Hour Sixteen- Mischief
mischief had greeted
a half-hearted smile
Source: A blackout poem culled out from Pg. 89 from the novel, Secrets in a Burracombe by Lilian Harry.
Hour 15 (2022)
How can you look at
and talk to your body,
soft and round,
the way that you do?
Even the earth
gets so jealous of the moon
and all her curvatures
that it will come between
her and the sun
just to eclipse her beauty.
Kraken
Something about water calls them
All of them
Every single one of six.
One let’s hot water flow across his back.
Cheeks red and eyes elsewhere.
As a baby he took alphabet letters
And arranged them to subway lines
He didn’t talk then.
His foam letters screamed out
This is my passion
My longing
He told me, splashing in the water.
Another meticously arranges his ocean animals
Tub ledge, skipping in.
A careful museum collection.
One just floats.
You can’t float in five inches.
He tries.
On his back
Eyes shut tight
Smile broad.
The last three attack together.
Tight pack formation.
Ripping down poofs, emptying shampoo.
Running water, breeching the tubs edge.
Toys on every surface
They push and shove.
At bath time I shout
Release the Kraken!
They haven’t actually killed the bathroom
They try.
Tentacles stretching out.
Searching for weakness.
Their arms and legs in unison on a path of destruction
And delight.
Hour 16 Forced Childbirth Mary Pecaut
Hour 16 Forced Childbirth Mary Pecaut
Forced Childbirth
Fifty years of precedent
tossed to the wind women
left to the whim
of the states.
Not legal history no.
Fundamental constitutional
rights denied. A woman’s body
now the courts decide.
Oh, for ease, Alito please
leave us alone with our ovaries.
What has changed today?
Wendigo, hour seventeen
Crunching snow beneath heavy boots, I walked alone.
Hands tucked in my pockets, breath fogging as clear light glinted.
But as snow began to fall, there was such a weight. Such a weight
like a man’s, heavy, when pure, clear air was sliced open
with a stench from a something. And though I couldn’t look,
not until I turned, I could see it, waiting, watching, with manlike intelligence.
Wendigo, a small voice said, but it was already too late.
It sat, long arms propped on thin knees, shaggy head bent,
baleful eyes watching with a glinting red.
“I was starving,” it rasped. A clawed hand flexed, but still its’ head bowed.
“My children cried.”
Was it asking redemption, I wanted to ask. But I remained silent.
My heart pounding, but feet frozen, waiting. Almost daring.
Animal cunning, manlike hatred.
Again it spoke with the voice of a man, in a growl,
so hard my teeth rattled and my legs bowed.
“The hot anger in your heart will leave you cold in the ground.”
Then I woke. But still the memory remains, and
“The bodies of three individuals were found. Witnesses claim to have seen the father wandering through blizzards, but they had been deceased at least three months and partially—“
Hour 17: batter-fry
Batter-fry
Take one woman, docile
Add liberal doses of harsh treatment,
preferably, in the first few
months/years of marriage.
Harsh, how harsh?
Hmm, comments like,
late from work again,
flirting with your colleague,
didn’t your mother teach you anything,
housework first,
children first,
husband first,
the curry tastes awful,
iron my shirt,
come into the bedroom,
you get the point.
When raw and bleeding,
sprinkle generous comments
about a woman’s place,
her priorities in life,
her taste in clothes,
and her general sloppiness.
Now take a cauldron
and deposit the oil
of negative emotion into it.
Unjustified anger’s highly recommended.
Bring to boil.
Drop battered woman in.
Use slotted spoon of reason
to turn, remove when well-done.
No need to drain.
Prompt 17: License to Limerick
There once was a poet from Perth,
Who weighed each word for its worth.
Her thesaurus was tattered;
For to her, all that mattered,
Was pentameter stretched ‘round the earth!
Diamond
Covered in dirt
Blood
Sweat
Tears
Buried
Deeper than you want to search
Covered in greed
Mourning
Squeezing
Shards of glass
Look what I dug up ?
22~8
my favorite plant
Knows It.
…the ones i don’t talk to~
Get Sad.
(~but they aren’t here for long…)
Life’s a Noodle Soup
Life’s a Noodle Soup
In the hearth stove
the filigree takes shape
noodles mixed with spices
entangled in coiled knots
struggling to be free
only a wafting smell escapes
Alas..if not such entanglement, what is life?
Hour 16
@varenyas