you dream the slick shapes
the sheen of words
their razory heat
entwined with breath
and kindness to spill
shuffle place weigh
move to the edge
of charged darkness
~ Found poem composed/modified from words of Sarah Howe’s poem ‘Night in Arizona”
It indicated favor,
but the system,
the very idea,
was without
refinement,
delicacy,
or sensitivity.
In fact,
it was gross,
toxic,
impossible
to moderate
or restrain.
In keeping with the times
The truly amazing way the temperatures rise
With chains connected to monsters in the ocean
Dragging them up to wreck my day.
Every year, over the hump of the solstice
Is a furious downhill plummet into oblivion
Crashing into boulders hard enough to dislodge them
So they roll on after and crush me at the bottom.
It’s insane how my luck divides me down the middle
Exposing everything inside to caustic flares of the sun
Making me hate life for a quarter of a year
Where the right and the left turn in like a pincer trap,
My heart thoroughly pierced in the middle.
Envy, anger, loss, betrayal
Every possible darkness even in sunlight
Collide in a hopeless struggle to find a reason
Why today means something.
My curse, your gain
Your something to never have to think about again,
Except you’re just another phase.
The angle of the Earth’s axis that places God’s wrath
On a direct path to a better tomorrow.
That’s all the summer sun is,
A story of survival until brighter days
When the Earth turns a certain way
That turns an eye in my direction
No matter who it belongs to
As long as the intentions are good.
Sometimes that’s all the meaning a day can have,
That there’s still life in the end.
The girl stands on the bridge,
Looking into murky waters,
Searching for a sign.
Her grief and confusion,
Deeper and darker,
Than the river churning below.
She edges forward on bare feet,
Her pink-painted toes clutch,
The cold concrete.
My melancholy melody,
Beckons,
Snaking through the mist.
Her eyes flash recognition,
My voice is familiar,
But not welcome.
I’ve been singing,
Her to sleep,
For years.
My lullaby,
Ensures her,
She is right.
Right, to assume,
Life is rife with heartache,
Not worth living.
Right, to believe,
She is unworthy,
Of love.
Right, to consider,
Stopping the suffering,
Ending it all.
I serenade her,
With lyrics that look,
Into her bleak future.
Suffocating sorrow,
Constant disappointment,
A lifetime of loneliness.
On this night,
My morbid melody urges,
“Come on in, the water’s fine.”
She steps.
She screams.
She splashes.
As she sinks,
My last note rises,
With tremolo and triumph.
Words sit on my tongue–unspoken.
I roll them around like a piece of chocolate,
trying to make them last, I avoid chewing
so I eat less.
My grandma called me fat yesterday
but got me a signed picture of Miss Kentucky
to say I’m sorry. The pretty woman feels
less like an apology and more like a threat.
My younger sister is doing beauty pageants
and my mom and dad are taking her to auditions
for the American Girl magazine. I want to go but
my dad said only if I lose twenty pounds.
I am seven and I already have boobs.
My family says that’s a good thing, but I stand
in front of the mirror and pinch them as they itch.
Dad won’t let me wear a bra
because he says I am not old enough but
my nipples rub against my too tight t-shirt
and I wonder why boobs are good
if they just look like more fat
and feel like pain.
Cyclical like poverty
chemical like cancer
I’ll tell you one thing,
though, you are no match
for my dog. Her puppy smiles
and the way she squirms when my
roommate tickles the bottom of her
paws when we are laying on the couch
crying over shitty movies. We both know
this has nothing to do with
Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo. I am not
going to get fired from my job, despite your
best efforts, and you can not work your way
into the water I use to heat my oatmeal every
morning forever. You will leave eventually, that is one
thing I have learned. Permanence is the most
deadly thing there is,
but we ask for it.
I am telling you,
go now.
i.
On day one as the hydrofoil
approaches the Greek island, our tour guide
tells us it never rains on Poros.
A black cloud hangs over us.
The azure sear beneath the hydrofoil
is calm, blue to the end of its depth.
Before the hydrofoil leaves
with passengers from the island,
returning to Athens, the storm hits.
Lightning strikes in rapid protest,
chases me from the hotel balcony.
Through glass, I watch torrents
fall & run downhill
to pond near the front entrance
below.
ii.
The sun returns to Poros Island
the next morning,
but I have lost the afternoon
& the first night of my vacation.
Having no itinerary,
I explore the island from the dock
to the top of the hill
beside the hotel.
I carve my initials
on a tree, the tallest one
past Zorba’s Taverna
& mine are the only ones.
The cliff, behind the tree,
drops from its edge
to the seashore where rocks
catch incoming waves.
It is a process that has gone
undeterred, unlike romance,
for as long as cliff
& shoreline have existed.
I hear a woman wailing.
She hovers over a grave
in the cemetery near me.
I move on in silence.
Yesterday, I went to see Orville’s poker buddy, Tom Howard.
Being first a stonecutter, he’s mighty valuable to mine people.
He hardly ever cuts stone anymore, being it’s more likely
He’ll be stacking dynamite and packing blasting caps.
But it was the stone cutting I was after, hoping there’d be a mite
Of an urge left to make something instead of blowing it apart.
Orville’s grave is empty without a pretty stone to mark where he lays.
It shames me to think his kin will have to go visit an empty spot.
The kids need it, too. They want to talk to their daddy, not grass.
A stone’ll give us a place to look and sit by and think of yesterday.
His grandkids someday can see clear that he lived and where.
I owe it to Orville to show the world he left us too early and why.
Tom was drunk. Silicosis makes one need to drink, I think.
Too little breathing space troubles the body and mind. So
Instead of talking about stonecutting, we talked about apples,
And fried chicken, and our no ‘count camp doctor.
As I was about to leave, Tom pulled up out of his chair
Unsteady like and trembled down the porch steps. I
Was at the gate when he stopped me. “You’ll be needing
A pretty stone, I guess?” It wasn’t in me to ask him seeing
How he was these days, but there he was offering anyway.
How could one facing death so soon, with breath hard
To find as a clean spot in a chimney, talk of my stone need?
But he did so. “Orville was my good buddy, and I will carve
It good for him and his kids and you and all the rest of us. “
Stones and stone carving does not come cheap or easy,
I’ll pay Tom’s widow a little at a time when it come to it.
Laying up for tomorrow is not what Tom is thinking. Orville’s
Memory worries him today. Her troubles will be a burden
I can help carry, it’ll be my way to cut stone for them.
K. Bruce Florence
June 28. 2016
I hunger for a road without dust.
I hunger for blue eyes crinkled in laughter.
I hunger for the sacred mundane—something common,
something curative like hands, skin, truth, and deep rooted trees.
I desire dry socks and shoes that fit, field daisies that bob
in breezes, library books, slopes, rain and green canopy.
I hunger for soup beans, onions & hot buttered cornbread,
glasses of creamy milk, and honey still in its comb.
I want all the utilities paid at once, no red tag left
on the front door knob. I hunger for southern gospel
contentment even if the gods verbalize no such assurances.
I’ve been hungry my whole life. I’ve never not known
hunger. For a change, I want my breasts full and flowing
to feed all the young ones. I hunger a grown woman’s desires.
Our tree,
Is pregnant,
With plums.
The fruit,
Is facetious,
And fickle.
It teases,
Nearly turning,
Perfect purple.
Promising,
Ripe flesh,
Tender and sweet.
Then dropping,
To the sidewalk,
Splitting open wide.
Moments before,
I deem it,
Ready for picking.