe cantaloupe from sight alone, just like I can spot someone who matters from a shadow of a profile. Never need to even feel them for soft spots, I don't."
"Please, 'mam, although it is indeed a rare talent in the so incomprehensible sphere of deceitful and disguised rotten fruits, could you please return to the subject at hand?"
"No need to get testy young man. I was pickin' those "incomprehensible" cantaloupes before you were born!  Anyway, back to that stark profile from behind the screen. It must have been a man, but then again, some women do wear their hair short like this one's was, kinda cropped like a mushroom you know. I think they actually called it a mushroom cut once...And the frame was rather slight. Reminded me of one of the string beans that struck my eye so strategically earlier this week. There it was, slight and long, full of slightly bulging beans and greener than a hill in Ireland in spring it was! And boy did it want to be picked."
"Ehem, is it going to be vegetables now, then?"
"Well if you want an accurate description then yes, indeed it is! These things take time and when you're lucky, an experienced eye to get to the truth! You know, now that the string bean came to mind, I would say that wiry is the best word to describe the build. Wiry and oily. Oily like that top layer that congeals on the top of peanut butter, he was. And no need to comment on the change to sandwich spreads! If you want to know, then you're gonna have to listen. And in order to get the best description you'll have to take it as I like to tell it."
"Yes 'mam. So we've discerned that the silhouette that you saw from behind a Chinese screen was somehow like a wiry, oily, string bean, cantaloupe with a mushroom on its head? No?"
"No, you idiot! I can spot em like a ripe cantaloupe! Don't you dare put in your write up or whatever it is that he was anything like a cantaloupe. Because he, or she for that matter, wasn't."

April 25, Petrarchan Sonnet- Jules Verne

April 24, Sapphic Ode- Wild Card

April 23, Rondeau- Decapitation

April 22, Any Above Form- Traffic Lights

April 21, Limerick- A Woman's Purse

There once was a girl with a curse
Who carried her life/soul in her purse
When it started to fray
She watched in dismay
As her heart met the world with shy squirts.


You can figure a girl by her purse,
If empty, she's probably terse,
But a full pocket book
May signal a crook
Who will land a man dead in a hearse.


A woman can get rather terse
When a man tries to open her purse
He can't understand
It's her mind in his hand
And the secrets she'll take to her hearse.

April 20, Sestina- Crows Nest Watches

April 19, Blank Verse- High-waisted old man bellies!

April 18 (MY BIRTHDAY!) Free Verse- Wild Card- Robin's Eggs or marathons

April 17, Beat Poem- Yellow Roses

April 16, Prose- Wine Stains at the Bottom of a Glass

April 15, Acrostic- Christmas trees on the side of the road

On Christmas Eve you'll never find
Hearts as full or mind as kind
Cause Christmas season is full of cheer
Hardly carried throughout the year, we
Raise a tree as we lift our standards
In how we share what now seem grandeurs
Smiles here and a held door there
Tell a sour soul you care, and
Melt the rest of frozen year attitudes
Ardently and without any platitudes
So often ignored in lessons and classrooms
Taught by deed as Christmas trees loom
Rectifying hope with shining stars
Each wrapped carefully or sealed in jars
Every time the tree is thrown, with the
Spirit of Christmas onto the lawn.

Another take on it:

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!
Cut down with axe
Hung from the car
Ropes never lax,
It's not too far,
So Christmas tree, so Christmas
Tree, how strangled are your branches?
More burning lights,
And tacky balls,
Secure hooks that bite, and
Twist so nothing falls,
Ruined Christmas tree, ruined Christmas tree
End on the curb with
Empty branches.






Had to stop, just not gettin anything yet, have the idea though just have to get the pace

April 14, Sestina- Halloween Candy

Words I will use for the last words of each sentence

pillow/ghoul, ghost/trick
candy
sweet ("sweet!" sweet taste, sweet to share it)
share (share the candy, had your share of it)
mine ("Mine!" like a miner searching for treasure, it's all mine
evening (nighttime, evening out the candy)

April 13, Prose- Creaking elevators

April 12, Sapphic Ode- A Lantern at Sea

The gale has raised for just a night
We thought the winds would never cease
Our only light, one star shines bright
On tempered peace

With morning tide mayhap we'll find
The silken calm was but a dream
Yet while I lull in hammock's bind
My grin will gleam

Out at the night through portal's view
The sleeping waves so take their rest
Their kiss like tulips' morning dew-
The hull's behest

Yet hark! A light I think I see
Which shocks me from my revelry
And makes me wonder could it be
pure devilry?

