Spinning high to Fiction, a7x. the speakers' lack of bass is thin wailing across wood floor over bare feet slapping varnish surface twisitng in maroon boxers and 90's LOVE striped tank, coffee cooling with a pound of sugar next to pretzel rods salty and orange tiger bowl
don't judge the odd hair, i shed like a retreiver

The creature feeds on special spokens, tasting the air for more she realizes the brainstorm has passed her door. Travel the day with luciferin trails as you gleam fairly in the lowlight
shower is needed on this continent as well

Not telling me you care
Not responding
Not asking me if i’m okay
Never being the first one to talk
Not saying anything when I text you at night
Making me feel worthless
Making me hate my life
Lying
Making me sad
Making me feel like I care about you and like you more than you care about me and like me
Making me feel like it was my fault
Being the highlight and the lowlight of my day
Letting me down
Making me feel left out
Making me cry myself to sleep

I ain't ever belonged to no one--
not even those that came before,

those frightened immigrants and spanish tangerines tumbling
below deck, toppling into the scattered bed rolls that still smell
like cumin and tarragon, sea and spiced salt seeping through the strong lungs of every youthful San Fermin boy in Pamplona
the raised voices in Seville singing San Jose and my mother's
maiden name--

i fumble in the dark for things to keep me rooted
the strong arms of working men and their weak hearts
barely beating
secondhand boys breathin' dollars an' truck exhaust
lookin' for their match, someone that'll fit
or do 'em just right
sharp things that'll sit pretty and
look good in lowlight,

and me with my tulip bulb heart
plantin' myself in wax, in muck,
in Utqiaġvik, Alaska
during the Polar Nights,
in my palms, beneath pillows, sproutin out the lungs of
those unassumin' who think i'm healin' them
of all the silly, misplaced  ideas

but they got me creepin' out the sides of their cheeks
hookin' these delicate stems
leaving thin perforations all along their sheets
gratin and sharpenin they's teeth--

used to think i was the sun
real pretty and smooth like them stones
you find down near the river
or leaves just 'bout to fall, clingin
to low hangin' branches
just askin to be plucked or swept away
but i'm not any of those things

just a girl
lord, the awful truth
just a girl.

The streetlights march like soldiers
Berets raised to an empty cause
A forgotten dictator;
He left like the sun

The clouds sit on balconies
Listening to the eulogy
Read by the soft spoken wind;
It whispers unspoken wishes

The lowlight like limelight
Against a backdrop in decay
The paint peeling;
The ceiling damp with rain

I sit and drink the air above me
And so the ground beneath tells me
In hushed breaths:
"The shadows will soon belong"

poetry with two spoons and a salt shaker

~for poet, writer, Lora Lee, unexpectedly~

my symphonic orchestral accompaniment today, musically
unlimited, except by lack of disowning skill, a voice unkempt,
spoons and salt shaker, there in-nate rhythmic opinions off key,
worse, my manly word-smithy, out o’town in June, July, August too?

He, having an affair with my she-muses, left me bereft & berated,
helplessly hoping, the timpani of my words clashing, overrated,
woeful under-something, betraying my need for spicy sriracha,
poetry, sans hamburger helper, no-tasty, even less-than-average

everyone comes rushing in to the kitchen, hearing my to-sky-voices
howling, thinking something wrong, the four instruments rack up a cacophony of rhythmic-less noises, words emerging, to-a-person, they announce, “you’re no Allen Ginsburg, ppp-please not so early next time”

alas, they don’t know the poems are coming hot and heavy, guess I’ll
go outside, serenade them birdies in the trees, the striped bass in the bay, the rabbits procreating/sleeping/eating under their (our) dock

the squirrels know better, have skedaddled to the next-door-neighbor who feeds them classical stuff with a dollop of jazz creme mixed in, but I don’t care, cause I got all day, the rest of my life, to amuse me & you too

to refine the qualitative, to improve my creative, I’ve gone “native” and the rush is the best, the wind beneath my spectacles (haha) drives my rhyming to lowlight heights of prosody, besides seems

everybody has gone to a different beach, so it’s just me and the giant blackbirds cawing holy hell noises, and I’m thinking seriously about baking pie, but they just don’t get the hint, how annoying is that!

harrumph!

BESIDES GOTTA WRITE SOME SERIOUS STUFF...

i wish to eat her petals
and swell their colors
from lowlight misty rose
to highlight magenta

and have her
burst into my mouthings
an unspoken
torque

bent toward winged skies

4 A.M My Lai;

in the lowlight
colors move off my skin at different speeds-

i’ll smear them into filth,
a vignette
plastered and permanent,

and beg
for my face to be scanned like a barcode.

As midnight embers simmered in the lowlight of the moon,
Guarded by the Gypsies was his ancient, mystic rune.
I flew between the shadows, silence kept me well.
Fabled was his presence, for long ago he fell.

Stilled in Aegean waters, below Poseidon's tide,
I found him resting gently, his beauty struck my pride.
Spectral was this muse who came to me each night,
His grief hooked me deeply, besotted with his plight.

Freedom banished ever long, the eons called to me,
Yet I could not risk the chance to set him free.
Golden light emitted forth, his lips were upon mine,
Softly, "I'm sorry," then I was shackled to the brine.

And as the waves rocked me safely to sleep,
Forever embalmed in the quiet, bluish deep,
My tears carried to the surface my last mortal thought:
Thus depleted of hope, with love hence fraught.