On the Rug with Death,
two beers in hand
(though no one here drinks)
we laugh, his lifespan
a joke still fizzed. My breath
ignites wars, lulls drivers
to sleep and builds bridges
for his guests. What idle past-
-times you worship, he pitches,
eye wand’ring to traverse
the awkward silence as I
know what comes next. My
gauge on Man’s power dwindles.
Perhaps, he drawls, you might taste
something ever so slightly
more enlight’ning. His heavy
accent traces over the words, like
sugar on a sticky thumb post-binge.
Tongue in cheek, his fingers surpass
my laugh in wishing to be broken.
I am lost in the dark again.
Can you help me find my way,
and the pieces that fell away
in my stupor?
First was brightness; it dimmed
Until, at last,
it fizzed out with no fanfare
and rolled down an empty drain.
Humour was next,
so bogged down by bitterness
that it didn’t land,
unceremoniously splattered on the road.
Love was last, and it surely died
under the wheels of life.
Love is roadkill; salvageable,
but never the same again.
I am lost in the dark again.
Can you help me find my way?
And this time, get me out
into the safety of morning?
It was years ago
a lonely year.
a more clunky and mechanical age,
a dial-up decade.
He sent out needy signals.
Eventually a divorced lady from
Doncaster responded.
Sensual seeds were planted.
E-mails were exchanged
together with photographs
taken years earlier.
One day, not long after
a mutual disappointment
fizzed between them
like a dying fly.
Together they dialed-out.
Braced to fight tough for triumph
Stockpiled testosterone
Fizzed bicarb in her bloodstream
Sucked bitterness alone
Flooded home, battle surmounted
Safeguard marshy roost
Maladvised maveric trudged pond
Stacking bags of no use
Swirling water swarmed by spiders
Fear erased from register
Starless, deserted street industrial
Duty lead dim endeavour
Depth defiantly rejected her efforts
Scream's echoing ignorant
Yelled "help" at selected emptiness
Six months pregnant Sigrid
Fortfied ego, throat sore, exhausted
Dry in her fortress upstairs
Concede agitated bruises encumber
Defences laid dull despairs
31st March
Dependence is not defeat
It was a younger time,
a clunky age
a dial-up decade.
Not knowing why
or why he should not,
he sent out needy signals
into the vast unseen
seeking worlds
populated with only females.
Many were drawn into his orbit
many failed to respond.
Eventually a divorced lady from
the fabled city of Doncaster
seemed willing
to be drawn into his net.
Sensual seeds were planted
in a garden they both watered.
It was love; it was true.
By an enveloped voyaging
they exchanged
photographs taken years earlier.
For hours, a muted
disappointment fizzed and spun
around a digital cosmos;
both grew distant,
together they dialed-out,
sending new rockets of desire
unto more invisible
yet detectable applicants.
The air, sedate as vacant
This, hot enfolds
Buzz-fizzed, to a blue distance
Blooming romance?
Count as many eyes, delving
The daisy-faced!
Admirers, all, for the bee!
We, in love see.
It was kind of late,
the town had gone to sleep
while some had woke up real early.
Nothing bustled, nothing moved quickly,
the moon had faded into a dark graveyard.
Micky's was open,
blue and yellow neon
fizzed static in the dewy dark.
She was not young
but she looked good in cowboy boots.
He had not shaved
but he looked almost sober
in his stained denim shirt.
They both held a bottle of JD
at the cash-out counter.
However, cupid was out of luck
for they wanted a drink
more than each other.
Still and all,
they would meet again
under a new sleepwalking star,
both holding handcuffed hands,
drunk at the back
of a cops patrol car.
I waited, anticipated
Hopes were high, bloated
It was too much to ask, inflated
I lowered my sights, deflated
Tried not to be hurt, shielded
Numbed my senses, phlegmatic
Checked the date and time, could be wrong
I fought back and forth, sparred
Willed a lunge, parry, riposte, touché
But, when it came, it fizzed
The expectation feud,
blew out the candles.
We have scarce put our lips
to a drink of sparkle,
through years of wishes that
fizzed, only to fizzle.
No cork missile has exclaimed
into our ceiling’s muted white,
trailing bottled-up yearnings
a triumph has given flight.
Rarely has a foam-clad genie
danced high with a splash of hair,
sprung by a sudden silver lining
from her golden-necked lair.
But why should we not toast
so many years of quiet bliss,
anoint so much unsung labor
with the frisky nectar’s kiss?
