Shay Caroline Simmons: Favorites

Six

Thomas W Case

Six

On a day that was
fraught
with anxiety and anger,
I sailed on
to the
other side.
The two pens that
blew up in my hand
foreshadowed the
prolific writing
streak to come.
Six poems today,
a personal best.
Bukowski would be
proud.
He might even
wonder
How I did it without
******
***** and
cigarettes.

It was easy.
I had bluebirds for
lunch, and listened
to Vivaldi.
I just let the telephone
ring
ring
ring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMbrfKP2H38
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I read from my recently published books of poetry. The latest video is a reading I did at the Clear Lake Public Library. They are Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, and Sleep Always Calls. They are available on Amazon.

#writing #poetry #poems #craft

Sep 10 Shay Caroline Simmons

Feathered Stone

Sep 10 Shay Caroline Simmons

Thomas W Case

Feathered Stone

Your love is like a frozen bird, a
feathered stone falling from the sky.
I wish it didn't die.
It should be flying, and soring, and
healing, against the warm blaze of
the afternoon sun--weaving and
diving through the coolness of the clouds.
But it's gone, and all it can do is
plummet and take a few more
birds out, on its way down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMbrfKP2H38
I did a poetry reading and book signing at the Clear Lake Public Library. Here is a link to the video on my YouTube Channel. My books are available on Amazon. They are Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, and Sleep Always Calls.

#life #love #pain

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Us & Them

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Peter

Us & Them

They have children,
they have homes,
they have money,
they have jobs,
they have cars...
and there are so many other things they wish to have.

We, poets,
have paper and pen.
That's enough.

#poets #people #poetry #have

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Moonlit Witch

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

William A Gibson

Moonlit Witch

Middle age is a drawer of bottles,
labels rubbed blank,
small tablets stamped
with numbers I can’t read,
others chalk-white,
anonymous as bones.

That August night I woke,
a moth in the moonlight,
wings two halves of a Viking ship.
They say if it maps all four corners
you’re finished.
My head bricked with mucus,
her throat raw-
our marriage a duet
two instruments coughing through the score.

I whispered- moth,
as her eyes opened, glowing like sunken lanterns.
It weighed two thousand pounds,
wings lifting her hair
like a bride of the dead.

Two optimism pills
waited on my table.
I chewed them dry,
chalk cementing my tongue,
the insect’s brain ticking in my skull
like a clock in a gothic castle.

Then water rose inside us-
first a seep, then a tide,
spilling warm rivers across the floorboards.
The dark room brightened green,
cypress arms cracked plaster,
reeds whispered spells older than fever.

Fireflies stitched lanterns along the walls,
crocodiles slid through like priests of the river.
We held hands as the bed turned pirogue,
drifting through brackwater green.

Above us the moth circled-
no longer omen but guide,
its wings stirring moonlight into spell.
Papa Legba opened the crossing,
Maman Brigitte lit the reeds with flame.
We: two elders slipping from sickness into swamp,
breath turned to whirlpools,
our oaths ferried
on the moth’s traité tide.

#middleage #flu #marriage #memory #mortality #swamp #myth #ritual #gothic #moth

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Dust Madonna

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

William A Gibson

Dust Madonna

She left Reno
in a satin slip
the color of hot coins
pouring from slots,
wearing chewed-up tennis shoes,
mirrors multiplying her,
the marquee burning out
letter by letter,
a hush pressed between her teeth
as if saving the last note.

I followed,
a gangly shadow,
mother’s voice in my ear:
life is not a freeway exit.
But she was the exit.
She drove west
through a glittering throat.

In Tonopah she was a waitress
with red stains on her wrists,
the sleeves tugged low,
coffee pouring thin as blood.
In Barstow she was a sun-bleached Madonna,
halo blistered, mouth lit in stained glass.
At a gas station in Needles
she shimmered into a coyote’s shadow
and slipped behind the pumps.
Everywhere,
a new disguise,
a flicker at the edge of vision.
Not the whole leap,
just rehearsal.

Casinos blinked like electric relics.
Truckers called her sugar,
greedy hands counting her ribs
as if she were a paycheck
sweating in their fist,
but she slipped away each time,
her silhouette already moulting-
a serpent skin, a smoke-trail,
a saint’s shadow burning off the wall.

By Malibu the night
had softened to velvet.
The pier at Zuma
leaned into the Pacific
like a broken rib.

She sang once-
low, cracked, unfinished-
and the slip fell from her
like the last lie.
Her body cut into the dark tide,
this time there was no disguise.

I waded in after her,
ankles bruised by rock.
The sea lit with jellyfish,
not lanterns but wires,
each pulse a warning,
each glow a wound.

Standing at the highway’s end-
no exit left,
just the Pacific’s mouth
closing around her.

Entry: recovery and renewal- route: Black Rock Desert to Zuma

#noir #desert #highway #myth #escape #disguise #ocean #witness #loss #transformation

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Gravitational Arc

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Jason R Michie

Gravitational Arc

Gravitational Arc, my debut poetry collection, is now available in paperback and on Kindle!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ46FNR6

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Raindrops in Schreiberhau

Sep 8 Shay Caroline Simmons

Agnes de Lods

Raindrops in Schreiberhau

In apparent silence,
Raindrops play their music.
I look at the strings of stretched water
Before they touch the soft, damp ground.

