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Dawnell Harrison Poem
My voice is a hollow vessel
where words spiral down
into a whirling dust storm
and exit dirty and unwanted
as if riding on the hooks
of some God-forsaken 120 degree desert.
No specific value has ever been
assigned to the words
that stick in my throat
and always leave like
a mumbled mishmash-
a jar of miscellaneous buttons
with threads pieces
hanging on in disbelief.
A lone vowel has gone off
like a disciplined child-
her pink mary jane's scruffing
the barren sidewalk with utter disdain.
Consonants drift and drown
into a muddled pond
overgrown with hanging algae.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
We were born to offer
each other our own plates
of suffering wounds.
No poultice will do.
Crying is out. Marriage also out-
each with our own insecurities and stubbornness -
two mules going down the same narrow path.
Money weighs heavily like bricks
in your jean pockets
so you must throw it in the air
and see where it lands.
Your home looks like Circus Vargas
equipped with a pretty girl spinning plates,
clowns making balloon animals,
and two acrobats teetering above
on a thin wire without a net.
I protest as loudly and as often
as wailing babies prevalent
in the bloody air of a local park
in Peoria, Arizona.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
You lick the tendons of my oxygen-
sucking away my breath bit by bit,
heartbeat by heartbeat-
I am drained like a broken thermometer,
mercury spilling onto the floor
like a small pool of ink.
There is no remedy -
hope has sailed its sinking ship
and I sit around silently
like egg-shell white paint
drying on the living room walls.
Effacing myself was never a choice
so I drifted away from you
like a blue balloon flying away
from a child's distraught hand.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
Sleep evades me
at this thieving hour of 2 a.m.-
my mind speed goes
like 100 wild horses
with their long manes
breaking on the air.
My soul is unpedaling
like a pink peony
with its monumental head
falling down, down, down.
I am immune to pills
at this pilfering time.
My eyes are fogged over
with a sort of clearish white veil.
My eyes teeter on the edge
of dreamland but
my eyes wear electric lids
that zap me wake when
I feel as if I am falling.
I will count pigs
instead of sheep.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
I muddle through the day
like an old tire being
dragged out of a muddy pond.
Words and days come and go -
an expression fumbles
out of my mouth.
Just another day of tediousness
and exaggerations.
I would ask you to come
with me but I know
you'd never go back
to Idaho -
days upon days of snow
buckling the power lines
and rooftops.
I muddle through...
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
One long ray of sunlight
gleams down
on the back porch and
rests in the eyes
of gardenias.
The day is dying
piece by piece
until the light
absorbs itself
behind the purple horizon.
The white hooded milk
of the moon is sneaking in
like dandelions
sprinkling the yard
mustard yellow.
Crickets are playing their
shrill violins - the symphony
glides on tender earlobes and
appears to never rest.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
Today the clouds thicken like gravy-
ink blots stain the sky.
Silence after silence unloads
its ill will at my feet.
I am accustom to it
and it has settled.
The sky continues to ashen
as it swallows the pine trees
like a relentless Sandpoint, Idaho snowstorm
consuming all in its way.
The day spills its impressions
like a half-full glass
which leaves me as empty
as an astounding wail
from a 90-year-old woman's
crippled up body.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Details |
Dawnell Harrison Poem
One long ray of sunlight
gleans down on the back porch
and rests in the eyes of gardenias.
The day is dying
piece by piece
until the light absorbs itself
behind the purple horizon.
The white hooded milk of the moon
is sneaking in like dandelions sprinkling
the yard mustard yellow.
Crickets are playing their shrill violins-
the symphony glides on tender earlobes
and appears to never rest.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Details |
Dawnell Harrison Poem
The mirrors and furniture are sheeted.
Love has eaten me up
like a fancy box of chocolates
now completely gone.
My phone is clean off the hook.
Voices carry emotion
and always the opinions, opinions, opinions.
Nobody can worm their way in now.
Hell is not going to break
its way through to me.
I sit utterly quiet with my hand placed
on my stomach.
This is how somebody will find me-
as calm as a glass vase
in the cupboard at midnight.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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Dawnell Harrison Poem
I spot your monsters lurking behind but,
I am too busy chasing my own away.
They encumber your every step
as planes boom by on death hooks -
your spirit lies flatly and is wailing
with its arms and legs in the air.
Imagine that!
The black sky empties your demons like
sour milk down the drain.
They happily haunt you
in your one dimensional nightmares
lacking light -
not even a small lit candle that
you would adore like an unexpected gift.
Your inescapable tsunami plagues your sight,
your mind, even the feeling
in your thin-skinned hands.
You never weep.
No, all of this mayhem has settled deeply
into the marrow of your bones.
Copyright © Dawnell Harrison | Year Posted 2019
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