Waterboarding

Would you love me more 
if this body was thinner 
his thinning hair thicker
her thickness less sexy
their sexiness more tame
his tameness more fierce
my fierceness less fiery 
her fire more water
our watered down selves 
so dampened
that we drown ourselves 
without seeing you’re 
holding our heads underwater 

—

April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 2 prompt: what does the future hold 

Zookeepers

There is nothing exotic 
about caging tigers or people

poverty is a zoo 
and the keepers long ago

threw away the keys
allowed the wealthy to watch

the destruction of the 
poor, parentless, miners, minions, slaves

calling the infighting feral, 
innate in the incarcerated as 

a class (a species 
inhuman and different from themselves 

completely), and not due 
to their unnatural imprisonment 




--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 17: exotic

No place like home

She sleeps in my bed
missing her own
but glad for the warmth

of my Egyptian cotton sheets
and the neutral
Target comforter set I shared

with the ex-boyfriend who left
me to play
house with a neighbor lady.

She thanks me for my
generosity, not knowing
I would burn that bed

and flee this tortured place,
run from this
incestuous den of communal pain

and the home built together, 
where any memories
of warmth have long died.

---

November PAD Day 27 - local

Free at last

I had a dream
that one day
we would hear
church bells
clanging
like the love
in our chests

that we would
no longer
walk alone
but be an oasis
beckoning
each other
across the desert

--


November PAD Day 26 - free (blank) or (blank) free

Always a bridle

Hold your tongue
and stay the steady course
for the win

Don't dream of
letting go of the reins
to run free

--

November PAD Day 20 - Always (blank)

Sacred warriors

Inspired, perhaps, by Earth Day and watching "Howl" last night.


We left the compass
at home, forgotten in some
drawer full of coupons
and crumbs and fortune cookies.
We knew where we were going.

We felt our way through
the flat night, navigating
by murky moonlight
a spiderweb of street lights
that led to something beyond

city water pipes
and cookie cutter housing
divisions and fast
food drive-thrus. We followed the
elemental pull of some

primal lust buried
deep in our mother's mother's
bones, a knowing that
this land was the breast milk of
thousands who had walked and died

crossing great plains and
mountains, sacred warriors
led by ancestors
who traveled beside them and
honored their transcendent quest.




Poetic Bloomings #52:  from every ending comes a beginning

On the surface

this pristine prison of glass
is nothing more
than your imagination running scared


Poetic Bloomings #37