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Kelsey May Poem
You don’t know this but
we’re all ISBN’s. At birth,
we’re tattooed across our asses
with barcodes, ID tags, social security numbers.
The only doctors allowed
to perform this surgical move
were trained in suits and sunglasses,
were handcuffed to computer suitcases,
held galas in mansions in the hills
of Virginia, roamed secretly through tunnels
beneath Abe Lincoln’s feet, they infiltrated
every hospital, mandated staff to hand over
the key cards. Don’t be alarmed.
Chocolate brownies can still
hold good dreams, peanuts, and marijuana.
This information should not stop you,
you wondered before about those
seven digits printed across the tops of your pay stubs,
didn’t you? And the 48906 signature on every document
from your university.
Yes, you see now. All along,
that tattoo on your soul numbers destiny:
one of the numbers stands for the birthday
of your child, one for the day your parents will find
cancer sinking its teeth in their osteoperostic bones,
and one lists the street address of the building
you will die in. The hospital’s phone number
is merely a set of numbers. Ask them
what they’ve done to you, and they’ll shrug
their white-collar shoulders.
To view this poem on my blog, visit http://wordsareaneed.blogspot.com/2014/12/lucky-numbers-2-10-24-65-93.html.
Copyright © Kelsey May | Year Posted 2015
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Kelsey May Poem
Motor is nudged to life in an arcing motion, arm pulling
cord. Vein-furrowed hands grasp the fishing pole,
slinging bait and tackle beneath one arm. Another
arcing motion, arm casting pole. Bobber spins
a helicopter course through sun-nipped air.
Loons call a soulful greeting, the moans of centuries'
separated lovers in mourning. Time trickles through
the notes of their songs. Meanwhile, bass glide
with their loud-mouthed sass,
perch and blue gills play tag. A lone
blue heron bills the murky depths for lunch.
Man baits his hook, readjusts his hat. Eyes squint
into the dark undertones of the pond. He casts
his pole, a fermata in the song of the loons. When this man
was a boy, he drove the spires of the Rocky Mountains,
frequented the five-and-dime, nuzzled
a nightly routine next to his wife, who mothered six children, raised
in a house far away from any pond. They bustled themselves
along through school as well as any fish pouncing on
supper-flies, dabbing napkins to the corners
of their mouths. This fisherman sliced their steak, knotted their ties,
held their hands crossing the street
until they were old enough to
mail college resumes,
pay for first dates.
Five years,
fifteen years,
thirty-two years and here is Granddad,
with his child's toddler learning to walk in the bowed
belly of his fishing boat. They stumble,
clanging clumsy feet on the metal, frightening
the fish away. The old man bends low,
a note in the song of the loons.
He places the toddler on two feet, guides her hesitant steps,
each pendulum swing carrying them a moment
further toward separation. In twelve years, the grown child
bends low, a note in the song of the loons, to kiss her
grandfather's forehead, as he casts off on his helicopter
course of afterlife.
Copyright © Kelsey May | Year Posted 2014
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Kelsey May Poem
What can I do?
My brethren - Dank. We are
not fit to wipe the asses of
these sons of the star of David -
and yet, we crush their horrid
corpsed lives beneath Nazi-issued
boots. We want to live, too.
Say I actually approach my
officer, pout, give him my best
spiel, if you will. His hand will
grope the trigger faster than the
breasts of his sweetheart in
Barrack Neun during a roll call
hooky.
So I plug my rounds,
rotate a new traincar through
every Montag and Freitag.
And when I sit down to table
with the uniformed prison guards,
I take an extra drink -
and drink to forget.
This poem appears online at http://wordsareaneed.blogspot.com/2014/07/pity-me-or-on-second-thought-dont.html.
Copyright © Kelsey May | Year Posted 2014
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Kelsey May Poem
Rust ate away the Tin Man's heart,
but I never stopped loving.
After abandoning me, who wouldn't
need a wizard's magic to restore
some semblance of feeling?
Loving me was like loving a tin can:
I always had something to offer.
Loving him was no more than loving tin foil:
he crumpled from every wifely demand.
After passion had worn out his iron cock,
he marched into the woods -- as he fled,
my desperate words flung from a resolute mouth
bounced harmlessly off an impenetrable backside.
I cried, threw things, carried on for days,
but nothing flipped the switch in his mind.
[The robot was intent on leaving me.]
So alone as I was, I did not regret my actions:
I sold that bastard's heart to a junkyard.
This poem appears online at Words are a Need.
http://wordsareaneed.blogspot.com/2014/07/married-to-tin-man.html
Copyright © Kelsey May | Year Posted 2014
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Kelsey May Poem
And it happened to be springtime
when I joined the militia
so when we brandished our guns,
there were light breezes overhead,
bird song in the air, flower sprouts,
and happiness that winter was
fled to her hibernation cave was
visible on every civilian's face.
It was not quite as terrible, then, to plug
a body with its fate-bullet when the
face seemed so modestly happy
about something, the weather,
a friend's engagement, iced pomegranate
drink, spring things.
Didn't they all say, “At least I died in spring!”
with their round, lifeless eyes, proud of
surviving another starving winter in the
famine-stricken desert, able to hold the
hands of all the children they began the
cold months with, bellies full enough to
last the scarcity of fuel rations and drought.
Washing out my uniform at night in the
river, I'd imagine the blood specks
that had spurted happily from whatever
orifice had been shot were merely traces
of confetti that had burst forth from the
eager soul's celebratory last moments.
This poem appears online at http://wordsareaneed.blogspot.com/2014/07/fuel-rations.html.
Copyright © Kelsey May | Year Posted 2014
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