She first met the mirror when she was
about four and a half years old,
strutting around in Mommy's heels and pearls,
wanting to grow up just like Mama:
beautiful and
strong, intelligent, and
successful. She was
young, sweet and pretty,
dancing the years away
without a care.

Mother always taught her how to behave like a lady:
manipulate manipulation
ever so sweetly-
so gently-
so secretly-
discretely-
and smile.
Never cry unless you are
alone.

You must work hard to be happy,
and happiness isn't free.
(And remember happiness
can be taken away from you,
but don't let it look like it can, because
that's how you beat it.)

Always look in the mirror
to see  what everyone else can see.

Never feel sorry for yourself.

Lola was a clever, and rebellious girl,
politely mischievous, and prettily spoiled.
She learned to **** with
kindness, to
be so sweet it made her sick to her own stomach
and she simply wanted to run to the bathroom
and ***** all the undeserved
praise and adoration.

But, she soaked it all
up like a sponge, primping herself in front
of the mirror
every day.

And as she grew, the mirror stood there,
with years of little dresses, and mother's
jewelry, and cute new tights every Christmas
prancing across the glass; epitome of
a child: selfish, heartless,
innocent, sweet.

Mistakes could not be made,
and if they were,
they weren't mistakes.
She always painted over her sins like ornaments on a tree;
add a little glitter here, a little paint there,
and every thing will be
alright for everyone
to see.
Just smile, Lola, darling,
and breathe.
(Breathe.)

She is a classic and tragic beauty,
this Lola. One day,
she came to a realization
that shattered her mind.

She stood in front of the mirror
and as she looked, she found she could not
recognize the girl inside.

The girl in the mirror was all grown up, and
could be anyone she wanted to be. Except,
the girl in the mirror didn't look
like Lola, or sound
like Lola,  or do the things
Lola liked to do.

The girl looked happy there, in her pretty clothes,
her sparkling smile,
her polished shoes, but

Lola stood before the mirror
confused because she couldn't see herself.

Lola wanted to see herself.

She looked behind the mirror.
She discovered
that the mirror was different on both
sides.

One side was reflective,
and the other
was see-through.
But the side that was see-through were rose-tinted,
and made everything shimmer
and glow.

"Oh **** it,"
said Lola in a drunk rage one day,
and she punched the mirror
And watched it fall to the floor.

To hell with it, she thought, and picked up
the pieces of her shattered reflection,
and made herself a mask.
She glued them all
together, in the shape of her face, so that it
would fit only her.

She learned to like how the world looked
with rose colored lenses, and she supposed that
would have to do.

She wakes up each day, with a cup of coffee and,
a cigarette, putting on her make-up, her jewelry,
her mirrored mask--
like a a barbed wire fence
wrapped in silk ribbons.

Everyone smiles at her,
and she smiles too.

She can only see the the beauty
in everything she sees, and all eyes that look at her
can only see the beauty in themselves.

Lola keeps her mask a secret, so that everyone will
smile.

She doesn't mind that she's
invisible now.
The world smiles at her,
and she's free behind her mask.

Everything is okay now,
except

Lola regrets never asking the girl in the mirror
Who she was.

it is temporary
the mirrored faces reflecting back into one-
it is as temporary as the sun.

it is temporary,
this burning body of youth.
it is temporary insanity
and temporary truth.
it is movable pieces
in the bottle of corked vermouth.
it is ungrateful youth
and all her fantasy
her ****** opportunity-
the days of endless sunshine
fogged with cascading rain,
full of superficial pain,
that only sets into the skin to rise up
much later.
blemished traitors
of your failing past.

it is temporary,
the primping of memories undone-
it is as temporary as the blazing gun.

it is temporary,
it is fleeting
and no matter how these products
keep us believing
they are nothing more
then distractions, they are deceiving.
as the sand is thrown in our glossy eyes
and stars that once opened in the night sky
just for us-
open no more.
we retire from the bridled gore
of youth and her tireless war
and forever more,
must sing the songs of fading youth.
must curse the uncouth,
the way the years
have wandered by
without any proper goodbye
and we, as strangers
in this looming unknown
we must come to know
as past our prime,
past our time,
and be spectators
into the theatre of vanity
we are now excluded from.
oh, how we wish we’d undone
the regrets and missteps-
but we are denied
to ever confide
the wisdom we’ve gained
since beauty and youth
have fled-
we are condemned
to be voiceless passengers
on our train ride to the end.

