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Anais Vionet Jul 2023
When I was little, my stepfather and I would be outside, coloring the driveway with chalk or throwing a frisbee and he’d stop and say, “I’m gonna go stir your mama up.”

He’d go in the house, coming out minutes later with my mom hot on his heels, waving her arms and haranguing his retreating back. She couldn’t see the big grin on his face as he approached me, “It’s good for her heart,” he’d say, chuckling and resuming whatever we were doing, “We’ve got to keep her on her toes.” He’s a master of dolorous mischief.

Flash forward to a cold, dark, Yale, winter evening in 2023. Peter and I are in the suite’s common room. Four dorm rooms share this ‘living room’ area but we’re alone, which was rare.

I’d been reading for about an hour and I was only half done. A chemistry PSet was next. I closed my Chinese language studies book and looked up. Peter was there, sitting on the floor, leaning back on the far end of the red corduroy couch where I was sitting. His long lanky frame was curled around the book he was reading, like an awkward python.

As I watched, he plucked a mint-chocolate milkshake off the white coffee table, bringing the straw to his lips without ever taking his eyes off his book. Homework, homework, homework.
I was bored and wanted a little attention, a little fun.

“Was I your first choice?” I asked him, as he noisily slurped at the last of his milkshake.
“First choice for what?” He asked.
“To be your girlfriend,” I clarified, emphasizing the last word.

He thought for a moment, “No, I had salty love-jones for Ivy Waters in second grade. Why?”
“I don’t know, It just occurred to me to ask,” I confided. “so, why did you choose me then?”
“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows in all, fake sincerity, “you know all the best jokes,” and with that, he went back to his milkshake (argh!).

“I know, you’re finishing your doctorate,” I said, “but you could be a flight attendant!”
Peter stopped trying to stir the last of his milkshake into a slurpable lump and froze in thought. “It’s TRUE,” I continued, “Really - you need to be flexible in your planning. I read that most physicists slave away in povertude.”

“Povertude, huh?’ He said, and resumed his mint-chocolate work - his straw making a loud “ssssuuuuusssssskkkkkkkkkk,” empty-cup air-******* sound.
“AI isn’t going to replace **** flight attendants,” I offered, as my last argument in the matter.

After a moment he asked, “You really think I could carry it off?” Putting his palm on his hip and wiggling his shoulders in a provocative shimmy.

“I KNEW you’d leave me at the FIRST opportunity,” I said, turning sharply away, pretending to ignore him - the universal cap of girlfriends everywhere - with a condensed absence of attention that, I hoped, spoke unspoken things.

Setting his milkshake down, he gave me a lecherous smile, which made me giggle, and began crawling in my direction.

“Eeek!” I shrieked, laughing, as he climbed up on the couch, “I still have homework!”
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Dolorous: "causing grief."

Slang…
PSet = problem set (homework).
salty = mad
love jones = crush
provertude = the state of lifelong poverty
cap = playful insult
neth jones Aug 2022
and you smile so ungimmickly
and the smile fires extensions from both sides
like speed record cars     across flat heat distorted desert
and i know    we're up to no good tonite
08/07/22
Dark n Beautiful Nov 2020
The week has to have a weekend
Days have to have a tomorrow
And goodbye to yesterday’s/
In turns will bring the months to an end/

What do we have to face
moving forward setbacks and  more
worried looks in the bystanders eyes..
When all is set and done, we have to say grace
We have to look up every morning and whisper to the skies.

The news broadcaster’s never speak of genuine love,
They only wishes to be littered,
While, begging folks to do their part
The cooing of the dark lonely dove
a symbol that there’s is no more  love in ones heart
during the these stressful day/

Ten o’clock curfew at night,\/
Essentials workers must only be seen at dawn/
No more than ten to twelve people on sight/
And large outstanding gathering must be gone/

Black Friday’s deals, window shopping strolls
Everything seem on hold, the biggest black hole of 2020/
And nothing spoke to me: not even a 60 inch flatscreen TV/

Let’s take a page from the Jewish customs
Bury the dead in the next seventy two hours/
All November traditions is limit/
Thanksgiving Day a Tic, tok

All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Mischief Night, Bonfire Night
Once you take down the statues, of useless figures
Would History of the injustices will be erase/
The world is hurting,
Kay Jul 2020
Did you come from the tip of lightning
As it struck the earth
****** into an uncertain world
A cruel and forceful birth

Or did you ride in on a gust of wind
Hopping off at the first place
You heard the ocean's song
And felt the sun’s embrace

Because you’re like the eye of the storm
Destructive, yet gentle
I’ve never seen two opposites
Act so complemental

You always wear a smile on your face
But keep mischief tucked in your heart
And I’m too curious to stay away
But I would if I was smart
Amanda Hawk Jul 2020
Chasing after rainbows at midnight

Greeting the morning barefoot

Letting my smile linger a second longer

Than any conversation

Collecting fortune cookie fortunes in my back pocket

Believing the world is more beautiful at dusk

Recite my dreams in two second poems

Watch the city breathe

Collecting the lights in my hands

Setting them free in my closet

I will paint this city in my rules

Live within my own lines

Ponder a second too long on the ridiculous

Greet this life with a mischief smile and open arms
Andrew Mancini Apr 2020
A life well lived always includes some sort of mischief,
a healthy balance at least – nothing malicious:
it’s just part of the business,
                                                 it’s why the sound of laughter is so mouthwateringly delicious
                                and spontaneity
                                brings one to their knees it’s so ******* religious!  
What I’m trying to say is:
learn
         to laugh
                        with life.
                                                  Simply put,
              there’s just too much humor to not share your light.
Faye Dec 2019
i knew we were doomed from the start
but we love trouble, don't we?
the thrill it gives knowing that
we can always get away with it
and come out clean in the eyes of many
but we're no saints, honey.
neth jones Sep 2019
no picnic when panic
no streets unborn here

germinal ;
creature undresses
from his cool rubbery dead skin
steps
scent free
into the sodium light
and works on its pallor

fleshed out from the plumbing
a manic talent
it sports the label , Mr. Talon
and favours a facade of mercurial cosmetics

now,
a character most vividly colourful and male-ish
a voice
a maddened song
he breaks his face
and makes it a smile

armed with this sickle
bringing his comedic heavings to the public
he goes gory across the fresh laundry
a violence upon the canvas
a spree upon welcoming sadness
an open mockery
breaking ease
and seizing upon an audience

no more chiding
from within the shade
(egging on villains
and dropping muse-meal)
the folk hero
the prankster
this fierce performer of mischief
takes the stage
in a full suit of teeth-skin
and he’s really quite ravenous
for your abiding applause
‘popular in the mutterings
  founded in the gutterings
  bring out the chalk lines
  and biohazard baggies
  for this fierce performer of mischief !’
Lillian May Sep 2019
The singing of their tunes
had the very accent of a peculiarly subtle and forbidden zest.
Women did a great deal of desirable ways to kick up dust.

Members of mischief,
In the business,
Just for mischief.

Enjoying a cigarette,
“Please,
Tell her I’m thought to be a
Bad Woman”
She used to smile to herself to think how much worse than that she really was.
Amaryllis Aug 2019
‘Aren’t you afraid of my darkness, my dear?’ Hades asked with mischief in his eyes.
‘No.’ Persephone replied, ‘You haven’t seen mine yet.’
Do you know the story about Hades and Persephone?
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