Coleen Mzarriz: Favorites

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Evan Stephens

Young men in glazy unison
wreck over lipstick shoals

until last call's klaxons
lure a few to paddle back

& pony up for a last fist
of foaming heart.

I'm past my sailing days,
so I watch from hot shade

with germanium on/off eyes,
surrounded by ten brave

who said yes to an evening.
Leaving into the electric bower

under bud-sparked trees,
our heels are free of night,

everything is open,
& forty-five seems no great age.

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Vespers

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Evan Stephens

Vespers

"Love is the worst religion,"
croons the dying television,

with no further explanation;
well, thanks for the news -

I see myself in emptied glass,
a bust carved rude and inchoate,

poet, captain, lost apostle
of the worst religion,

baptized in changeling pools
of day and week, scribbling

my night's peak breath
on the flypapers of insomnia.

Sun over sainted skin,
stars where evening eyes were,

swain's vespers, all of it
splitting like new ripe fruit

in sticky hands of the acolyte,
ardent hands of little silver.

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Letter to E----

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Evan Stephens

Letter to E----

Dear E----,

The bus crawls eastward like an insect:
silvery carapace and compound eyes,

broad-spotted blue-red with ads
as we scuttle along the curb-crumbs,

outpacing a decaying Tuesday sun.
In my thoracic seat I think of love,

its strangest colors and contours,
gentle treacheries and bridges burnt,

a wavering lawn of doubled sleep.
Tonight we dine on margaritas

in our cheap pub on the hill,
hope the questions all get answered,

touch feet under the table in secret.
I'm sure I wear at your patience

with this haircut I slashed myself,
my many stumbles of attention,

all my errors of cipher and code,
& the old hot luggage of my battles...

but you persevere. Look up -
the stars are champagne perlage

in a dark coupe, and all around
the living are dying; the dying are living.

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

are you the owner of this house?

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Caits

are you the owner of this house?

he said
“whatever you’re doing, keep doing that”
and I laughed
barking French seals

for doing months of work
taking sledgehammers to who I was
and gutting my soul
bare.

breaking everything intangible
and building her again

opening the crawl spaces
where the spiders lay layered

the basement with lounging leaders
diplomats in fear
wrapped in anger
and anxiety

Laying them all out in the open
Sunshine burning their skin
whispering a thank you
and the softest goodbye

cause the doors were wide open
with nothing left to hide

so come in the front door, and I’ll greet you like an old friend
just now with a curfew

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Dream of the Father

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Evan Stephens

Dream of the Father

When the yellow/green face
of this furnace valley is smudged
with summer's first rain runs

I dream about dad again:
7 years since that hospital bed
in Georgetown where he turned

to wax and I turned to water.
In the dream I was so small,
he took me to his old '80s office,

the tan portable in the field where
everything was cheap wood panels,
thin mouse-brown temp carpet.

He sat me down by his blackboard,
jotted with number theory,
& left to retrieve a book he needed.

I sat among the dry sun and dust
until I realized I was an adult now.
Eventually a man came to the door,

& said "why are you still here?
Your dad died years ago,
& we need the room."

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Homestretch (For Greg)

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Thomas W Case

Homestretch (For Greg)

We were drinking ourselves
into the grave.
I escaped temporarily.
Greg didn't.
He was crossing a
busy street in Iowa City.
In his baggy, ***** jeans
was a bottle of ***** that
he had just lifted.
I'm guessing he was in
too big a hurry to
"get well" and knock
off the shakes.
A minivan ran him down.

Before the ***** wrecked him,
he was a lawyer, and a pretty
**** good golfer.
But what I remember the
best were our days at Prairie
Meadows, playing the ponies.
We cashed a few winning
tickets together, and
tore up some losers too.

God bless you, little buddy.
You're on the homestretch now.

My latest book, Sleep Always Calls, is available on Amazon. I read from it on my you tube channel. Here's a link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOGBCY2FM_c

#wwwthomaswcasecom

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

He who Troubles his Own House

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Thomas W Case

He who Troubles his Own House

She had these little cups
of coffee for eyes, and I
should have stayed up
all night.
Love is a drunk *****.
A lie from Saturn.
Venus, slither back in the
ocean where you belong.
Loneliness is a knife cutting
my ***** off.
Knowledge arrived with an
alarm clock from hell,
always the wrong *******
time. Slammed doors, words
of hatred.
What happens to the man that
inherits the wind?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOGBCY2FM_c
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I read from my recently published book, Sleep Always Calls, available on Amazon.com

#wwwthomaswcasecom

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Back from the Dead

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Thomas W Case

Back from the Dead

I will not be
subdued.
Cages don't suit me.
I have to be free.
Fly
run
sing
dance in the
open fields, swim
in the river with
the fish and water snakes.
My soul can't be
taken without my permission.
The access is denied.
My heart isn't yours to
mock and ****.
I will rise like
the phoenix from
the ashes and sail on against
the azure sky, free and
untethered.
Resurrected
I'm back from the dead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn9IAYo0wZE
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I just did a brand new poetry reading from my 3 latest books. They are all available on Amazon. Seedy Town Blues, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, and Sleep Always Calls, my latest release.

#httpswwwamazoncomstoresthomaswcaseauthorb0cl2rkdgxrefap

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

My Brother, Todd

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Thomas W Case

My Brother, Todd

When my oldest brother, Todd,
came back for my mom's funeral,
he had this light about him.
His face was a poem.
Sure, he was the oldest, and he
had a healthy-looking tan from the
hot New Mexico sun, working
outside with turquoise, silver,
and bear claws to make
jewelry for the tourists, but there
was more than that.

He was an artist, and all artists have
a fractured ease about things, but he
lit up. Something from the inside
projected out.
He comforted everyone else, we leaned
on him. His eyes oozed serenity.

A few calendars later, when I traveled
back for his funeral, I saw the same
look on a few of his friends' faces.
His wife told me after the service
that Todd had gotten sober years before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn9IAYo0wZE&t=9s
Here is a link to my YouTube channel, where I read poetry from my latest book, Sleep Always Calls, available on Amazon. My other boos on Amazon are Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems and It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse.

#wwwthomaswcasecom

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

A Meditation on Nature and Instinct

Jun 8 Coleen Mzarriz

Agnes de Lods

A Meditation on Nature and Instinct

The chameleon swallowed hard.
Its tongue: hungry and burnt.
Feelings? A privilege of others.

Eyes wide open,
patiently waiting
for the flickering chance.

Who understands nature, unfiltered?
Too painful, without some sweet utopian IF
Nobody understands the vivid mortal chain.

What’s happening in his mind?
The heart - a precise mechanism
clicking down his time to the end.

Changing colors, matching seamlessly—
And what if the only help is calling?
No! Showing his tongue,
he just wants to catch a fly,
sticking her body to his hard palate.
Protein is so good for living.

But she? Her end makes sense
if we observe patterns.
Nobody notices – nobody’s fault.

Can we be a ripe orange
with green leaves untouched?
Or do we become a passing flavor
for other dining creatures chewing us,
without deeper reflection.

#meditation #nature #instinct