yet, this is temporary.
as temporary as you and i,
the ailing sky,
the aching stars,
the rolling hilltops,
tracing to the mouth of the river
and when we are at once delivered
to a final resting stop-
we pray, we hope
as tooth and nail dragged
we try to cope,
to be temporary no more-
temporary no more-
temporary no more-
temporary no more-

I saw a dream
once upon a time.
Don’t know when
but often it seems
as old as time.

Until comes the interpreter
goodness knows
where that’s feet are.
No one was primping
but the meaning shows up
all in all is a mirror.

Oh, when did it all begin?
Now, looking at the mirror
often it makes me wonder,
is there a past or future,
besides an omnipresent like now
truly a full moon picture.

You are my dandylion
and I wait with stealth of a summer day
for you to stop preening in the field
of high grass and green bottles.
Yes. I wait, stroke you gentle
with the ease of the summer breeze
as you sway and waltz
for the primroses and the cricket.
I watch with willful patience
like the ripening of the wild belladonna.
as you tease with your burst of yellow
for the field mouse and the garden gnome.
Yes. I will wait like summers heat
And when you are done,
And when your pretty
petals
lay
limply
at
your
roots,
I will take you gentle into my summers grasp
and with my summers breathe
blow your beautiful grey afro out unto the world to swallow.
Dandylion, pretty primping boy are you.

Sahn 6/7/2014

She steps out of bed in the morning. Standing, stretching, rubbing half open eyes. She doesn't even so much as glance in the mirror as she walks softly across the cold, hardwood floor and into the bathroom to shower. She turns on the water and tests it to see if it's too cold or too hot. Jumping in she washes away the filth of sad dreams and her wandering mind. Stepping out she wraps herself in a warm fuzzy towel and shuffles quietly into her room, making sure she doesn't wake the rest of her house, she closes her door and turns on her music. As she stares in the mirror she turns up the volume on her iPod so that it's drowns out the sounds of her thoughts calling her ugly, pale and sickly. She sighs and begins to pile on the makeup. Fixing her face to perfection, pulling and magnifying every eyelash and covering every pimple. Once she is semi-satisfied with her product filled face she starts on her hair. Plowing thought tangled curls, straightening and curling, primping and poking and prodding until every piece of hair from root to tip is burned to a crisp. She smiles to her reflection, at least it's a little prettier than before, she thinks. Yet, she's still unsatisfied, she frowns again. She'd rather have her entire face covered and unseen. She moves on to her wardrobe, not liking anything in her closet she raids her mothers. Finding something suitable and baggy to cover her layers of fat (the whole 150 pounds of it), she looks in the mirror one more time. Unhappy with the finished product she checks her watch and realizes she doesn't have time to change. She trumps out the door to the big, bumpy, smelly, annoying bus and listens to the other kids have fun. When she gets to school she walks to the looming doors alone, then walks alone to her locker. In fact, she spends the entire day alone. Even though her school holds over 500 people at this very moment. After school she walks to the same bus she arrived in. Smelling and feeling the same as earlier in the day. She arrives home to an empty house and makes some ramen noodles and tea. Then she sits and does homework and watches TV until around midnight and goes into her room, brushes her teeth and goes to sleep. Just to wake up and do it all again tomorrow.

