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(20 minute poetry)

Colouring in the haggard look,
*** it's chill outside, I am
painting on the shivers
as slivers of ice drop
from my nose.

Snow is in the air
bare branches on the trees
Dear Santa
I'd like for Christmas
a touch of Summer please.

The scent of cologne
floats softly through the train
an underground smell in
an underground hell
but
at least I got a seat,
cold ears
cold feet
in here it's even colder heat.

A young girl next to me
rosy cheeks
peeks in the compact
makes a snack with blusher
I watch her
it doesn't faze her
eye liner
why?

colouring in the haggard look
my days become a colouring book
every moment is a crayon

Young girl gets off
I stay on,
a smudge of lipstick back of the seat
cold feet?

Always full
ready to pull me
this way
that,
I colour me blue to match
my eyes and toes
the colour goes flat.

Glad I brought my gloves.
Jingle click
keys, hinge
squeak;

step on  five
gallon bucket,
hoist out

window, disappear
Durham Avenue,
walk.
I  hated the scent  of Old Spice and Vick’s
VapoRub in the old couple’s home,
and the stench of ****** diapers

in poverty’s  bedroom, and the stink of
*** and bacon grease in my friend’s
house;  when I remember these

smells I want to throw steel
at glass and cry into
the sun.
You tied  shoelaces together
and tried to hang yourself
from McMillin’s
basketball
hoop.

The neighbors talked about
it for years over flapjacks
and grits.  

They couldn’t understand why
anyone would attempt
suicide. I knew
the reason;

you were homely
and dull, kind of
foul smelling

too.  You failed
at  death, me
at life.
Nothing remains,
not  one  rhizome,
stem, or hairy root

travels, shoots, or buries
itself during barren  fall;
only  impending winter

resides in my garden
this unpredictable season,
and it is waiting for spring.
 Dec 2016 Kyle Kulseth
Ann Beaver
Bite my nails
Just in case.
I carve out this space
Where they cannot hurt me

Now I see
That you belonged
Crammed and curled and far away
Bone to breast
With all the rest
Where you couldn't hurt me.

Pull up all my silk,
All my buckets , and lies.
Retreat. Retract into a cave.
Wait for the moon to rise.
Jehovah the Jesuit said,
hey,
I can do it
we talked him out of it and
now he works in a diner
for minimum wage.

He's nailed it,
the job fits him
like a wet suit for
a thin man

and he dances on spaghetti
a trick he learned in
Italy
but,
he doesn't turn water into
wine.

One time before sometime
before the cross burned
into his conscience
he was a hitman for the
Klansmen
somewhere South of the
Mississippi,

that was then with the
quasi holy men
this is now,

I order eggs
over easy.
I could be sailing down the Seine
doing it again,
erasing
and it's
amazing that I always do.

A tower block kid
who
couldn't get rid of his
fear of heights

streets and council lights
they all look the same
to me,
nights in which I run free
and
days in which I pay,

but it's forgotten when
I put the radio on
when I linger on
the melody

she touches scars that heal
and I feel,
I always
feel,
I've been in enough **** storms to form my own opinions about the bib and brace brigade,
those of the tea and lemonade on Sunday after a night with the streetwalkers on Saturday brigade

and who are they?
let's start with the management
all bent
in my opinion
and the wannabes
say cheese
smile please,
those
selfie stick
make me sick
men

****
it's hard to pick a good side
when
they come in on your blind side
to
kick you up the backside.

and in my opinion
education
is a sleight of hand
by the ruling clan
to rule,

and man
I really don't like it

back to the **** storm
to
form more opinions
and
continuance
is my key.
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