The air is chaos,
a whirlwind of dark serrated fragments
that lash out
like sand scrunched into my eyes.
Was I wrong?
Were you wrong?
Does it even matter?
"Sorry" falls
like a paper bag
blitzed in the air.
fancy Halloween bat, come out, come out, wherever you are.
She must have scrunched back into the cave, very far.
I yelled again, because I wanted to get a picture of her.
I heard something hiss, and then I heard a giant grrr.
That sounds more like a cat than a bat.
I was scared now, for a familiar is a magical cat.
And it is Halloween night, so I might be in danger you see.
I stopped reaching into the cave and scooted down from the tree.
We sat in the dark on the edge of our couch
Someone scrunched closer, giving me a bit of an ouch
It was the paw of my dog, whose eyes were big too
Next to him was his cat friend, we call her Old Blue
My teenage sister was sitting close to her boyfriend Bill
They were told I could not watch scary movies, and still….
Here I was on a Friday night watching blood come out of a drain.
I was screaming and thrashing, this horror movie was pain!
Take it easy said my sis, her boyfriend put his arm around me.
I felt a bit safer, but could not look at the black and white TV.
The next scream was my sister’s, and I was glad of that.
My parents came home and turned the TV off in seconds flat.
Turns rusty as a hopeless, charred, lost waiting.
But no withering, camouflaged, stinging feelings.
I have joyless, expressive, harmless recipes.
And nothing else in the works, not even a crunchy taco.
Turns out that things need stuff.
Or brain chemicals.
Neurons, charred, scabbed over.
Turns out there’s no wavering when it comes to spilled stuff.
The hospital churns out lost, rusty, scrunched up people.
Not even a minced onion left in them.
Just brain chemicals.
Wavering butterflies, invisible, and scentless.
Turns out that I need a bed to sleep in.
But someone scattered ashes all over it.
Turns out?
There’s a spell that would undo the minced meat feeling.
Charred, scabbed over again.
Brain chemicals.
And harmless recipes.
trust is a hard thing to earn, and an easy thing to break
just one sentence can send the trust you had in someone shattering to pieces
the betrayed debris piercing your heart
once trust is broken it can never truly be healed
its not like a broken car or toy that can be mended
but rather more like a scrunched ball of paper
no matter how much you try to mend it
the betrayed secrets will always be written there along the tears and creases
when we are young, our teachers tell us that telling someone our problems halves them
once we are older we understand that confiding in someone can double our worries instead
trust is fragile and must be handled with care but too often it lands in the hands of someone careless
My Mama told me, "Don't get Lippy!"
"Better back up, and I mean Skippy!"
Scrunched up eyes, bloodshot Red,
Punched two teeth, from my Head!
I joined a Cult, became a Hippy!
Lying in bed.
Blankets.
Imagining glass orbs.
With fireflies inside.
There’s people sleeping.
Tracing skeleton thoughts.
While lying around.
Nothing.
I like to write.
About scraggly eyes and itchy grass.
You have to eat.
I do, and the thought of food is scrunched up in my mind.
Pizza, but it’s made of bubble wrap.
Burgers, but it’s a car running into me.
I have to go home sometime.
I said at some point.
Images.
Dead fireflies come to life.
Fireflies eating flesh.
Lying in bed.
Just the background noise.
And this bed is strange.
Blankets making grumbling complaints.
They’re all so mean to me.
And there’s a swarm coming.
The ceiling is closing in.
There’s nothing to do.
But lie around.
And they judge me.
For doing so.
In this place.
That is a home for beds.
And I'm trapped.
a supernatural force must have saved the reckless driver
the Ford she was maneuvering is scrunched in three ways
everyone who saw the auto said “the driver must be dead”
she is not dead
she has hitchhiked home to get the keys to her husband’s truck
she is driving to work in it
I know because this walking talking miracle who survived is me
You have to be super quiet Timmy whispered to Mac
Mac scrunched down, and sighed loud in his back
Resting away as they hit every clickety clickety clack.
Conductor noticed but was kind enough to turn his back.