honest, the ones that hurt the most to write
are the self-love poems because
they remind me no one's around
to do it for me. they're also the most rewarding
to finish for the same reason. sometimes i sit at
the hickory writing desk my grandfather built
waiting for clarity to be chirped out of the bulb of a
trumpet or true love honked longingly from the
fever nose of a saxophone but it never happens that way.
instead i write my feelings -- veined hand curled
around a crude pencil with gnawed erasers at both ends.
or idly scratch the flowers from the wallpaper
while the moon looks down like a twisted bottle-cap
smashed in half by macho fingers into the gray
asphalt sky primping its reflection in the pond,
i think that someday i'll learn to love myself the same
way, by facing all my bad parts in the sharp mirror and my
friends abandoning me. each time they do i hold church inside
my own individual heart on sundays or saturdays,
huddled tight on the first frozen december morning around
a hymnal fire altar, only standing to **** or light another
stick of peppered citrus incense. but right now
i've got a crumb of real turkish hash
and only spittle left in the wine bottle reciting Keats
to the empty moon-painted cow field across the brittle fence
and laughing with lilac bulbs pasted on my face, watching
a low cloud thread itself between the skinny
barbs of pecan tree fingers as i wander through
the orchard. the stars hop restlessly like chigger bugs
and sparkle raw in my
swimming-pool-blue eyes but the ones that
blink back really aren't stars at all.

New Lovers are interesting creatures
Primping our feathers and polishing tongues
So that rehearsed stories slip out with ease

Ahhhhhh...these resplendent but dangerous times

The preening and waxing of word, as the hands of the clock move
Become less playful lures and more so ... expectant promises
That can resemble and feel like chain link


Ahhhhh...these resplendent but dangerous times


Oh but the temptation to throw caution to the wind is too strong
We tear off our clothes and dive into love's depths
And we forget our mother's caution "Still Waters Run Deep!"

*Ahhhhh...these resplendent but dangerous times

When I miss you, the world goes dark
When I miss you, I can't breathe
I feel it in my chest
Echoing in our now quiet room
I guess it's just my room now.

I miss you and my lungs won't work
When I miss you, it all hurts
Every **** thing hurts
And I don't know how to make it go
I can't put it into words.

I miss you, and it is bitter
I miss you in my heart-soul
Yes-It all feels empty
And I don't know how to make it stop
I can't make it go away

I miss you, my heart is hollow
I can't sleep without you here
It has been 2 months now.
Yeah - I keep track of how long it's been
Like a drug, I can't let go

I miss you - my body is numb
You say it wasn't my fault,
But I don't believe you
Yeah - I blame myself, what did you think?
That I would just move on? No.

No - I am stuck here like this, now
Your ghost haunts our old bedroom
Comes and goes like vapor
Or a cloud of dust - yeah, more like dust
Settled over my life

And no matter how much dusting
How much cleaning or primping
Or moving that I do,
You will never truly be gone - no,
You will never truly leave

Because this house - room is haunted
Haunted by the one thing that
Will never truly go
It's you, it's always been you - phantom,
Ghost of could have's and almost's

Oh how these Strings wrap our Candied Dreams bear
When sordid Fantasies plead our Wishes real
Though caught by Intent from Good Sages hear
Submit to Heart his Childish Play reveal
Though evident Time and Geography states
And Primping Albums we'd like to Assume
These Spectral Lines think to earn our Best Rebates
Then soon Collapse his Investment subsume
For all his Campaigns ribboned his Image
Such his Craft only forced us to beknow
As Profits and Shares feed his Entourage
And only for Them his True Seedlings grow.
So why the Trap we swallow still Fancy
Restrict potent Friends - and salt Family?

How stunning
Can a single,
Lone human being be
With skin so smooth,
Flawless
Like a stone
Washed over and perfected
From what seems like
Years,
Blossoming in all sorts
Of colors
Like the vibrant reds
The same shade
As the most adorable blush
One I'm unable to decipher
Whether it is
A natural beauty
Or a masqued era
Shadowing eyes
Behind the truth,
What lies just below the surface,
Of what you think you see.
Your lips stick to what you're saying
Concealing what you're so afraid of
What you're trying to hide
The very foundation
Of who you are.
The smile you show,
Gleaming at the world around you,
To them,
May be completely normal,
Absolutely genuine.
But I know you,
And that air of confidence
Comes with it,
Much more consequence
Because,
What you never learned for yourself
While you were
Too busy
Primping your hair
And checking your nails
Was to focus
On what was truly beautiful.
So you spent endless money
Crafting a perfect face
For imperfect people
To impress those
Same people you seem to hate
For no good reason
And what killed me
Is that what you forgot
I noticed while you were with those who didn't relate much
Was that your mind was the most beautiful part you
And it never had on makeup.