Or am I right to think a lamp
Has past across my cabin's glass?
Why would they stray from where they camp?
Unless for brass!

One dare not break the Captain's rules
By leaving post to walk the halls
Unless to seek some/hide some secret jewels
The thought enthralls....will finish later! Have the rest planned just at a standstill right now

April 11, Blank Verse- Naughty Children

April 10, Free Verse- Talking to you yourself

You know they caught you the other day
I know, I know
But it wasn't as if it was the first time
Too true, too true
I've really gotta find
a way to close my mind
At least when others are around.

Well, they were only crows after all...
Ahh but crows are still judging I gather
from their bright eyes
And sordid beaks!
They'd laugh if they didn't cackle,
They'd raise their rounded heads and throw em back
and laugh
If they could.

But why would their mocking matter?
I guess you're right.
But if you remember,
When I was scolding myself for their very presence
(Aloud)
That's when the trouble really started

That's when someone who could understand understood.
But is that really trouble?
A little judgement here and there never really hurt anyone
Ha! Listen to yourself.
Well, either way, they all do it anyway.

Or at least they should?
Shouldn't they?

April 9, Craigslist Missed Connection- Sandy Beach Restroom

So, I know it's not the most romantic of places to notice someone, but I still noticed you.

How on earth could I not? You must know exactly what you're doing with that beige bikini with the matching "wrap" that was so completely not doing it's duty.  But it was only a glimpse, and then you were gone. Into the sandy restroom. As I walked into the opposite, I knew we were walking away from each other, but into similar situations. Past the oldies and the fatties, away from mirrors and behind a wall, you must have put your towel down, as I did, taken your sunglasses (so prettily and too perfectly holding away your curls) from your head and sat on one of the same splintery benches, with me. Yet did you think that? I know your eyes met mine, and I saw the corner of your mouth slightly lift (a smirker!), but was it the same you give to all adoring eyes? Or was it just for mine? I shouldn't have to mention this if you did notice me, but my suit was yellow. Bright. And my hair is black. Dull. And I appreciated you with every rod and cone of my being.

Anyway, back to my revelry of you and putting our towels down.  I bet as you stepped out of your beige that you tried to avoid the floor and balance within the contours of your sandals. That sandy, rough floor. As I did. And as it dropped you contributed. We both contributed at the same moment. In opposite beach restrooms we added to the sand on the floor.
As we took our bathing suits off.

April 8, Song- Wild Card (Either resident ghosts or giant squid or light switch)

April 7, Beat Poem- Lighthouse Keeper

April 6, Tweet Length- Taxidermy

Always Adelaide
With frozen hair,
and a glass stare,
she watches from the mantel.


Also, amazing website:
http://www.taxidermy.net/

And, Taxidermy literally means the movement of skin.

April 5, Dialogue- The Invention of the Noose

"You know a noose doesn't necessarily have to hang someone."
"Well of course not, sometimes they're innocent."
"No silly, I mean the actual purpose of a noose is not just for tightening around people's necks. In fact, a noose is simply the the loop at the end of a rope (or other long, thin, binding material that can fulfill the same, ehem, role) that is collapsible and serves to make the loop adjustable. Thus, the merest tug, pull or push on a correctly made noose makes it tighter and tighter and the loop smaller and smaller."
"Oh," (Looks down. Then, up, hopeful) "Well it certainly works for our purpose doesn't it?"
"Indeed."

April 4, Haiku- A Conductor//A Lynching

Too Much To Handle
The conductor sits
as the train has ceased its course
yet she is still dead.

The Train Game
The conductor starts
to pull the whistle, as loud
as his grinning face.

Conducting
He speeds past dead fields
of scorched crops, leaving only
billowed smoke behind.

Sex Conducting
"Tickets please," she asked
the men who would never take
her seriously.

Lynching Haikus

The body drops hard
when the box is removed from
the fast clinging feet.

They strung him up high
to make sure it was clear that
he was swinging dead.

