The Wrongdoing

He was premium light lager -
Brewing in the confines of my mind.
I stole him from refrigeration
With a muggy headiness looming…
Better to take than smear salt

Into the burn - that would hurt
Like a cat scratch, and linger, like
A faint wail in a Hitchcock matinee.
I can’t justify the Miserere.
It doesn’t taste like beer because

It’s ancient, like Mother Teresa.
That’s my excuse, I say before
You feel the incinerating burn.
A perspective on deep dark sins
Requires a placating grip on

The reality of the world -
It’s raped time like an unwrapped
Gift, given to you on the 25th,
Only for you to spout it up, allowing
The insides to settle in remorse.

Room #4157

Living in code blue, without a pot to piddle in.
Man’s largest toilet, dotted by the Dogwood, idles
Outside with shaken leaves made for wiping.
I can’t race to the wilderness. I can’t jog. I surely can’t fly.
The loss confounds my mind. So, I’ll stud my eyebrow with a

Hobnail. The transformation is quite becoming.
These four white walls are made for breaking down.
I never knew how to crack up before this accidental discovery.
Smash, teeter, and fall, and all the doctors couldn’t put it
Back together again. Maybe a pill? A blue one, of course!

It tastes like a stale peppermint with a chalky aftertaste.
Where are my house slippers? The ones you bought for my visit?
Sideways and up your rump roast, most likely, so I shall not
Race into the wilderness. I still have my broken sole -
Now fire poker red, and dripping, mimicking a leaky spout.

It’s soon to be the great Niagara! Dogcatcher! Code red!
I’m beginning to itch forth another solution for the heartache -
You must excavate the pain, then suture up the buttercup,
Or all the blood will drain to my feet. Tell me, then.
How will I run? How will I jog? How, ever will I fly?

The Auction

Going, going, gone!
To the most sincere bidder,
The penny worth a luxury or more
With its copper profile - a man for sure!

They wheel and deal the woman
On the chopping block. And believe
They can buy her for what she’s
Worth, and sell her for what she
Thinks she’s worth - a ten-cent piece!

Humbly. They knock her up for scoring,
And proclaim the purest love, she’ll
Find a suitor for eternity, unless
The emancipator calls for her first.

Freedom or shag-dom, the auction
Doesn’t foresee. Coinage
Is the rate for beauty, the debutante.
Buy a gumball, buy a girl,
Spend wisely, unless you think you’re hers.

The Land of Sour Milk and Honey

I set myself up, by putting
Myself out
Amongst mealy-mouthed mosquitoes,
The parasites chomping the spit, spat out
Relishing in her disgrace.

A cake, a candle, a celebration
Is in order. Or perhaps a funeral.
Black dresses and black suits adorn
The congregation in attendance.
Blasphemy! Maybe a hymn?

May she quiver in quietism, below
Ground, while the misses and misters
Hover above her casket, her cake
Missing the piece they ate
In her token honor. Her pink

Negligee torn. A game piece. Spent on a machine
Called life. The ambivalent attitudes
Forego the special occasion.
Babies to attend to. Sockets to
Fiddle with. Might I electrocute myself?

The Separation

Some people like to pull out the nail, only
To ram it back in, with splinters
Slicing the skull, my skull into
Shards of hard knock luck.

I hide all hammers, your hammer
Inside the safety deposit box
For safekeeping, my well-being -
You can’t find it there

Or my screwball effort to save the
Flotsam as it bends out of reach
Too far away for the withering fingertips
That long to make a deep indention in

Your left cheek. I leave you unscathed.
So much for wishful thinking, or cathartic
Means of reconciliation, like replacing
The cap on an empty container of lighter fluid.

The Yo-Yo Law of Gravity

Abandoning another attempt at poetry, she sinks into a place of inner frustration, contemplating the advantages of being down, for what has crashed to the linoleum must rise to the ceiling, says the yo-yo law of gravity. Down works sympathetically with up, toying with the momentum of her emotions in this sudden state of vocabulary depletion. She thinks this instance of down could be her final destination, never to dwindle up toward the high mindset of triumphant literary accomplishment. Perhaps, she will sink even lower, down to depths where complete sentence structures become stagnant, and eclipsed thoughts shudder without fulfillment. These tiresome ideas dissipate as the fluidity of her prose begins again, one word connecting itself to the next to form notions she can comprehend in the onset of light. To find it once again, and continue the forces, which bring up and down together, creates balance in her life. She carries on writing, remembering the prior blankness when she thinks to stop and recall when time stood still in the night.

Life's Blueprint

I scheme to find self
And reconcile
With chromatic years
Lost to black and blue
Marks from a grand
Design called the higher
Deity’s plan

Had it all been
In my outstretched palms
I could have
Would have
Raised my own bars
Felt a little more love
Written a few more poems
Designed a dozen more layouts
And sung a better tune

To name a few items
On the “never-could-do” list

If the takers morphed
Into givers
A missing piece
Or two
Or three
Might be illuminated
In the shade of
Former misery

Wholeness

Or at least the body
Might seem half soulful
Instead of half empty