Tulips

(04/16/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

I.
Each
bloom
A careful
exercise
In sunlight.

II.
Texture
of silk
to the touch,
and
joy
to the eye.

Weight

(04/15/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

Every time I walk away from you
I miss you desperately
By the time I reach the stairs.

The freight of my love
grows thicker and more weighted
Every time
I suffer through a goodbye.

Soon I will not be able
to even turn
away from your closed door.

The Real Walking Dead

(04/14/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

The walking dead aren't zombies, they're ghosts.
Messages, of your life, unlived. Undead. Un-anything.

Turn the corner and there sits a regret,
cross-legged in the hallway,
with mournful eyes,
and a little potted plant in her lap.

Close your eyes at night and the closet door
will swing open
so all the times you didn't say "I love you"
when you could've,
will tumble down from the shelves and land
thump-thump-thump
on the the thin carpet.

The dark abyss at the end of the basement stairs
hosts the voices of all the December holiday calls
you never got around to making;
The good luck in all the red envelopes
you never got around to giving.

No matter where you go, your ghosts follow you;
Shooting will not save you.
You can't burn them, or drive fast enough,
to get away.

Trying to Write a Sonnet

(04/13/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

My poem has betray-ed me
It wanders all day and all night
My mind, it seeks a higher plane
Yet, distracted by bright Net lights.
I find myself, an hour later,
Surfing back to that blankest page,
To escape again, then vis't here,
Where the Internet comes to rage.

Lo, I must learn to pace
Myself, and reach my peace
Before I put pen to
Page. For there is much I
Have to say, if I do
Set aside time, and try.

The Relationship

(04/12/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

We lived together,
With separate bedrooms,
defined spaces for each of us,
a Personal Domain(™).

People thought I was strange.

He kicked me in the stomach,
And fantasized about 'teaching me a lesson', at a party,
When he thought I was going to embarrass him.
He told me later he was disappointed when he didn't get the chance.

Not strange at all.

He let me support him
Put him through school
Work seven days a week
Then got angry when I came home tired and made myself a drink.

No one thought that was strange.

I left behind dirty dishes while he was out of town,
I was too tired to clean them.
I vacuumed the carpet,
Paid the rent for a month after his scheduled return,
Just to be sure,
He didn't get hurt, or inconvenienced too much,
By my departure.

And I'm the strange one?
I'm the strange one.
Eager and afraid,
In the same breath and verse.

With Apologies to Pablo Neruda

(04/11/2016 for National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

With Apologies to Pablo Neruda:

I cut the flowers.
I laid waste to the green strip of suburban lawn under my window;
I torched the trees and watched the dark smoke pollute the sky,
Inch by insufferable inch.

Dear God,
She came.
Spring came,
Red like blood and poppies;

Demeter's daughter,
Laughing and vicious,
Like a young lioness,
Fresh and ready for her hunt.

Spring came,
Dear God,
Spring came with a vengeance.

Night Light

(04/10/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

In the morning,
The nightlight starts to look unnecessary,
pale rainbow of color shifting slowly,
Plugged into the wall outlet.

In the afternoon,
It is worthless,
Compared to the streaming shafts
of bright sunlight through the windows.

In the middle of the night,
It is the only thing that holds back
The monsters and terrors from
Under-the-bed and Closet.

Even Monsters

(04/09/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

Even monsters cry
for lost children.

That is why they eat them:
To find silence.

Elastic

(04/08/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord Challenge)

Are souls elastic,
Do they bounce back,
From wound after wound,
Resilient Indian-rubber?

Or are they stiff,
Brittle stuff,
Prone to leakage and breakage,
And explosions of shards across the floor?

Itty-Bitty Crack

(04/07/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord Challenge)

There's an itty-bitty crack
in my heart
where the tape has frayed

Since you left me
that's the only thing holding it
together

I keep running,
chest tilted slightly back,
up,
forward motion pressing the cracks shut

I dare never stop.
It's all momentum and masking tape.

SMS

(04/06/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord challenge)

Me:

FYEO

Luvd u 1st

not best

1st

You:

New phone, who dis?

Kuchi

(04/05/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord Challenge)

Kuchi (mouth)

Wet
Words
Drooling

Kuchibeni (rouge/lipstick)

Red
Round
Rapacious

Kuchiyakamashii (sharp-tongued/nagging)

Don't tell me
I'll tell you
Sit still
Tongue and teeth gnawing
Sit still and do as I say

Kuchizuke (kiss)

Kiss me
Wet
Red
Tongue and teeth
Kiss me.

Eryon

(04/04/2016 National Poetry Month HitRECord Challenge)

- Eryon -
Jurassic - Early Cretaceous

Spiny Lobster of a body
I'll hurt you if you get too close

Five pairs of legs
Normally hidden
Under my carapace

Love me from afar, maybe
Don't love me up close and tender

I'll hurt you
And leave you
In my spiny wake.

- Xystridura -
Middle Cambrian

I lack definition
Fused into fewer segments
than daring Paradoxides

Cowardly I lurk in the seabed
Watching you
Swim away

- Rhizopoterion -
Cretaceous

Silicate,
Glass-reinforced,
Transparently
Alive.

I am the sleeve
And the heart
visible upon it.

Indocte

(04/03/2016 for National Poetry Month challenge on HitRECord)

I love
with
clumsy
hands
prone
to dropping
hearts
including
my own.

 Sorry
for
the mess

Here is the Truth (HitRECord Poem Every Day Challenge)

(04/02/2016 for National Poetry Month)

Here is the Truth:
Raw-edged,
Alligator toothed.

Here is You:
Thin-skinned,
Abraded away,
In Truth's grip.