Hanging Entertainment
Women and children
were seated in the forefront
for a better view.

The mob tore his clothes
to make the noose that would go
fast around his neck.

How many black men
have ignorant racist mobs
strung up in the trees?

They quickly covered
the fear in his eyes in order
to finish the "job."

A quick broken neck
was a blessing to all those
who dangled from trees.

April 3, Limerick- Frankenstein

(Collaborations with Steven)

1.

With bolts in his neck above stitches
The giant the color of witches
Was huge everywhere
Except where he cared
And that's why he never got bitches.
(The reason he never got bitches).
2.

Frankenstein walked kinda funny
His affect was never too sunny
It seemed that the man
Left out in his plan
A colon to empty his tummy!

Poetry quotes

Imaginary gardens with real toads in them. ~Marianne Moore

April 2, Hip Hopera- Dog Earred Pages

Dog Earrin' Again

You know pages often tell me
And less than often sell me
Yet every now an' again
There's somethin strikin in 'em
That needs to be remembered
dissected and dismembered
To help uncover meaning
hidden in the reading.

That's when I pull out tactics
to file all didactics
or imagery and synergy
or metaphorical "symbology"
that all serve the very purpose
to bring what's hidden to the surface
and illuminate that meaning
so deftly hidden in the reading.

These tactics that I mention
Do often have the penchant
To ruin a book's appearance
and create some incoherence
in the harmony of the pages
yet the most profound of sages
would adhere to my belief
that it brings the book no grief
In fact it shows that it is used
Not neglected or abused.

So bend those pages!
Mend those rages!
Pick up a book and end those cages!
There's more to life than movies
and alcohol and smoothies
There's Dickens, Austen and Proust
That no T.V. will ever oust
And the best way to arear
is to pick a page to dog ear!

April 1 Prose: Strawberry

Oh, Strawberry!
A juicy explosion, a triumphant squelching dispersion of taste that fills the mouth and lingers after swallowing

OR

Oh, Strawberry!
Just one blissful bite it breathes. And then what?  A juicy explosion, a triumphant squelching dispersion of taste that fills the mouth and lingers after swallowing.

OR

It's difficult to be literal when talking about a strawberry, and even more so when writing about one. The very idea of them seems so abstract. They are bright red and juicy, seedy and delicious on their own or dipped in chocolate. Or when they're added to a fruit salad or regular salad for that matter.  Yet this one strawberry is a literal as they come. It just wants to be eaten. It lays there in the bowl, alone and passive, bright and languid. On its side, with the green bits slightly exposed, and starkly contrasting to create Christmas. One could chop it into bits I suppose, and in fact some would probably get the urge to. But not this strawberry. It wants to be eaten whole. One swift bite and off with its head. If you could call all that it is its head that is. I doubt that the seeds would even interrupt with much texture. They are small and try to hide, for there can be no mar on this juicy surface, no indent and no mark. I bet they would actually make it more delicious; provide a tiny touch of welcome grit to such perfection. And they would never presume to get stuck in anybody's teeth. That's exactly the type of strawberry that this one is. A dangerous snake, or apple presented by a snake for that matter- waiting to strike after tempting.  Just one blissful bite it breathes. And then what?   A juicy explosion, a triumphant squelching dispersion of taste that fills the mouth and lingers after swallowing. Yet this strawberry knows, just as I do, that it is practically lethal.  As it lays there, patiently waiting with its juices barely contained to almost bursting, it knows of my allergies. And it beautifully/deliciously/tantalizingly mocks them.

Oh! My Prophetic Soul! (Siegfried Farnon, All Things Great and Small)

Tomorrow starts the advent of a slew of poetry (I hope!).  It's National Poetry Month and (thanks to Zach Adler http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/) I will be participating for the first time by attempting a unique project of his creation. Its task is simple: to write a new piece of work everyday, yet there are some guidelines. I have compiled a list of 30 different topics and borrowed 20 forms from Zach in which to write these pieces. I will not even attempt to explain how I devised a way to randomly pick each topic using a set of green and orange die (located conveniently in my cell phone) but it is random and works! Next time I won't be lazy and like Zach will get a 20 sided die and a deck of cards but for now, enjoy and maybe some gems of ideas/phrases or who knows even a full poem will raise their head amidst the rabble this month!

