Prophecy

Mark February 10th 2012 on the calendar. Something amazing is going to happen on this day.

Passion #1 ©

I will not speak of moon,
as so oft time is done.

Nor lover's touch, nor kiss,
that race so dearly run.

Instead it is of fear,
the step she takes away.

When lover comes in close,
on summer's waning day.

The height of passion's breath,
a searing ember flame.

Upon the flesh of woman,
Her own heart to the blame.

And yet they walk away,
from 'neath the boughs of oaks

Worshiping that fear,
which love so gently cloaks.

For it is known by they,
that beast will never waken

To end this timeless need,
the dance of take and taken.

Alit ©

Waning wind whispers
through taut trees
on one onus.

Forgotten friends find
blackened bones brought
to tremulous terrors

Winsome women wait,
solemnly seeking solace
from forever’s fortitude.
An apparent apparition
welcomes whispering wildness.

Hearty hearts heal
blued, broken bodies
besotted by brothers,
Father’s failed fondling,
Mother’s motley meanderings.

Dark destiny’s destruction
where worms work
finishes foreign features
from fortune’s folly.

Coldly crying crusts,
the torrid tear,
Single, sliding sadness
believed by blunderers.

Miracle makers maliciously
smile sordid smiles,
wink wily winks,
kindly killing Katie.

She shrugs softly,
knowing knees kneel,
G-d graciously grants
wishes, warmness, wonder.

Finished, finally finished.
Expedited Erroneous End.

Un-womb ©

I wish to be wombed
Entombed

Like hiding in caves
Sewer rat
Beneath waves
Of darkness

So I can’t see
What is so lost it’s hard to be

You look at me and tell me to work
But there’s nothing there so you jerk me around

Send me all over town
I explain I am down
Lower than low

Only rescue is a bottle and so

I curl up with wine
Til night falls fine
Happens at the end of each day
And I don’t have to worry no more

About being so poor
Locked in this house with Ever Rude
Who thinks hitting women means cool dude

He was at his best at age three
But that was way before he met me

No one told me he was gremlin sound
When he was looking and found
This woman. This woman here.

This woman filled with fear
And now I know hate
That’s first-rate hate I’m talkin’ bout
Hear me, hear me shout

You gotta open some door and let this woman out
Cause she’s screaming, scheming
Tearing her hair
Needs to know where, where the fuck where
Is that door outta hell?

Vanity #1 ©

Purses of yellow.
Purses of green.

What do all of these purses mean?

One holds money.
One holds keys.
One holds makeup.
One holds cheese.

Straps leather and long,
Clutches for under the arm.
Some made of patent leather
For their shiny charm.

I don’t know why they’re here,
These purses all on the floor,
But picking them up
Won’t be my endless chore.

I will kick them under the bed,
Where they will not be seen,
Cause, when all is said and done,
WTF do they mean?


I apologize. I have loved rhyme for as long as I have known it existed; so, once in awhile, it takes hold and the looniest things come out of me. I enjoy them like a child with sticky cotton candy all over her lips and fingers....decadent. They make me smile.

The Perfect ©

Bethesta stood outside the plate window, nose within one inch, fingertips of each hand next to her face and making foggy prints on the glass. Within the display case, rested in one corner and next to a tall festively wrapped box, was the Perfect. It stood there with a gorgeous smile painted on its face, and looked into her soul with Caribbean water eyes. She had first become aware of the Perfect over a month ago while being pulled down the street by her mother who was in a hurry to get to the bank to pay the bills for the month.

The Perfect had sent out a mystical vibration and caught Bethesta's attention with as much force as if the wide-shouldered being had tripped her with its foot. The Perfect took Bethesta's breath away, and she called, "Momma, Momma, look at it. It is so beautiful." Mother took a quick glance through the window and continued to tug her enthralled daughter down the street, "On, Bethesta, it is just another perfect. They are everywhere you look."

"No Momma, this is The Perfect. There is no other," but Mother was no longer paying attention.

Since that day, Bethesta had taken every opportunity she could find to stand in front of the window and peer at the Perfect as it peered back at her with its soul-searching eyes. A few times she had sidled into the store and poked her little fingers through the white curtain at the back of the display case to touch the Perfect's hand. It was always warm and comforting, but mostly Bethesta stood and looked at the Perfect through the window where she could lose herself in its eyes and smile, and once the store owners, Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett, had stood just outside the shop door and glared at Bethesta. They were worried that the fey, little girl standing in front of their shop so often might frighten their patrons away, as we all know that patrons are often left startled and uncomfortable when faced with the reality of a little girl's unfulfilled dreams and desires.

One day, when Bethesta was in her new favorite place in the world, peering at the Perfect, Mrs. Bartlett wormed her way through the white curtain at the back of the case. She was bringing a large spray of dried flowers tucked inside a wicker basket into the display, and as she passed the Perfect, it went unnoticed that the Perfect's hand caught in the handle of the basket. As the heavy-set woman walked toward Bethesta peering through the window and further into the case to set the basket near the glass, the Perfect tipped forward, and crashed to the floor of the case. Bethesta's mouth had opened to a perfect "O" and her eyes had widened in fear. Mrs. Bartlett had noticed Bethesta's expression moments before she had heard the Perfect thump on the floor behind her, and although she quickly turned to catch the decoration, she was too late. With a humph, she pulled the wicker handle from the arm of the Perfect and sat the basket near the glass. Then she put her fat and disdainful hands around the neck of the Perfect and hauled it back to a standing position. She stalked back out of the case as if the Perfect, who was always still, had somehow knocked himself over on purpose just to thwart her and make her already sordid day, even worse.

