Presented Without Comment

I rode up to your window.

Then outside two stories down from you
I was looking on the ground for to

Hunt up small sticks and rocks,
Like signal flares to launch.

But you were already watching.
A distress call detected before it ever was sent.

Still,

I bounced a pebble off the window screen
And with a smile asked if you would meet

Me down by the water.
Where I was shuffling my feet,

When you met me on the rail bridge.
Water rushing beneath.

Took a pause for a long while.
The day could've been longer, were it earlier in the year.

The Sky is Blue, Unless It's Azure.

Legs rasping in time,
Cricket plays beautifully.
Dance tiny Cricket!

“I wrote it for you.”

“I get that. Who else do you call Cricket?”

“No one.”

“That was a rhetorical question - and for the record, female crickets don't chirp.”

“Oh.”

“It's essentially the orthopteran equivalent of gorillas pounding their chests, there's nothing beautiful about it.”

“It never hurts to portray things in a positive light.”

“So if I write a gentle, metaphor cloaked haiku on orchiectomies, would it make the subject matter any less grotesque?”

“I suppose not.”

“A stunning metaphor for our relationship! An attractive, ill-conceived mess wrapped in your optimism and nailed to the floor by my immovable realism.”

“I love you.”

“I know. Is that all you wrote to say?”

“Mostly.”

“I love you too... don't ask for me back.”

“Why?”

“Because female crickets don't chirp.”

Amndestyll

I saw this and thought, ''NEAT!" So, I played around with the idea longer than I care to admit, and this is the most compelling thing I could come up with...

amndestyll

Any thoughts? It seems a shame to not explain it at all... I'll tell if asked, but it's really more fun to decipher the/ascribe your own meaning.

An Ode to Something Less Mainstream

Appearently, it's National Poetry Month -- as good an excuse as any to usher myself back into the writing habit. So, without any excuses or further adieu..... 

Amidst the slurs and dribble, 

mentholated smoke, 

scribbles, 

songs, and sour mashes,

survived by our whimsy, 

we, 

the reckless, 

disconcerted, 

connoisseurs of the cool and contemptible, 

claim our birth right – to live and die blue ribbon lives.

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Now it's your turn! As a prompt, here are five items one might find at an auction -- include them in a poem: Flintlock Pistol, Houdini's teeth, pinball machine, (deed to) an industrial complex, silver rings.

Meh. That's all I've got for today. Even if you opt not to use this prompt I could use a five item suggestion in turn (it's not as interesting picking the items myself.)

For other submissions and suggestions please visit The Germ of the Idea. Happy April, Poets!

Wanderlust

I'm a jerk who has not been writing much recently, but in all fairness, I am a very busy jerk. The semester is nearly at an end and it's time to cram for finals and write things that are not fun to write. More to come after the 16th of December. In the mean time, here is something that was actually written some time ago and recently rejiggered.

Many a day I've walked along, through varying tones of tan and blue – split at the horizon – through lands naked as earth will allow itself to be. My nap sack bore the scares of time in the form of several tears; some mended, others not. Calloused hands and taut muscle bore witness to a life of labored survival. A wrinkled brow implies years of introspective contemplation. In the desert life is hard so you keep moving, body and mind – keep things limber. If I walked until the soles of my feet blistered, popped and oozed pus in protest, I'll know I've gotten to wherever I was going and I would rest until fit to journey again.

When I knocked on your door, you answered with dripping, moisture darkened hair, wrapped in a towel. You offered lemonade, ham and eggs, and your body. It must be lonely in the desert, I deduced. What I couldn't cognate was how you managed such a well stocked fridge or why precious water would be wasted on priming.

Yes, the miles of ambulating over shifting, wind-swept dunes, and desiccated flats, had left me wanting for anything that would make me feel more human. I sucked the moisture from your hair as we made love, face to face. I was born anew. With feet bound, I started off again on my great journey, to whatever place is as far as I can go. You took another shower. I would have loved to stay but the isolated comfort of that place seemed too placating – stagnation, to me, translates as death, in spite of the fact that every journey ends the same.

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Wait! Before you leave these here interwebs, make your way to these fine reads:

Andrew Kaspereen's disconnecting from the missing link, is a powerful gut-check.

Remind yourself what it means to be human with Paul Mullin's The other us.

Thankful For...

Nothing special but I couldn't resist. Once more, Happy Thanksgiving!

The food in my belly

The air in my lungs

The roof over my head

The warmth of a hearth

Warmth in general,

When the days are cold

Cold when the days are hot

Smell

Touch

Taste

Sound

Smiles

Sun at my back

Wind in my face

Earth at my feet

Sky round my head

The unattainable perfection

(Something to shoot for)

All good things

Some of the bad

(Juxtaposition is key)

Day to sleep in late

Snow days

(Similar but distinct)

A pot to piss in

A leg to stand on

(Cliches)

Room to stretch

Friends to hassle

A love to desire

Family to...

Family.

Science

Celestial bodies

Zippers

The Rent is High But At Least the Taps Are Out

Sorry for the bit of lag these days. I've been trying to do more reading than writing. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this. Thanks for reading, have a happy Thanksgiving!

Brian Gaff made a somber gait through the dingy, flyer riddled door of the local backstreet pawn shop. He kept his head low, tucked into the hood of his plain gray pullover – an article of clothing he favored particularly for its common, low key, nature.

He fiddled with something in his pocket, something small, which he turned over again and again in his hand, until the memory of the object rubbed itself into his finger tips. Three quick steps up to the glass counter top and Brian slapped the object onto the counter with a thudded clink.

“Another?'' The wizened shop keep inquired. ''That would make it the third this week,'' she said, tugging at a tuft of hair protruding from the coffee bean mole on her chin.

''Sounds right,'' Brian replied meekly.

''You just find these things?'' The keep asked, now tweaking the mole as though it were a nipple through which her curiosity could be aroused further.

Brian lifted his hand off the silver quarter – the untarnished portrait of Washington gleamed under the mercury store lights. ''I collect 'em – or used to,'' Brian lied. Truth is, knocking off parking meters ala Cool Hand Luke was easy, and no one seemed to understand the true value of certain currency.

''Well, rate hasn't changed,'' the keep snipped, releasing her mole. ''One dollar.''

''This one's different,'' Brian assured her, ''1935, very fine condition. Minted in San Francisco. Look.” Brian fingered the quarter toward the far end of the glass counter.

''Don't mean a lick to me,'' The keep chided through the ash gray hairs fell over her face as she leaned to elbow down on the counter. ''Silver is silver. Don't matter when or where it took a shape.''

Brian, too tired to haggle, put his palm up and curled his fingers inward repeatedly. The keep placed two dollars in Brain's hand saying, “Tell 'yer dad we miss him at church, will ya?''

“Will do, Mrs. B.'' Brian curtly replied, ducking his head to conceal an uncomfortable smile.

The more money Brain could get, he thought, the longer he could stay clear of his dad's bender on the anniversary of his mother's suicide.

Brain left the store the same way he had entered, somber and slow, in no hurry to be anywhere.

''It's a shame 'bout the Gaff boy,'' Mrs. B said to her husband when he came down form the apartment above the store.

''Aye. Damn shame. His father ought know better. Tellin' lies 'bout his mom like he does. Boy's old 'nuff to forgive his pa the truth, but it's the lie spreadin' 'em both thin 'nuff to crack.''

“Aye.”