Glass box mirror,
she's primping and prepping,
neon lights in a smoky bar,
alluring and unrelenting,
swaying and swarming she is on the hunt, praying she isn't the one being preyed on.

The ticks of the clock are wavering under the sound of snoring through the house
I cannot see the clock
And it seems I've been here so long
I wonder if time has stopped,
Slowed, drooling down
Their cheeks
Onto a pillow

As I slyly try to slip
unnoticed
into that same unconsciousness
Search party flashlights shine thoughts to my mind
Pierce me for a moment
So bright
I must look

And ****-
Just like that,
There goes the exit sign

So I flop around like a sunbather
Flustered
No light to soak,
While the next head over
(My sisters)
Is draped in a French fry crown
Being fanned by her burger henchmen
The McDonalds queen
orders her bidding done

And mom
Below in the basement
Is caught in her teens
Primping feathery hair
To an 80's pop tune
Chanting into her hairbrush
Until she becomes Stevie nicks herself

And next door,
and on this street,
and the next,
People enter their portals
To find (or forget) the untouchable realm of their minds
And I lie
And I wait

You're not my type
Not in the slightest
But yet, there you are making me ever so nervous
And yet, here I am primping myself up for no reason

You're not my type
Not in the conventional ways
But yet, here you are saying my name and I blush
And yet, here I am writing about someone who doesn't notice me

You're an anomaly in my day to day functions and I am ready to explore

Is it wrong to want to write hit songs
smoke from bongs while wearing thongs
move the throngs into song
about long dongs and walking along beaches…
what is the problem with tripping with dips
and nipping buds while ripping joints
flipping skirts and dripping squirters
primping limp ***** in front of debutants…
it has to be alright to fight the right wing blighters
near sighted and mighty with Jesus
high on tea leaves and asking why can’t **** victims
just have the baby at night
tis their plight….
Aghast, I blast past raspy voiced smokers
Flashing my press pass at the ****** masses
I lash lasses with pizazz on the bleachers
preaching all the time about reaching for Zion
screeching teachers speechify
addressing lecherous miser’s
bent by societies plyers ….

The floor cared not about the transient presence of my bare, calloused feet upon it, and it returned no hushed squeaks or slaps to the questioning foot-falls of my tired, heavy steps. In fact, the only indicator I had moved about at all were the spattered sand drifts that flaked off my soles slowly with the grinding of my heels in each trip.
A soft, self satisfied whisper came from the edges of my cotton skirt as it dipped down to drink momentarily, the cool insulation of the tile floors grazing its parched lips.
I hadn't had a cigarette in months. hadn't even crossed my mind, truly. Something in the sticky summer air called me to revisit old tendencies, and it was admittedly maddening trying to resist.  I had already done the hard part. That was, going about acquiring the ****** things. I was out of a car due to some irresponsibility and malfeasance on my own part, and the engine blowing on my former transport. Besides, I had no real notion where the nearest filing station was, seeing as this wasn't my city. For a moment, I let the unforeseeable notion sweep me away with it, and tried persuading it to disappear.
It was merely out of chance that on the way home from the beach earlier this evening, our car would be in need of filling up. As he fiddled with the various buttons and nozzles on the marquee, I slipped discretely inside and purchased a  pack of my old favorites. I contemplated lighting one up immediately but suddenly, I felt ashamed for my relent in defense against temptation, and instead tucked them away, un-tampered.
The sun and all of its steaminess had sunken back into the earth, and a cool sea breeze swelled about me and rushed in through the passenger side window to ruffle my hair. I had spent twenty minutes into primping it just right, but it was the end of the night and had decided to give up caring as I edged my head closer to that blustering wind.
Back home again, my fingers found the crisp plastic-lined corners of cardboard stuck in the left side of my clutch and, once again I toyed with the idea of giving in. No use, I had nothing to spark with.  I let the package fall back into its place in exasperation.
I suppose it's better this way.

