Posts

Showing posts with the label poetry

“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

Image
Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Therapy

The pen wicks the venom from my soul through veins and skin to the tiny ridges of my fingertips down the gleaming black shaft poison drips into the ink chamber to bleed into paper, forever sealed.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: All's Lost

His form, silhouetted against the red sky Held a sense of defeat. Slump shoulder posture, His outstretched hands, pleading. Glints of fire far from his reach reminded him of his solitude On a hilltop won by no one; the child’s body lay at his feet. Why? His voice echoed across the land and in his mind. Blind eyes returned the question, burning through his soul with accusation. Purple sky sparkling with white ice, the vapor of his breath the only sign of the living here. Still he sought an answer A lone figure against the night Blotting out stars, Stained blade in his hands.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Anticipation

Thunder rumbles, sends a tingle along nerves as the charcoal-smeared sky promises action. Blue-white voltage imprints the retina, veining the vision with darkness. I wait, body vibrating with every ominous peal, for my heartbeat to match the staccato rhythm of the lightning, for the trees to bend in the gale, bowing under its might like saplings, wind howling through the battered leaves like the sound of lost souls. I remember to breathe, the scent on the air sharp, fresh the rain is coming.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Mental Gear Slip

he heard a pop felt the snap of overloaded synapses exploding timed detonations chemical combustions firing one       after      another along the borders of reason. composure cracks like glass; he senses his skin’s transparency. Everyone stares at the busted cogs slipping over missing teeth, fried circuits and sizzling wires underneath. everyone knows, everyone sees the ripple   shudder     wheeze in the engine of his sanity.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: You Never Went Back

The sesame seeds stuck to your teeth Started the chain reaction Laughter, like an infection spread like Rome’s consuming fires. An accident, that first giggle became a epidemic as the next table caught the fever. My laugh arced like electricity across the room. Composed, you stood Outcast, you turned to go. I offered frantic protests amidst hiccuped chuckles.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Summer Morning After a Heavy Rain

Writhing Earthworm on a hot sidewalk Heat drying Your protective slime I toss you into the grass For those I have used As bait.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Fine Arts Major

He’s still, An island in a river of meandering flesh that drifts from point to pointlessness, A bitter flood of the mundane digging deeper into the rut of everyday, of life cycles forged by bread-winning and role modeling, stage playing for children, picket fences painted white only on one side Because it’s the outside that matters. He’s still, Watching the canyon of unhappy, misspent lives yawn wider and wider still, absorbing more of the career-oriented whose young minds were filled with dollar signs and thoughts that they would succeed, shown only that painted side of the fence; Now they find the groove is a rut because everyone followed the dream of marketability, and the wave left them at the bottom of the tide pool. He’s still, the successfully shut out writhe around him, fish on the shore of a river that rushed finance over love, career over dream, and they flound...
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Donors Wanted

Vampires don’t bite; They syphon with tubes and needles, And the blood is warm as it flows across your arm through the surrogate vein. The magnets claim someone needs blood every three seconds; And you count the seconds (one two three) As your life is drained. A fine cabernet for the undead.
Post a Comment
Read more

Poetry: Undefeated

Scales, gleaming, flash emeralds under a jeweler’s lamp The dragon shakes his spike-crowned head Golden mane rustles, the sound of the maiden’s skirt. Talons black, puncture the hard earth Diamonds envy their sharpness. The red west reflects from his eyes Fire brilliant gems Wide, yawning, jaws open revealing dental daggers. Steel protrudes from one massive flank a token of battle waged Belly encrusted with the spoils of war Mountainous beast, a trophy none may claim.
Post a Comment
Read more