The desolate wasteland
of destitute deprivation,
traversed in tortuous trail
by my jagged life,
trying relentless
so long,
so very hard,
to flatten out
anguished angularities
of serrated mangled mind,
swirling scrunched
in the egregious
whirlpool of indignation.
Sucked into sordid abyss
of despondent delirium,
I searched out sedated
for indifferent me
the possessed passion path,
leading besotted through
the pulse of collapsed portal
to my hollow heart,
not yet filled with
the arctic mist
in prolonged dreary winter
of despondency.
The spring of yearning
came on the sly
with fervor fragrance,
drifting in furtive flutter
on the delusive wings
of transient moments,
flowing out
of the fervent flowers
of my blooming garden,
where you had flown
like a beguiled butterfly,
created the cadence
of surreal symphony,
suffusing me.
The tune harmonized
with the mesmeric music
of my longing,
enthralled emotions
danced entranced
on the ripples of rhapsody
that rolled resplendent
between you and me,
to entwine us evermore,
consecrating the cryptic concept
of metamorphic magnetism,
called love…
I lined up the vegetable crazies onto a dinner plate.
They stuck out their tongues, their tummies were great.
With scrunched up faces, I wondered if they knew their fate.
Eight gnarled up turnips lying on a flat dinner plate.
Snapped like a stick, all has sprung away,
The bottled up visions just start to sway.
Each person enters through the exit door,
But they don't know what is in store.
The unsettling feeling as ghosts glide by,
Blood stains the wall where the bodies lie.
Scrunched up fists, fight versus flee,
Gloves stretched on with a smile of glee.
Clothes stained with a contained, red feeling,
Mad man eyes that will send you reeling.
Burnt out, with scribbles on paper and life,
Thinking it will eliminate the thought of knives.
Old mistakes remain, though future still waits,
Many stains, unable to rid of my old traits.
Explore a big world, and microscopic sights,
But now it's time to see the bright lights.
Open one last memory from long ago,
All the bad ones, but good ones in tow.
Together again, I hope, after the demolition,
The day I belonged in myself after the transition.
Late summer
and the barefoot boys are scrumping.
They have scrunched-up themselves
into the green sap of leaf and branch,
as trees to be climbed, branches to fall from.
In the village shop
an ample lady sells apple pies,
she has apple cheeks,
and her twin apples are full and warm to the eye.
Orchards are prisons to be broken into,
they are owned by the owner,
the owner haunts the blind corners of our minds,
sometimes we feel him leaping upon our backs.
We scramble upwards,
never speak of it, ever.
Then we are among the hanging apples.
They glow, heavier than the sun,
yet we tug them down, shaking sky and stem,
taking them.
Rush away, no basket or sacks -
none yet have discovered the art of thinking.
Racing into the dry-husked cornfield,
hearts thumping ribs,
pockets tight and bulging,
hoping that they may be handpicked
by the choice hands of dream-girls.
Charging onward into the first flush,
apple-full, apple hauling,
we rush
headlong,
into the too readily harvested,
all too fleeting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Scrumping' = Stealing apples from an orchard.
First picked Summertime cherry
Dew glimmer marble blood clot
Taut fruit platter embitters sweating cheese
Liver pate shivers jiggle jelly
Nepenthe Mountbatten hidden chicken
Lays a tablecloth festive
Red checkered rewashed faded
Season with sea swell returns faithfully
Sickle slender silver moon smile harvests
Follicle forests expanding to full
Bright verve verdancy bursting
Peril of temporal balls
Metered to melt before resuming build
Knife blade moonbeam ripens the coming crop
Basket bulge fibrous beckon buyers’ bids
When the ceremony’s over
Feasting has ceased, linen’s off
Pink penned love letters are scrunched up thrown out
Reform engorged nightcap warmed moon omen
Sun demurred eclipse naps, menopause opaque
Unborn bends branches for Mary
Dulia in bloom banquets
Written for Contest: Seven Ten
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
Chin thrust forward, held in right hand
pleasant sweep of hair graces unexceptional forehead
Thoughts percolate, bubble lightly, retreat
mouth scrunched up into grudging position
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