The Sacrifice of Buttons

The clown who killed a man
Probably didn't even mean to.
He'd just had enough.
It was for the children!= It was supposed to be for the children! =It was all for the children!
Not the 50-ish year old men in expensive suits with draping toupees and sniveling blondes precariously yet oh so carefully attached to their bodies.
The children!
Why else would one don such a nose?
Or drive such an uncomfortable car?
Or wear ill-fitting shoes
and buzzing hands
and baggy clothes
with holes that are never fully patched
for just the/an effect?
Why else would he shoot water into eyes?
And from flowers?? Really.
But they just never understood once they hit a certain age.
"I think that's what did it."
Or so the bearded lady said.
It was that they once saw and then stopped.
No one in the circus knew if it was due to those balancing act teenage years that the cotton candy- cheeked, fireworked- eyed children merely stopped, or what's worse, lost the ability to care.
And some were lucky for a balance beam decade.
The clown knew too many lion taming, trapezing teens.
And no one likes to watch their fans (grow up) go blind.
"Especially not a second-rate clown with a first rate heart" (she looked down saying so).
Well anyway, it wasn't water this time.
Water doesn't make you bleed through a hole in your chest.
And neither would laughing reasoned the clown-
and if laughing is too difficult to fake, no comment would be just as appreciated.
Why take away from the kids with snide remarks and sniggers?
They may be kids but they know when their dads or even just the fellow spectator is disapproving.
That's why he became a clown in the first place!
Because he noticed from a very early age just how disapproving everybody can be.
And so he decided to try to help them smile.

Poems I Like/Love

A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp

BY THOMAS MOORE

“They made her a grave, too cold and damp

For a soul so warm and true;

And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,

Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,

She paddles her white canoe.

“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,

And her paddle I soon shall hear;

Long and loving our life shall be,

And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,

When the footstep of death is near.”

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—

His path was rugged and sore,

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,

And man never trod before.

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tear and nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake,

And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear,

Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,

“Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,

And the white canoe of my dear?”

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright

Quick over its surface play’d—

“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!”

And the dim shore echoed for many a night

The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark,

Which carried him off from shore;

Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark,

And the boat return’d no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp,

This lover and maid so true

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp

To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,

And paddle their white canoe!

A Barefoot Boy

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—

      For May is here once more, and so is he,—

      His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,

And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:

Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array

      Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me

      Of woody pathways winding endlessly

Along the creek, where even yesterday

He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—

      Yet called the water "warm," with never lack

Of joy. And so, half enviously I look

      Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—

      His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back

Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook.

1. 
   

1. “A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett ...”

BY ANONYMOUS

A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett,

Built a bridge for the good River Bumpett.

    A mistake in the plan

    Left a gap in the span,

But he said, “Well, they'll just have to jump it.”

A Diamond

BY JACK SPICER

A Translation for Robert Jones

A diamond

Is there

At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness

And there is nothing in the universe like diamond

Nothing in the whole mind.

The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean.

A dog howls at the moon

A dog howls at the branches

A dog howls at the nakedness

A dog howling with pure mind.

I ask for the poem to be as pure as a seagull’s belly.

The universe falls apart and discloses a diamond

Two words called seagull are peacefully floating out where the

       waves are.

The dog is dead there with the moon, with the branches, with

       my nakedness

And there is nothing in the universe like diamond

Nothing in the whole mind.

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

BY LEWIS CARROLL

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

Attempts...(Poetry?)

Untitled

Voices rise from limbless water

up to/into my creaking boat

We've come through sifted silver slaughter

and yet we stay afloat.

They tell me that I'm drifting

to where I know not when

And drill me with their laughter

At my slowly sinking den.

"I'll not!" I cry and throw a rope

up at the greasy moon

"I'll rectify my castle's frame

and feed you with a spoon!"

"A spoon!" They scoff and gurgle/chortle more

At my so apparent ruin

I tilt my head and with a roar

"I'll feed you with your/my doom!"

Untitled

Don't ever mess with a mastermind,

for soon in time

you'll probably find that

a heart of grime

or a dandelion

can never ease

or slightly seize

the elusive breeze

of profundity.

Untitled

Muffled beats

make their muffled way

through my muffled room

to my muffled mind.

I think I like,

I think I don't

its tilting tune

or stilting croon?

