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Glenn Currier Jun 2023
Two birds
waiting for seeds
squirrels hog the feeder
boy girl cardinals a patient
red pair
My first attempt at a Cinquain. I probably did not follow all the rules. I do not have the patience of Ron Sparks    https://hellopoetry.com/ron-sparks/    in his clever poem, So Many Years    https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4720050/so-many-years/
Austin Sessoms Jul 2021
Whenever I need to
Take a number two
(That’s a poo)
You can bet your rear
That I go in fear of
Something near enough to
Sink its fangs into my ***
Toilet snakes!
They’re hiding in the drains
They’re coming for my bottom
I can’t get them off my brain
It’s bad enough that **** is shaped
Exactly like a snake
A ***** ***** cylinder
That could be filled with venom
Or with what I ate
For dinner yesterday
It’s finally digested
Now it looks that way
scream
It’s a snake!
scream
It’s a snake!
You’ve got to flush that **** away
Austin Sessoms May 2012
there once was a turtle named Otto
who called all the Mexicans "vato"
but now he's in heaven
choir turtle eleven
with a rather nice little vibrato
Austin Sessoms Apr 2012
the moon can wink
I swear it's true
at least I think
it winked at you
I wish the sun
could wink as well
but on the sun
it's hot as hell
and with that heat
his eyes are closed
and cannot open
I suppose
Michael Murphy May 2023
You can't eat yogurt
with chopsticks
Believe me I know
I just tried

Not a spoon was in sight
We had Chinese last night
Saw chopsticks and had
to decide

So I plunged with the stick
In the yogurt...not thick
My first scoop
was less than desired

I could be here all day
Yes eating this way
was definitely
making me tired

So I picked up the cup
The chopsticks did chuck
With a slurp and a guzzle
so quick

Lesson learned
Lesson lived
You can't eat yogurt
with chopsticks
Mostly true
I see you there grasshopper,
you're famous, don't you know,
Often when spied on thickets,
mistaken for crickets,
but no more,
you've made yourself quite clear,

You appear in dreams,
"Freedom, independence, enlightenment,
inability to settle down,
So it seems,

Your family's ancestors come from the early Triassic, roughly back 250 million years ago,

John the Baptist ate locusts,
wild honey too,
Still people denied you,
False claims,
YOU,
A vegetarian food,
HA!
ignorant of truth,
Blinded to the fact that
ἀκρίδες means plenty of you,

So bask in the sun,
feeling heat,
acceleration of heart rate,
watching with your 5 eyes,
When a spider comes along,
you can be ready to run,
shall I say ready to lunge.

Author Ven J Arnold
( SacredInkedBlood
People attempted to explain that the locusts were in fact a suitably ascetic vegetarian food such as carob beans, notwithstanding the fact that the word ἀκρίδες means plainly grasshoppers.
Greek: "ἀκρίδες καὶ μέλι ἄγριον, akrídes kaì méli ágrion."
Anais Vionet Apr 2023
slang..
updogged = when you chip in to keep a conversation trend going
fit = gorgeous
buje = unexplainable glamor
football minute = a minute, that with time-outs, lasts a half an hour.
crute = cute but cringy
women's-rights = a really funny joke

In the subscribed course of science - and eventually medicine - night hours seem multiplied by the rough enforcement of study, but this tale is not about that, fair reader.

It’s about a reception, last Friday night. It hardly matters what it was for, there are so many. This one was first class - so please, have some decorum ladies. Our cast is Lisa, Leong, Sunny and I (4 roommates). We stay clumped together, on nights out, like conjoined quadruplets because there’s safety in numbers.

There were about sixty people there, mostly students. Lisa and I had gotten invitations, Leong and Sunny are our plus-ones. After making the rounds, doing our meeting and greeting due diligence, we’d captured one corner of a long table and began enjoying some actual drink-drinks. We’re usually studying, trying to prove ourselves like rats in a maze, so we go a little crazy when they let us out and about.

Is it me, or are free drinks just better than other flavors? There was a long line of ‘Tom Collins-ses,’ on the bar which one could freely walk up and take. I think they’re made with lemon juice, sprite, gin and the tears of fallen angels.

These were quite good, each featuring both a lemon slice AND a cherry. Like I said, first class. We were taking turns getting them, two of us going up, each returning with 2 drinks. That way we didn’t look like 4 hookers hanging on the bar like horses at a trough (decorum).

Socials, receptions, fundraisers - whatever - can be social minefields. Even in how you greet people. Do you shake hands? I’d heard that shakes were out due to COVID, but if so, they’re back now. Some people were even huggers - your professor initiates a hug and you just want to avoid head-butting him. Monday morning though, you better hand in that paper, girlie.

At one point (I was mothering my third Collins), Sunny said, “Meeting people is awkward,”
“Being out in the world is awkward,” I updogged.
“Not for Lisa,” Leong said, and everyone sniggered.
“Why not ME?” Lisa said, looking up from her phone.
“Because you’re fit,” Sunny said, “everywhere you go, it’s like ‘Goodfellas,’” she mimics various, waving people, “Hi Lisa, or Hey Lisa," and “Yo Lisa!” with the point & nod.
We all chuckled again, but Lisa said, “It’s not true.”

Alas, it is true. I’ve come to rely on Lisa’s buje. Places seem livelier, less daunting and more welcoming when she’s there. She draws all the attention - I might as well be her beaded handbag and I’m fine with that. In unfamiliar situations, she’s a shield, handling the initial introductions and handing people off to me, like a track-and-field sprinter passing the baton. Without Lisa, in new situations I’m quiet. Quiet doesn’t mean shy - that’s a false assumption, I’m a natural watcher.

I’m skipping the mingling and speechifying - the boring stuff. Apparently, it’s all about us, we need to make a plan and do more, about everything. Interestingly, of the 8 organizers (the adults) five had literary first names. There was a Jude, a Tess, an Ophelia, a Clarissa and a Cordelia. Granted, they’re all fictional characters, but why name a kid after a protagonist who came to a tragic end - to seem well read?

As Leong and Sunny returned with our fifth round, Sunny pronounced “Tom Collins for President!” and we all raised our glasses. Just then Leong’s phone whooped with a text. It took her football minute to fish the contraption out of her itty-bitty disco-clutch, and then she fumbled it to the floor like an oiled baby.

It was a crute moment that, at first, struck us like women's-rights - but it had a sobering effect too. We agreed, in the silence of exchanged glances, that perhaps we were having too much fun, and we soon made our usual quiet and dignified exit.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Contraption “a device or gadget.”
Anais Vionet Apr 2023
love doesn't dash, it loiters
with repeated movements like music
and beautifully crude endearments

love doesn't dash, it lingers
with rhythms like dance
and boastfully rude aphorisms

so dally with me, my love
lollygag, lounge and in a while
we'll share breaths and mess about
Zywa Feb 2023
Narcissus prefers

to play alone, with mirrors --


as his string quartet.
Composition "Partita Ritardata" (2022, Paul Pankert) for violin and electronics, performed by Paul Pankert in the Organpark on February 25th, 2023

Collection "org anp ark" #281
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