Why should our small victories
not be awash in shiny amber,
when we’ve held fast to purpose
against darkest days’ temper?
Why, my dear, do we mourn
lost plots of grander scope,
but not raise high the twinkles
to the courage of saner hope?
Before this life we’ve shared
joins yesterday’s relics,
let’s drink till we’re tipsy to
our ordinary heroics.
Taken sideways, swept as a web strung spider
Sand sugar legged staggered specimen lured by weightless
Drifters soon to be lifted by unruly tide's violent
Fears ditched for the squall enthrall of ocean fizzed caress
Bolstered by booming blue brew, cork floated
Swell surmounts without pattern or rationale, contankerous
Bobbed from below, five foot heads promoted
Bounced jack in boxes sprung from rolling realm rapturous
By tide's untimed tumult, sea steamed unite
Sapphire stew participants simmer, softening vegetables
Drawn to next wily wave, crest conquer delight
Drag of salt soaked slow motion moon cascade incredible
Roaring turquoise rise, crumb humans crafted
Into toys at mercy of lapis lazuli, control's essential revoke
Track formation, tremor with desirous laughter
Brought to cool commotion by compulsion utterly unspoke
26th September
- For Ace -
Far too gone, you see.
You just spilled my tea!
Its bad tea, not par
See? You gone too far..
This is it now!
Ready for the plow?
I'm starting to fizz.
Now, it is this?
"Fist calm, now!"
Claimed outloud.
No longer fizzed,
"Now calm, fist!"
Control the lies! Here, alone!
For such sins, just atone!
If you wont pay toll
Alone, here lies control!
03/24/2019
Sponsor: Carol Connell
Swap Meet Contest
For there was the place
Under an angelic moon sky
There was the face
Of love and at me it smiled
The evening did chill
The wind from the north
But eyes that burned life filled me with warmth
A smile for which to live, a smile for which to die.
For there was the moment
When a boy changed into a man
There was this electricity
That fizzed at the touch of her hand
There was the love
That I knew was my life
Beauty beyond reason
My heart which was screaming
There was the reason
I knew love when she smiled
There was the reason
I knew love at first sight
To me she’s eternal
Everything wrong somehow became right
She is my reason
She is my life
She is the meaning
She is my wife.
We've worn out yet another Anno Domini.
We're twelve months - if not wiser - surely older.
You call it a relationship, this boulder
which hangs about me like a Shi'ite's bomb, and he,
at least, can choose his cut-off point. From shoulder
to knee, I'm (still) more Goldie Hawn than Golda
Meir, but we don't flow. We ooze. Like hominy
grits, turgidly. But denser. Stodgier. Colder.
Where once fizzed electricity, hums static.
The best and worst of me is best termed "womanly" -
irrational, irascible, erratic.
I'm sure my verse is worse. Tot up each billable
pretentious periphrastic polysyllable.
But you? You're spenter, deader than Mitt Romney.
I wasn't ready for it when it hit.
Pathetic, self-absorbed, wallowing in grief,
plaiting the threads of self-disgust and wit,
I toyed with tragic sonnets for relief.
The night was hot. The cleft of Guadalin
crammed air, weighed down with jasmine, hard to breathe,
like musk in tall clay jars. I heard a skein
of song. It rose. It swirled. It dipped and writhed.
There, at my window, I was held, transfixed.
It was the ancient song of blood and soil.
That wailing voice was stinging, bitter - but was mixed
with darker tremelos which fizzed and boiled,
then sank again. It almost seemed the shock
of that shrill voice, embodiment of pain,
had stunned guitarist's hand. His rhythmic knock
reminded me of coffins in the rain.
Voluptuous and frightening at one time,
mellifluous and jarring, fresh yet rotten,
the music was both guttural and sublime:
my puerile self-obsession was forgotten!
To ourselves alone both had the place
and we dropped to our knees face to face
so close our breath mingled
our nerves and skin tingled
no credit card would fit through the space
her eyes wide in anticipation
her chest heaved with such expectation
a look pleading, needy
my face just plain greedy
hand thrust down with no hesitation
layers torn off I fell back and stared
for this I had been quite unprepared
with reckless abandon
she just left my hand on
as the moment passed by that we shared
oh so gently her weight did she shift
leaning backwards to let my hand lift
as I fizzed from the thrill
of the new hammer drill
she bought me Christmas day as a gift.
November 5th, 2015
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