Taken Out of Context
Excuse me?
I can make my own
Excuses
Thank you!
Pardon me,
For asking~
How are you?
This hopeless world
Welcome home
Where most, don’t really care.
Have a nice day
Excuse me, for hoping.
©2016 Amanda Potter
The Edge #13
At the edge
of water
the cliff
life.
Everyday
we stand there
looking
wondering/
About life
what?
if?
when?
These questions linger
what will happen?
if that happens, then what?
when?
Why Cities Can’t Love Me Like Nature Loves Itself
Why Cities Can’t Love Me like Nature Loves Itself
today I see worlds in vent slits,
caramel tongue of Cincinnati
pollution. you are not my basement smoke
love.
i know you are not my lime pucker
of chiseled trial love.
i know
you are not
my tilted cup of highway hoodie
spilling golden wisps love.
i know you
are not my silver stadium jersey haze love.
love you are not straight line thrown
boomerang back into finger hinge.
love you are not black patience of
screen void in my pocket.
love
you teeter on my feet like heavy air conditioning. love
you cold my warm, my history of heat.
love
you know you are not known
until i reach out
and am not startled.
Prompt 19
Pardon
Pardon me, Father,
if my sins
offend you.
I enjoyed them.
Pardon me, lady,
if I hold
my place in line.
Your brat’s not cutting.
Pardon me, boss,
I don’t deserve
the crude remarks
at the water cooler.
Pardon me, folks,
but you’re not pardoned.
I don’t do that.
Go ask the POTUS.
©Ardelle Hollis Ray
Mutant
Excuse me, she mutters as the loser picked her pocket
Thank you, she thinks when it is proven missing
Excuse me, she screams as the bowl falls down the steps
Thank you, her fist slams through the door in rage
Excuse me, he queries, afraid suddenly
How are you, the walls look nervous
Did you have a good day, they’re trembling.
Then she reaches up and they collapse
Her fury destroys the world.
1am
Wolf runs wild through the night.
She calls to us,
as the doe does not,
for we have learned to overlook her gentleness.
But wolf
runs fierce and wild
stirring ancient memories within us.
She lopes through crystal white fields,
silver under the moon, soft crunch under her claws.
The cold bites deep. She revels.
Her strength
her glory
her power
her song.
We hear it in our heartbeats,
her wildness,
the wonder of the untamed, undomesticable,
We remember what we have long forgotten.
We see her run, and she tells us, that beyond our concrete scraping sky and coating earth,
there is life and spirit and wild.
Wolf runs, and not only her body but her soul breathes.
She reminds us
of what we could be.
deaf thunderstorm
lowering clouds
bulbous heavy
roll along grey
wind borne menace
birds dip clip above
the grass below
spiking black dot bugs
air thicken dense
oppressed
hair sticks to neck
horse tail flick fly’s
shy’s and bolts
kicks up the sky
moving swift, hanging low
bright show- flash-
jagged white hot light
light pause light light
fat drops fall
slap face fast pace
torrent water wall
wall of water fall
soaked to skin
best go in
thicker than water
“Pardon me!” he yelled into the phone. The guards looked on.
“Jimmy! Cool it. Of course, I will. We’re blood.”
“How are you going to do it? When are you going to do it?”
“Try to have a nice day, okay? I got you.”
And he did.
Jimmy, the felon, and Henry, the governor, were united again.
All the kin were at the mansion to welcome home the fallen sibling.
Henry, at the head of the table, raised his glass. “You’ve got something to thank me for, don’t you brother?” He winked at Jimmy.
“Thank you for what? You got me into this mess. If you hadn’t.. “
Henry cut in, “You all will have to excuse me and my dear brother here.”
Out on the veranda, the brothers talked it over.
Henry smoothed out his ego. Jimmy unrumpled his pride.
The were brothers after all. Partners in crime.
19 // heart
he tells me the technical name
is cardiac calcification
that it can be genetic
but if I cut down on saturated fats
and smoke less and exercise more
I can prevent the progression
I look at him and he doesn’t realise
that my heart’s going to be hard
regardless of what I eat