Luis drives around the block once more;
his car zipping, ripping,
as his thoughts
are surely racing.

We don't know,
but Monica keeps his keys in her back pocket.
She waggles her peaches when he drives by.

"Juicy fruit", Luis murmurs, then
shifts it into high gear,
spins out,
comes again;
his gravel strikes her hard
between the knees. Monica spreads

her branches, two twigs waving.
She shouts,
"Hey old man, why don't you come perch on these?"

It's a dance of disaster, and no plaster cast protects
those alabaster bones she bares so well.

How clever is the subtle Stellar Jay
who clamors loud on swaying autumn's branch
and never sings of summer's fair embrace,
nor daydreams of the trysts of spring's last chance.

Yet eyes so sharp the jeweled beetle under bark;
snaps him up, pries her beak once more beneath the bark.

I crack the brickle bone and then carve back
through muscle taut with cell memory,
past tendons that could never teach us love.

We were bone on bone all the way.

I slice past ridges where my fingertips once danced,
filet the contours of youthful sighs, where repeated
good-byes were a chance to begin again.

This carcass is rotting, and the back and forth sawing
from a knife that's grown too dull for its mauling
has left my hands itching from the putrid remains.

Stand by, watch the blood congeal on the ground.

I guess you can never cleanly cleave the meat that's been
hanging so long in your backyard.
Just let it drop:
the roast,
the ****.

See how the bones settle into the soil.
Who knows what might grow there?

Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.

Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.

Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.

All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.

My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.

I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.

Who's getting ready for NaPo?  
Is anyone as giddy as me?

Thirty days of thirsty words,
I'll be on a drunken spree.

Are you ready for NaPo?
Do you even know what it is?

National Poetry Writer's Month
A veritable poetry writing crunch!

Join me, join me! This I plea
A poem a day from me, you'll see!

A poem a day from me, from you?!

Don't speak to me of those droughted days
when you reigned over me for twenty years.

Your dark clouds planted themselves
above my garden like seeds wanting
to rebirth a strangled youth.

I sickled down row after row:
your bindweed, your choke pear.

Purple flowers strung about my neck;
those bitter fruits, I swallowed whole:
a peck of yoke, two bushels of anguish.

'It'll get bad reviews, we should scrap the project before it breaks the budget.'*


We sit and talk art and beauty, love and fear,
my heart cracking open, and you,
rushing in.

We sit and talk,
play at this deadly game,
ignore the consequences,
shun the inconsistencies. The

words,
words,
words,
they swirl,
and
we slip,
we slip,
we slip.

It's a real cliffhanger.

Hearts on sleeves,
music weaves,
stories come to light.

Secrets, oozing out between
the well crafted lines of
our carefully scripted plot.

We sit and talk circles around
the herds of white elephants
that come to watch the show.
Mocking us, they laugh
as we tiptoe through fields of daffodils
under dark skies with rainbows.

(Scene change now)

In dark of night
I squeeze out hope
from my heart.
God ****** hope
twists up and knifes
me in the side,
leaves me bleeding on the floor.

And you,  fool you are,
rush to my aid.
If you're saving me,
who's saving you?

You, with your secret decoder ring
from your box of caramel corn, cracking
my heart, you peel my layers.

Your questions run deep but your feet will run faster, and

I'll fall,
I'll fall,
I'll fall.

Gravity's a real drag;
I've felt it's pull before.

Me, with my third eye see the pan and play.
This show will end leaving us all sitting in our seats
wanting another thirty minutes,
a tidier ending.

This ain't Disney.

We'll feel like we've been
ripped,
ripped,
ripped.

No refunds here,
go file your complaint with the man upstairs.

The audience stands, turns to go.

White elephants know there's no silver lining,
no *** of gold.
They threw popcorn at the screen, but you didn't notice.

I always hated white elephants;
I thought you did too.
Who invited them to the show?

We step outside,
no curtain call,
no applause.

Hail falls down on this sunny blue day.

Afraid to touch you, but
I want to catch you in my mouth.

Would you please just go away,
before I end up with lumps
on my head,
in my throat?

My eyes blinded by the sun,
the hail,
this ill fated show.
​