I'll have to ask

my neighbor's rat

to tell me what he thinks.

Does it make him dream

of holey cheese?

Or dew-dropped leaves

that tempt with drinks?

I hope it does because even muffled beats through muffled walls cannot wake my muffled mind to help me clearly dream.

Don't Wake Up 

She woke up dripping syrup from a dream of waltzing backwards in the grass.

breath touched her hair, sending minnows down her sinews,

schools swim down then climb up her veins,

pulling gently on her organs to make it to her face where they dance in wet white- 

tails flap and scales flash in her aligator eyes.  

She woke up crying seaweed from a dream of a mummy wrapped in a kitchen cabinet.

a muted voice pulled open her ear, poured ice past her brain,

sloshing down her neck, droplets freezing through the espophagus and

cracking at her lungs, the frozen 

splinters spread down her arms into her coiled serpeant fingers. 

She woke up laughing bumblebees from a dream of plum pudding in a treehouse.

fuzz forces through her belly button

and buzz up her toes,

spinning and jumping over her skin, through knees and over hips,

humming to meet at her treefrog tummy. 

She woke up shaking tumbleweeds from a dream of bleeding beach houses.

wind trickles over her arm hairs

seashells creep down her spine

and sponges drink through her nostrils

to meet below her tongue, and press against her teeth

until sand spurts from her mollusk mouth.

the amazing combined feat of an organized set of symbols and the speed of human processing

that you are reading this is profound. 

Untitled Rendezvous

he followed me up to the bar

i gave him a half smile and an incline of my head. 

he came up for "just a minute"

i gave him a couple drinks and a tour of my bed. 

he asked me out to dinner

i gave him a tight dress and riveting conversation.  

he left me while i was sleeping

i gave him eight lines with no culmination.

Untitled

the poets i cannot stand the most

are those who never cease to boast.

they ryhme with words so silly that

you want to cry, "Jehuzaphat!" 

They cover their hair with a black beret, 
yet in a drawer their pen will stay,

They'll drink their coffee and wear their scarves

When they'd really do better to hang at wharves.
  

Chirping birds and budding flowers

make me want to jump from towers.

Pristine lakes and golden green leaves,

should never be read from high roof eaves. 

But the worst poets from all around

are those who try to seem profound

Rather than death, who am i and why?

How about simply making us cry?

Or giggle and squiggle

and cartwheel and riggle,

Or long to make gooseberry pie!

In fact I have decided

and in you I will confide it,

That the truly inspired poet,

simply does not know it.

You Must Be Have Been Born Out of Wedlock 

Sometimes I just want to smash you into crunchy pieces with a sledgehammer.

That's right skull, I mean you.

Oh wait, let me clarify- not sometimes but,

when I'm writing poetry. 

Maybe then the words will fall out,

Maybe then the descriptors describe,

Rhymes really rhyme, lines fall in time?

If it was as easy as crushing you skull,

you'd already look like ... 

But as I frustrate and contemplate this hole of pleasure-filled pain,

I realize that is exactly where the verbs thrive, adjectives survive

and the nouns host parties.

They might fester in expressionless throats

(sorry tongue, you can't push them out)

Or bury/burrow in veins right up to the wrist

(nope fingers, cease your twitching),

yet the emotion dripping bastard of literature and song doesn't want to come out today. 

Or should I say,

anyday.

In fact,

poetry would much rather hermit away

in my blasted brain. 

I Knew a Song of Africa 

She let me wash her hair today.

I gathered the tangled mass,

and laughed Coleridge's words down her back

while moonlit Mozart, Auld Lang Syne and our first safari

dripped out with the knots.

I had given her my pen

that she might trap stories for my returns,

yet she inked even more.

Next to my single, crooked line

she drew, until our parallel converged in the distance

like the train tracks where we exchanged names.

She understood my thunderstorm silence

and I, her proper rebellions,

And like a one-minded stampede

of so many antelopes

We tried to coexist.

For now, her tales were hushed as I scrubbed,

and she listened, with the hippos;

Our only audience as I rinsed away

the singing African afternoon.

A splash at the stubborn wisps,

And a handful of flyaway strands-

Not gentle, that wouldn't suit her,

But firm, and quick, my fingers searched

and separated wild curls.

