You once had a blossoming rosebush.
Lush with periwinkle peonies, baby blue baby's-breath, crimson carnations.
You plucked a flower for me, a rose so beautifully breathtaking which you compared to my own flawed features in the most poetic prose.
I graciously accepted your gorgeous gift, careful that my fingers wouldn't graze the thorns which adorned the deep green stem.
I held it close, embracing your token of affection with a pounding heart full of humbly hesitant adoration.
But I picked apart the pieces, I skeptically played with the pretty petals. I analyzed their cajoling strokes of coaxing color until the flower wilted warily.
And when I asked you for another, your face flushed and your truth trembled.
You led me to your rosebush, which was now an utterly dull disappointment.
For I saw then that you had wasted away all of the flowers on girls just like me, destroying the beauty which had once flourished in that tempting rosebush, and now you had no more love to give me.

My same sound sits on silky sheets
On silky, silky, silky sheets
Reused first loyal letters meet
Reused first consonants.

My purpose put in perfect place
In perfect, perfect, perfect place
Planted within a pretty phrase
Planted within a word.

My words cement and connect close
And connect, connect, connect close,
Using my fun first feature most
Using my Alphabet.

My fun detail does deserve praise
Does deserve, deserve, deserve praise
Repeated in wonderful ways
Repeated in all that is me.

My same sound sits on silky sheets
Repeated in all that is me.

He pulled me to the precipice of poetry, riddled my ribs with rhymes, my stomach sunk with sonnets, chest collected couplets, back bowed with ballads, each exhale was an epistle melting metaphors against his mouth.

If he would have let me I’d lift lyrics to his lips, deafened those doggerel days armed with arrows of aphorisms; I’d quell those cursory quatrains and offer an oasis of odes and hymns he had left hostage to my heart.

“Bountiful
            Beauty”
broken
         beaten
burnt
         by
badly
          behaved
  boys
           bearing
  burly
               bodies
brusquely
                  built
             by
                “Boisterous  
      Benevolence”.

Corona created chaotic choices.
Crumbling and collapsing decaying capitalism.

Birthing conscious awakenings in all corners of the world.
Kindness became the new currency.

The spoon fed fear, once zealously swallowed.
A Grimm bed time story for children grown up
Always thirsting for more,
having known nothing else.

Before the tide turned.
Before the silence.

And the old ways, became the old ways.
And the new ways -
Free will.
Still feeling like dress up clothes
not yet feeling the fit.

But with the courage and curiosity of pioneers,
We learned to feel comfortable in our own power.
We grew into our new skin, as we shed the old.

Conscious awakened.  
Now flying freely.
Free birds flowing on clear currents.

Skies of infinite possibility
Illuminating landscapes of love,
Dancing in footsteps of joy
Draped in New dreams
and hope
On a newly
birthed Earth.

We called that time,
The Beginning.

sufficiently scrubbing
simple soap
strips stealthy virus’s
slick, lipid skin—
surfactants sending
sabotaged virus
slip sliding sewer bound!



© 2020 Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.

wasting well water wishes
while in waste water wading
waiting waist-high wailing
weeping, wailing—
what a waste!

wasting well water wishes
while we're waxing waning
waning waxing waging
waging, waisting—
wherewithal!

wanting well water wishes
while whole world watching
watching wishing wanting
wanting wishing—
worldwide!

welcome well water wishes
while watching winning wanting
wanting watching winning
winning, winning—
wonderful!

whew!!


© 2020 Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.

(Pentagon E-ring office—executive officer knocks & enters—General motions him in)

XO,
Explain
examinees...

                              Examinee
                              X-11,
                              Xander
                              Xanakis

Experience?

                              Explosives
                              expert.
                              Ex-Army.
                              Executive
                              experience

Exam?

                              Exceptional

Excellent!

                              Excessive

Exessive?
Explain

                              Extreme
                              xenophobe

(expletive)
Exclude

                              Examinee
                              X-12...

Xavier
Xanthopoulos...

Experience?

                             Expert—
                             extraction,
                             exfiltration.
                             Ex-Navy,
                             Executive
                             Experience

Exam?

                             Excelled

                             Extracuricular
                             extras...

Explain

                             Expat,
                             X-games,
                             xylophone...

Expat?

                             Xalapa

(chuckling)
X-games,
xylophone—
(laughs)
X-Factor!

                             (XO nods his head, smiling)

Xenophobic?

                             (shaking head)
                             Xenodochial.
                             Exeptionally
                             xenophilic!

Expectations?

                             Exceeds
                             Expectations

Excellent!

XO,
exclude
examinee
X-11...

                              Excluding
                              Xander
                              Xanakis

Expedite
Xavier
Xanthopoulos

                              Expediting
                              examinee
                              X-12

XO,
excused

                               (XO exits)



© 2020 by Mark Toney.  All rights reserved.