Fog has covered the distant hills.
The Spirit of those Mountains
Existed only in the past chants
Of those who, without bodies,
Return to their abandoned homes
As a breath on a wet glass.

I don't know their language,
But I hear their words:
The fog,
The rain,
The hills
And memories
Hidden in the soothingly cold rocks
And streams of clear water.

I cut out a piece of earth and sky
I've always been sad to leave that place.
I stay a few moments longer,
Before walking ahead
I drink the peace,
I eat the rustle of the wind,
Absorbing the steady pattern of raindrops.

I long to be invisible
A drawing of the unearthly landscape
And come back here endlessly
After long absences.
In the green valley,
Immersed in the rain
Where I leave and find myself
Again,
Again,
Again…

#raindrops #schreiberhau

Sep 7 Shay Caroline Simmons

Go, Slow

Sep 7 Shay Caroline Simmons

Aegis Vistoria Penumbra

Go, Slow

To all my beloveds,

Why are you in such a rush?
Where do you think you have to go?
Why do you live as though in a race?

Don’t rush.
You won’t win.
There is no winning.
There is nothing after that end.

Where do you even have to go?
I’m the one who has to go…

And I will go,

Slow.

Before I meet that end,
Please,

Take my hand.

Waltz with me into that windy night,
Not with haste,
But with the remains,
Of this grotesque grace.

Let the wind howl.
Let it push.
Let it beg us to hurry on our way.

Let it do as it may,
But I will not rush to that end,
Under anyone’s command.

Just,

Go slow.

I will,

Go slow.

Drag your feet through the dusk.
Let the moonlight kiss the path,
Though it can never again light the way.

There is no destination.
Only this journey.
Only this ache.
Only this love.

I will,

Go slow.

Slow enough,

To cry.

For these tears are worthy of my time.
For they are true to my heart.

I will,

Go slow.

As I cry this truth,
I won’t rush to lie to you.
I won’t sprint toward bliss,
For there is none at the end.

I will waltz slowly through this pain.
Because I want to feel this love.
Because I crave every burden,
Of this human heart.

Go slow,
As you read the story.
Go slow,
As you listen to the song.
Go slow,
As you live this life.

Don’t race through beauty,
Just to meet nothing.
Don’t race through pain,
Just to meet that eternity.

That,

Distant

Icky

Eternity.

Go slow,

With companions, or alone.

Go slow,

Until the world lets go.

Let it hurt.
Let me cry.
Slowly, I love.
Slowly, I cling.
Slowly, I’m dragged away.

Slowly, I fade…

Into,

Into,

That,

Into,

Oblivion…

Go…

Slow.

Slower.

Slower still.

Almost,

Imperceptibly.

As,

You,

Approach,

That,

That,

That,

Distant

Icky

Eternity

Go,

Go,

Go,

Slow.

And if I must,

If I must say goodbye,

If this is the end of our time,

Then let me,

Let me smile,

As I go,

As I go slowly,

Dreaming,

That I am hand in hand,

With such kind company.

Waltzing slowly,

Until I,

Must let go,

Until you,

Until you must,

Move on,

Until I smile,

One last time,

As you must carry on,

Until I,

Until I succumb,

To that,

To,

That,

That,

That,

Distant

Icky

Eternity.

Sincerely,
Your companion
From genesis, through oblivion

Sep 7 Shay Caroline Simmons

Lucretia’s Reflection

Sep 7 Shay Caroline Simmons

Kiki Dresden

Lucretia’s Reflection

I remember marble that wanted heels,
clip-clop echo of women who belonged.
I wore slip-ons with socks,
easier for those of us who come to scrub
other people’s lives.

The elevator was a box of mirrors,
infinite versions of me-
I bent my head to escape them.

His office door ajar,
his voice stretched thin across a phone.
The girlfriend cooks,
spicy food,
place a *******, he said.
I had seen much worse-
houses where mold clung to the ceiling,
where grief leaked through the wallpaper.

The vacuum hummed its G-note spiritual.
I worked the nozzle into the skirting boards,
let my mind braid song and ritual,
a drop of lavender for closets,
labels straightened like soldiers on parade.
No one asked for these offerings-
I gave them anyway.

But he winked at me
while telling her love you, babe,
mouth syrupy with lies.
A twenty left on the hall table-
a tip that branded my palm.

Later, the bin bag tore,
Madras red bleeding into cream carpet,
pears bruised soft in their sweating wrap.
The stain spread like a hand
that gripped too long,
that would not release.
I cursed the ceiling,
the word **** echoing like prayer.

was only twenty,
scrubbing strangers’ luxury
to keep myself alive.
That day I left more than lavender-
a fragment of myself,
pressed into the carpet,
silent as the stain.

Sep 4 Shay Caroline Simmons

A Crane Bird

Sep 4 Shay Caroline Simmons

Cheyenne Chenoa

A Crane Bird

Crimson stares
Round' the gentle stream
American leaves
Nordic melodies
Everything, every dream

C.R.A.N.E