Bethesta searched every inch of the Perfect through the glass to make sure it had not come to any fatal harm. She was almost content, when she noticed that a crack had formed at the point where the Perfect's neck met the bottom of its chin and this crack wound over its cheek and almost up to its eye socket where rested one of the Perfect's blue-green eyes. A couple of fat tears began to grow in Bethesta's own eyes, and she said very quietly, but loud enough that a couple of passers-by heard her words, "Oh my Perfect, my poor Perfect. I love you still."

Over time, the Bartlett's store began to lose money as large department stores moved into the mall newly built three blocks down the street. They kept the Perfect in their window, because they could not afford to purchase a new perfect. In summer they hooked a picnic basket over its arm, placed a wicker hat on its head and crookedly balanced a pair of sunglasses on its nose. Sometimes they just hung a big, red "Christmas in July" sale sign around its neck. In the fall they placed a leaf rake in one of its hands until three of its fingers broke off. As time passed, the Perfect became dusty and tattered, but Bethesta, although she too aged and grew from child to young woman, would still stand occasionally at the window and gaze into the smile and eyes she loved so well and for so long. She now understood a bit better that she could never have the Perfect, could not afford it, could not save the Perfect, but she also knew in her awakening mind that she would look for that soul, those eyes and the special smile just for her that she had first loved in the perfect Perfect in Bartlett's store, and somewhat, but not very well, she understood that loving and wanting sometimes are not enough to make the most heart-felt dreams and hopes come true. Poor Bethesta. Poor Perfect.

The Watcher and the Harbinger ©

She watches.

Pieces fall and fit together
like aubergine puzzles of ash.

She cries as she watches.

One steps on an IED.
One steps in front of a car.
One fails to step from the path of a bullet.
Another talks to someone she should not.
A twenty dollar bill drops unknown from the birthday boy's pocket.
The man looks at a woman who is not his own.
Daughter stands at a window wondering where Daddy has gone.
This one lights a match beneath a cotton curtain.
That one teeters at the top of stairs before falling…falling.

Sometimes it is too much for her.
She turns her eyes to the tree tops,
where wind whispers leaves like raven wings
against a cloudless sky.
She breathes deeply the nectar of damp night shrouded in fog
or smooths the new down of a spring maple leaf.
She watches the tense brow of a lover or his certain freckle here or there.
It is only wonderment that assuages her tears.

He now steps loudly.
Heralds the breath of tomorrow.
His smile and charisma like warmed and oiled stones on the curve of a back,
relaxes, teases into complacency that it is just another day,
as plain as damp towels hanging from a wooden rack.
He wears no warning black and hooded cloak.
He carries no warning scythe…
and walks, shoulders squared under the white, blinding sun of morning,
as calm as chicory waving by the path.
Heralds the future from his gayest eyes; bright, amazing, comfort smile.
He does not cry.
He heralds a destroyed heart, the moving of what is into what was.
Listeners feel like glued parts being ripped from within and tossed to the raging wind.
He does not cry.
He heralds the birth of a new born baby.
He heralds the return of the lover
with as much ease as the death of the father,
or destruction of a building as old as time.

The watcher takes the harbinger's head to her lap and there smooths his brow.

"Oh one, dear one" she coos, "Will you but bring joy this day to me?" Would you give me this day to dry my tears?"

He takes her gentle hand within his hardened one and responds, "Ah, loved one, I am not the maker of all things. I speak only of what has come to pass and cannot dry your tears by silencing all that does transpire. I will dry your tears with my faithful love and provide my shoulder as a place to lay your head upon when you grow weary of your task."

"It is our lot, I suspect, that I see and you tell,” she says.
"Indeed, it is our lot," he said, "but that we do it in companionship is a grace."

The watcher and the harbinger looked into each others eyes…..
Therein, her watch unfinished, she viewed his imminent demise.

Hard Stop

Clackety Clack of the Cosmos (c)

Life savers and chocolate
meet
Tic Tacs and peanut butter.
"Will it work?"
"Will it work?"
all heard the cosmos mutter.

It started out so grand.
They thought it might stand.

These two starry eyeds.
They seemed to do a lot of kissing,
and besides

They had waited awhile
for something this bright.
Gone that extra mile
for something seeming right.

The flavors did not mix,
and the two
ended up in quite a fix.

The cosmos sighed, "Oh well,"
when it all went to hell.

"Even though it may turn out the same,
we move on to a brand new game."

"Let's see, candy corn and chicken,
meets, sausage and Gator-aide.
Now let's watch this love quicken."

So they play on with the hearts
of men and women,
many beginnings and false starts,
to occupy their endless time
where they sit bored in robes
churning margarine into the sublime.

And what of the two lovers
fate tossed by the side?
They live separately with their separate foods
each in their separate double wide.

Rainbow (c)

Rainbow©

She picked the rainbow from the sky.
She placed it in her palm.
It rested there with magic glow,
The ebb and flow of calm.

She curled small, soft fingers
Around it in her hand.
It shone there but a moment more
Then turned to grains of sand.

Sifted through and down,
She could not catch a grain.
From her soul the rainbow fell
Like winter's hardest rain.

We watch it fall away,
Into the weft of time.
A love so lost, forgotten
Replaced by lonely rhyme.