Sleepily
Your lips touch
my lips
tentative in quizzical
passion
once, twice
third time’s the…
leaning in
your lips touch
my lips
tightened anticipation
firm yet supple
I cannot pull my face
from yours
we have become one
yet I feel you
dissolve
vaporizing away from
me
thoughts ethereal
I hear you speak but you
aren’t there
your lips touch mine
but you
aren’t there
and I know I am
wide awake and alive
but the dampness
pillow on cheek
remembering you
could not have been there
at all
at last
as every time in the
past has proven
what I felt for you then
I still do now
never reciprocated
unrequited
in death as in life
mattering little as in
an hour or so
one of us
will need to simply
get up, and
go to work.
– Mark L. Lucker
© 2019
http://lrd.to/sxh9jntSbd
Temper
My heart’s core…
I’ve wondered at her before
Is she just the base composite of
Oxygen and carbon
Hydrogen and nitrogen
Calcium and phosphorus
I have played with new mixtures and reagents
Adding them gradually to change my essential nature
The Daedalus of my being’s own labyrinth
And the Pandora at its center
The creator and the created
Prompt 6: Hour five Crackled Sky
Yellow bus comes to a stop.
Trees plowed down all around.
Disembarking— mountain top.
Lighting strikes— no sound!
Frozen Spider webbing sky.
From these cracks leap steed.
White angels riding from on high.
To the earth, they lead.
“What am I to do?” I think.
I hear a voice reply.
Stang directions from the brink.
“Newborn’s coast— go nigh.”
“Newborn?” questions I.
The cat and cigarettes left outside
Is it still a proper brownstone
if it’s in Jersey? Six broad brick
steps open like arms, white concrete
banister a hand in open gesture.
Welcome. Unit B.
Does it matter if the details are wrong?
I tried.
Double doors slide apart, heavy as pianos
eyed in lead glass. The color is almost
cream. Almost yellow. Warped
wooden floors spread
hardened pulled caramel, pulled taffy.
The stained glass window stares onto the street
higher than anyone can reach. Cobalt and
cadmium red and yellow orange azo
in a perfect lead-lined circle twelve feet up.
Could it have worked? Us?
White and cobalt tile in the kitchen.
Plastic bat lowered on fishing line
spinning, facing an iron barred window. Two
squirrels stare in through more lead-lined glass.
How much lead was in that place?
How much lead in me?
Window half open onto the fire escape.
Twenty-four inches to save a life. Scrappy
orange striped tom comes and goes. Habanero
is his own cat. The fire escape
is for smoking and confrontation.
How is he? How is he?
Half a slanted closet waist high
is meant for liquor and board games. Some books.
Some sheets. Enough space to hide a grown man
like the crease of an overpass. Lead painted
wooden door. Lead paint flakes
off in layers. The door is more paint
than wood. More lead than wood.
I’m sweating the lead out. I’m sweating
you out. Lead beads on my brow and down my back.
I’m becoming clean again.
Cycle
The sun burns
The wind blows
My sweat pools
My body aches.
Long days
Short nights
Hard work
Little time.
Eat.
Sleep.
Work.
Repeat.
Similis Papilioni
Similis Papilioni
I see my reflection on my computer screen. I’m covered
with a bouquet of flowers, roses, berries, purple buds waiting
to bloom. The bouquet sits above butterflies resting
on top oranges, feasting on its juice, long tongues snaking
into the pulp. My screen darkens the image and I pop
through. My face is hidden by blossoms, my body by wings.
But if I move my head, tilt it to the side, I see my eyes poking
out. It reminds me of what I’m told to be: beautiful,
gentle, still, before I burst through my delicate shell and fly.
Money Moves
Do you know how money moves
Do you understand where it goes
Not just from the bank to you
Not from the place where it is printed
Do you know how money moves
When it’s looking at you
Because money looks at you every day
Even when you think it’s time to play
Money is wet, angry, frustrated, confused
And sometimes it just doesn’t know what to do
Money is mysterious and even sometimes delirious
But what money is not
It’s not hard to obtain
And it’s not hard to gain
Because money moves
And when you come to know this
Then you’ll innerstand
That money…is you
Your Move
Copyright © 2019 by Angelica Stevenson
All Rights Reserved
Twinkle Twinkle
Each night, many things, objects, and people fall into the stage of my dreams
They perform, they sing, but in the end, they always leave
But each night, you fail to materialize
You antagonize me about your absence and the content of my nightly thoughts
I encourage my brain to remember you but to no avail
I simply can’t control my sleepy actions
One starry evening, you leave and say that you won’t return until I’ve succeeded
Well, my dreams are mine and I won’t have them impeded
If it happens, I’ll call but expect no apology
Temper
Temper
Your lungs a furnace
Forging exhales
Your eyes filter
Spectrums and waves
Into sensical shapes
Your hands mold and form
Words and clay
Your feet wear a path
Through intimate space
The world in turn
Transforms your familiar face
Time takes convictions
Wears them smooth
The wind softens certainty
Tide carries away
The self you construct today
What is left
The ever changing shore line
A conversation between
Know and unknown
That sets you free
For incremental
and
Eternal becoming