#9
What, what am I doing?
Typing the words
I don’t recall worrying about the poems
Spilling onto the page
Easy thoughts, not perfect
Time marching, tick tock
What a joyous, sunny, warm day
Enjoying this marathon
What!
Lament Lost
Hey, we need to take the dog for a mani-pedi. He really rocks that purple nail polish.
I’m down for that.
I’ve really thought about this. We need to create edible candles.
I’m down for that.
Oh! We need some garlic flavored jelly beans for a zesty new aioli.
I’m down for that.
It’s times like this when we need gorilla glue and sawdust to put this whole contraption together.
I’m down for that.
Finally, we need a Chia pet.
I’m NOT down for that!
#9bis – The best place
The best place
Always comes after
The storm
Which is not even always true
For the sun
Sun is always here
But he is unfairly
Forgotten
All the time
When the clock
Is ticking
You take the light
For granted
Until you run
Into the dark
Of your forgetfulness
Where all ants are stuck
And so irritating
You can’t stay put
Any longer
With her screaming at you
That’s when suddenly
Sun rays gets into the room
And naughtiness floats around
Our necks
That next
Slip on each other’s
Sweet skins
Tender kisses
We can’t resist
The appeal of our beats
To soften our words
And sugar coat our spiky desires
Soon we slowly
Get to
The best place
We both ever been
The name on the panel
Says it’s called
“US – the Best Place”
What a strange name
For an imaginary village
Where nobody really lives
That provides so much security
And fun with just flat decoration
The best place
Always comes after
The storm
Which is not even always true
For the sun
The Mathematics of Faith
The Mathematics of Faith
Calculate how long you will live without Googling it. Will you survive until you’re 80? Will you make it past your next doctor’s visit this coming Wednesday? You remember that your sister and mother died when they were younger than you are now. You look forward to meals out with your spouse in expensive seafood restaurants you’ve haven’t been to yet. You have less time for outdoor physical recreation now that you must visit each one of your doctors more often. At night you dream about the jobs you once held during your lifetime and wonder why they are so nightmarish. You are thankful for the opportunities you have to write memoirs and fiction and poetry and read aloud in front of an audience. You are thankful to those who read and respond to and inspire your writing. You are thankful that you are still productive, neither stagnating, nor despairing.
Schizophrenia
I hit a wall…
Blocked
Persuaded
Jaded
My words are faded my and my thoughts are cloudy
This salad is pretty good
It is a sunny day and my son doesn’t want to play
A nice day to ride on two wheels or escape
Is karma real?
What’s my fate?
The T.V. is really loud
I see lots of bees buzzing around
I am anxious and I am bored
I want something more than the life I have
I’m not sure what to wear tonight
Was my timing right? There goes my thoughts wandering where they shouldn’t be
I love him and he loves me.
I miss my sisters and brothers and I wish we liked each other
What does that bird have in his mouth?
Has the butterfly cocooned?
This chair is now uncomfortable and I need to move
I have a bad habit that I need to quit
I’ve given up more than I’ve had so that you had it too
Man! I hated being broke
This is my poem, this is my mind, try not to stumble
until next time….
A Poster of Robert Plant
Matted grass, where bodies had lain,
a swirl of capillaries on the neck, like a tie dye.
Me sitting on the car hood and it began to move.
You hung out the passenger window grasping for me,
with awe and concern on your face.
Your shirt rising with the reach, to expose your scar.
The skin on the lower back like a pizza,
from when the furnace exploded.
You were eight, and bending to unload the clothes dryer.
When I see the poster, of Robert Plant and the bird- I always think of you.
Ant Trap
Do you remember that time
we were picking blackberries by the side of the road
and you said you would still try to save her
if you had the chance, even knowing
that she was half-crazy, and one quarter mean,
because she was oh-so tragic
and completely hot?
I don’t say all the things I think to say
nor can I think of all the things I want to say
in a moment like that, when you are fixing to sleep with me
but still banging on and on about the one who got away.
Got away? You dodged a bullet, when
she didn’t give you herpes and screw all
your friends and accuse you of rape and
break your things and make fun of you
behind your back, but still, you are so wistful
that you never got to fuck her.
And I think, but do not say
that all men must be fools
because, like a trail of ants to a trap
you march on eagerly where other have fallen
and think the safe one sour
and the poison one sweet,
and that, anyways, the same fare will always be there
for you to come back to.
Door Open
Wild, wild…
Used to be when it was you and me,
Where are you now?
Mental breakdown? In some forgotten town?
Seem to have an affinity with people with ‘psychological issues’
A term so often misused
For creatives,
Imaginarium Natives,
Why don’t I collect tissues any more?
Like I used to
When it was me and you?
Maybe because I don’t cry so much now,
Not like I used to anyhow,
More likely to be laughing you see,
Which reminds me…
That comment about laughing – just in passing?
Or does he have a double life to cope with his strife?
Door open,
Going to get broken or snapped
Or something might get trapped
Inside,
Back to the wild,
Wild open spaces, no more faces, looking back at me,
A cacophony of misunderstood signals,
I don’t get them, not in the way they’re used,
It just leaves me confused,
My mind abused,
Why don’t people just say what they mean?
And be what they seem?
I can’t be bothered to read between the lines,
It’s just another way of deciphering lies,
To which I’m allergic
In a kind of knee jerk
Fashion –
They kill all my passion
For life.
(c) Gemma Hinton
Peasantry Beyond the Wall
She stared at the stone arch for hours after he left.
At the field beyond, and the tree.
The single tree where he first stole her kiss,
Her heart, and her sainthood.
The single, innocent tree
About to be murdered by her husband.
“I shall burn it until the flames light the dungeons of hell!”
He screamed.
Her husband. Her old, worn out husband,
With the breath of a dragon and the heart of a wasp.
Her husband. The one who paid for her in gold, five stones,
Before she got too old.
Her husband. Who could no more give her a child than could
A cuke left too long in the sun.
“He’s not coming back, wench.” he screamed. “he’s on to the next
Ripe fruit, to lay bare and pluck.
She stood, barely listening to his feeble rage. His voice,
Hardly a whisper of the bellowing old goat he once was,
Rattled like a bat in a cage.
There was a child in her womb. Not her husbands, but his.
She stared at the distant gate, beyond which lay her peace
In a welcome grave of peasantry.
He said he would meet her there. She had to believe.