C.e.M. June 22

Primping Vapor
Forever a Laughter
Of
Buddha
Belly
Blossom
Booming
Reminder
Of Minds
Nothingness
Properly Attired
Suit
Of
Non committal

After caffeine fix
after long lost documents
from my adolescence
(the old country)
reviewed and dictated into English
after primping
for my love to love me
I indulge myself
in self exam
I'm a good boy "are'nt I"
likable and lovable
which is not bad
after all these years
of turmoil
women, children
stress
one-on-one sessions
sessions with family
(those are the worst)
making a living
but here I am
alive and hale
having fun
with what I've been given

And he wouldn't care
If she stopped working so hard
Stopped spending those hours
Primping
Prepping
Practicing
To gain his attention.
To catch that single moment
To pray she stays on his mind.
And he wouldn't care
What she does,
She's all beauty to him
In the little things.

I see humor in permutation, bad installation, cosmetical amputation
as my detached leg is mucho funny because it bends at the fun knee
after post-Europid war with ghost ***** Al Gore whose ****'s sore
from sleek perturbations of ontological mayhem in a pig runt's pore

I see that you are limping
before ****** who need pimping
before queers who fake primping
I see that you are skimping
on a loveless blood & a bloodless love
flowing through slashed arteries that I'm crimping

The *** has been ******
And ****** off
I love women
And the company of women
I attract the crazy
Powerful
Wolf *******
They are hungry
When they get around
Me

Whom they cannot tame or Be Tamed by

And we don't know if that's good

So we Circle in the night and the day

Expend energy in a flashy way

What is at a level vain generates energy in the universe Mains

Pumping primping
porking

One day at a sublime




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

No stuntman/woman showed up,
albeit intervened in timely fashion
to thwart mishaps experienced
courtesy me I bemoan,
and poet lore re: yet of Perkiomen Valley
Pennsylvania, United States of America
never suffered major illness nor broken bone
(specifically life and death health crisis,
nor compound fracture respectively)
cuz guardian angel intervened,
though aim of mine heretofore
forthwith literary endeavor
merely expressing, exhibiting, examining...
a painfully ****** mishap,

where Lady Luck gussied up as crone
perhaps female spirit of  
Matthew Scott Harris
in the guise of wizened older woman
himself affecting doppelganger
as grotesquely personified...
well lemme cease written jibber jabber
without rhyme nor reason
nor sense and sensibility
analogous to being subjected to annoying drone  
and describe and elucidate
how stunted man (me) amazingly graceful,
nevertheless, yours truly accident prone

The following bonafide poem
fleshed out ~ October 2019
I did accidently revisit
painfully suffering with silent true grit.

Aw shucks, I did sustain
moderately serious injury
series of unfortunate events
ludicrous and quite insane,
yours truly did previously explain
while crouching (think

Tony as papier mâché Tiger),
aye fell backward, where sharp
desktop corner didst train
ground zero right side rib cage domain
punched thru L.L. Bean Autumn jacket
zapped, tattooed, lacerated... bloodstain

proof positive bow tocks sing
arrowing, fletching, notching,
piercing, searing targeting ... pain
prestidigitation went awry
courtesy "fake" legerdemain,
yours truly incapacitated plain

vanilla and simple
found me mortally slain,
more tortuous than spelunking thru
eye of needle size tunnel,
no bigger than sand grain,
and/or trumpeted by suzerain

arrogant, boastful, contemptuous...
arid, barren, cerebrally desolate brain,
a definitive liability,
(not just from Ukraine
stormy din yelled brouhaha), profane
but..., I wholeheartedly ascertain,

the former commander in chief
an absolute zero inane
purpose twittering acrimonious, disdain
calamitous, egregious, gangrenous..., arcane
rumbustious, venomous,
zealous... carte blanche

bigoted, misogynistic, racist..., inhumane
blathering, excoriating, insulting...
seeding, planting, muckraking... dogbane
demanding obeisance till
germane henchmen verstehen
unwittingly declaring himself
jejune bloodhound August huss

preening, primping, proofing
orange-blond mane
more attentive to applying
gray matter to strain
Midas coated self
important fiery propane
verbal quid pro quo

explosions inevitably spray'n,
nothing but antisemitism, barbarism,
demagoguery, hatred...
diatribes roiling the masses
til rabid rantings attain
intolerant decibel threshold
usurping totalitarian refrain.