Tulle Rules

school:
tulle rules
a picked edict
chance dance
exterior warriors
lionic
interior either-or
iconic

chastity requires tenacity
kohl limbers plasticity
gel sells and retells
fixes the flick
nixes the pick

eyes so dewy
not yet shrewy
full of young hunger
at the height of unencumbered

We Know

Your quizzes

try my nerves

 

The spirit is gone

we can say

 

What I can’t mention is

how my soul was bolted,

fixed by that narrow moment –

moans bursting my lungs –

and then the absence

turned out to be

chronic.

 

All you see is me weary

almost collapsing

with the relentless

stab at perfection,

masking and abstracting

my deepest wound

 

Stranded and moored,

unfettered

we cannot pool

anything together

ever

 

That is the pittance

we know.

 

This was written for Shawna’s Monday Melting at rosemarymint.wordpress.org!  

 

 Also linked to Open Link night at dversepoets at http://dversepoets.com/! 

The End

I would trade all,

my effervescent adolescence,

every fetching moment,

to avoid that elision.

 

Demure are the days,

and lithe the years,

since the ineffable

 

A mere harbinger

of the coming penumbra

could not be afforded

 

The end of serendipity

leading me down a

long lane of lassitude

This was written for Shawna’s Monday Melting Prompt at http://www.rosemarymint.wordpress.org! 

Rainbow Locks

 

Numb view

cars crawl

tie-dye braid

her only sinew.

Pointless boys

peach and prattle:

smooth myths,

ancient battles.

She prefers texture

tumbleweed thoughts,

and ivy inklings —

but mostly the

rainbow locks

keep her steady.

This was written for Shawna’s Midweek Melting at http://www.rosemarymint.org!  The photo was from her site as well (though it originates from weheartit.com)!  

Later, Woolly Mammoth

Examine my amygdala

I don’t have amnesia, yet

 

Click-clack, I heard the heels

I know you let your volcano go

 

Cherry called

And I’m not your rook

 

Don’t be anxious:

it makes you look so primitive

like an obsolete mastodon,

just as I’m digging–

something a bit more avant-garde.

This was written for Shawna’s Monday Melting Prompt at http://www.rosemarymint.wordpress.org!

Smoking Will Kill

 

Smoking will kill you

Muttering it is useless,
Screaming it vain.

Shaken to reason
by the heart doctor’s blank stare,
the boat entirely missed.

Machines humming
powerful tunes into her,
ones hummed since childhood.

All that grinding gathering speed,
gathering fear, fluent in you.

Rise, spit it out, slam it down,
All is useless, all is vain.

Except an abnormal
one-on-one May day–
overgrown field,
youth and her true hum,
strawberry juice running down your chin,
and love so deep
the grinding will never grasp.

Written for Shawna’s first edition of THURSDAY MELTING here at http://www.rosemarymint.wordpress.org.

Thank Goodness for X-box!

 

The sky trembled and

Lightning prickled downward

Right before the blackout.

No lights, no tv —

but the kids still lurched for the remote.

I was on level fifteen, whines the son,

his game of slaughter rudely interrupted.

We sit in silence a full three minutes

Sifting through our options:

Light candles and play cards

Ride in to town

Go to Dairy Queen

None of those were to be.

The rest of my memory is smudged

with disbelief:

Copper knocking at the door,

Tip-tap — tip tap!

Membrane pushing through,

Whoosh!

Bright green scaly asparagus abnormality

Rushing at us all

I, simply frozen in distress.

But no so the X-box expert,

Who swiftly skewers the fiend

With an umbrella.

“I learned that on level 3!”–

The outcry that still echoes in my head.

This was written for Shawna’s weekly Melting Monday Prompt at http://www.rosemarymint.wordpress.org.

Real Sunshine

 

Presume I was high

on the sunshine of our early days

The brightness sprayed through my veins

Yellow sprinkled down my mouth

Drunk just from standing next to you

Permit my present stupor

Harvesting your farewell

Raking around for the overlooked seed

That omened this descent

Finding berry wine to be

a vapid substitute

for what I thought was real

This was written for Shawna’s Monday Melting Prompt at rosemarymint.wordpress.org!  

Marzipan Misconnection

 

Grandmother’s angora coat,

Unruly mop flat-ironed to a frizz-free sheen,

Red nails the shade of Feisty –

Transmutation into perhaps

a close version of Brett’s ex

Now just make-believe

her brain had been eviscerated

of gneiss formations and the half-life of iridium,

her whole report on Norwegian ice floes.

It was a mawkish idea she knew.

Best friends in fourth grade

held no currency in high school.

But she stayed up till 3 am

figuring out homemade marzipan:
he adored it when he was nine.

There he stood against the lockers

with his gang.

Here she came down the hall,

slow mo, adagio, every second

felt to the core, her entire body thrumming,

marzipan tucked under her elbow.

Unbelievably, he smiled at her

And she smiled back, she thought, and began

to offer the marzipan

until peripherally

she saw the jouncing blue skirt and

the bright yellow pom poms splaying

and heard the shrill “Oh Brett”

of the hitherto ex.

The bitter end of her confectionary endeavors.

Written for Shawna’s Monday’ Melting prompt at rosemarymint.wordpress.com!

Mushroom Memoir

 

torn page
spore story
a mushroom memoir

new heads
eternally pressing
infiltrating
leaning
sidling

calm the frenzy
don’t tear

or wish a full bed of clover leaves
or sugar and spice

feel the page
gray pliancy
buoyant burgeoning

accept the signs
unstoppable shiitakes

This poem was written for the Monday POETRY PROMPT at Shawna’s rosemarymint.wordpress.org!