Her unadorned smiling face looked up,

while I massaged her soapy mane down.

Her silence ruined solitude forever.

Food for Swagger/

I Was Hungry For You 

Today I ate an earthworm.

I picked him up off the wet pavement,

Ripped him into pieces.

I crushed his head,

Stuffed the bits to my mouth.

Mucus, blood and dirt combine,

Slide against my teeth-

Slipping down my throat

Ten more hearts now beat

In the rhythm of my rain.

Ugly Caterpillar 

They almost squashed you the other day. I know, I saw.

Crawling was never easy.

You have to pull yourself together

everytime you move forward.

Squirm to step, slink to slide.

Your long hairs like those on a great aunt's chin

quiver with every tiny mile,

desperately avoiding the beak, the claw, and the shoe.

Creeping kinds never stood much chance.

Green flashes against a dull brown and lusterless black,

red drips past rusty orange splotches,

and when spots and stripes can't make you interesting,

you're lucky if they can disguise.

Well, keep climbing limbs and chomping leaves,

Hold your huge, unrefined eyes to the sky

and find the branch that will bear your weight.

Then, hide yourself in white,

Find yourself in solitude...

And when they realize your brown shines,

black glistens, and that the drips are really delicate droplets of orange,

I'm sure they'll all suddenly adore you

my fuzzy friend,

once your colors fly.

Overflow

Feelings dripped

Into lidless eyes

But I wouldn't have blinked,

I liked the pain

And asked you to stay.

You poured through my sockets,

bathed my two world eaters,

and began to course back to my skull.

I let you river

Through my thirsty brain,

Which filled, and quickly flooded.

I held my breath as your waters rose

Then opened wide and swallowed.

To my surprise, I didn't drown;

I floated.

The Janna Banana Stand 

I see an N sneaking through the marketplace,

peering here, leering there

over bubbling oranges and

stinking, staring fish eyes. 

Unfortunately he is not alone.

His even darker twin ducks behind brocoli mountains

and creeps closer to the banana stand,

craving a toothy chomp of yellow. 

A fresh stalk of tango green soars past

tasseled red, cigar-smoke silver

and jingling purple, pleasantly

knocking the first A in the face. 

The second A of the studious pair

drops the curved yellow she had been weighing

to help her dismayed friend,

while the boiling cool J banana vendor watches with a smirk. 

The Curse 

Pain! 

Ripping through my side,

A clenched fist of burning blades forces through my flesh.

Veins filling, its spidery fingers wrench apart,

opening more my torment. 

A gaping hole remains,

jagged and dripping...

It has left me. 

Searing emptiness fills the pit-

but wait!

Now blood, clots and globs of tissue,

Slippery yet thick. 

An enemy you think perhaps?

Think again-

It's just a friend.

Professor H. 

Mumble, mumble, mumble.

Just blather rolling off his tongue,

Falling dead in the air.

Stagnant.

Noises, gestures, sounds,

oozing from his fingertips.

Up, down-

His jaw is ceaselessly chewing,

Eating vowels,

Or spitting them out? 

Lips together.

Lips separate.

Mustache crinkling,

Eyelids blinking,

Saliva sprinkling. 

What is it?

Oval O's and string bean E's.

It makes sense.

Doesn't it? 

Remaining Changed 

As a tree remebers seasons,

So too will you remember me.

My ice will weigh your boughs,

Just as my wind will wrench your leaves,

But so too will my sun bring your blossoms,

and my rain pool in your roots.

Variation on Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird: 

Chair 

1.  Sitting there

the empty char

offers me a rest. 

2.  Eight shining chairs and

a family full of food 

3.  Tree, your limbs will do quite nicely when sat upon.

Not in the air of course, but when making my kitchen chair. 

4.  How do they eat without you, my plump dining room chair?

It must be someting in all of that rice.

Or maybe it's the fish? 

5.  The creeping thief never imagined that my sparkling emerald

and gold-clasped pearls were safely sewed

within the seat of a faded velvet topped chair.

Giraffe 

I gaze up miles of black spotted yellow.

He drops leaves on my upturned face.

A Lady

Out of cracked kitchen floors,

six dirt crusted siblings and chickenless chicken soup

she rose,

a flash of floating footsteps and a motion

of a tapering, gloved hand.