Starbucks

Starbucks, Starbucks;

why don't we go to Starbucks?

They write your name right on your cup,

and I won't have to explain

that though I'm pretty good with faces

and we've shared our private places -

groomed and roomed in each other's spaces -

I can't recall your name.

So . . . 

Starbucks, Starbucks;

let's just go to Starbucks.

They'll write names on both our cups

and spare us both some shame.

Inspired by the Dustin cartoon in today's paper and submitted to Marian's prompt at Real Toads.

2029

It was a doom filled day in '29
when our superheros lost their lives;
when Batman fell from a perilous height,
and Superman succumbed to kryptonite.

When Captain America took the field
and left it carried on his shield,
and Wonder Woman
finally died
of hypothermia.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Jungle Without A King

Inside shook and echoed
with the roar of a left foot lion.
Outside
was a jungle with no king.

Bottom land and pasture -
barbed wired, but barely captured.
Blackjacks growing
nearly wild as me.

Down by the creek, I'd dream
up dragons from the stars
and feed them
my weakness and fear.

By the storm split tree, I'd scream at things
for being what they are
for a cicada girl
in her 13th year.

A bit of Cadence in Free Verse for Play It Again at Real Toads.
Also submitted to Poetry Pantry

Sunrise Ruins

Sunrise ruins a dream
of speaking

shimmers of heat
and fear/offering

so much of me

that nothing needs
or wants to feed anymore.

It's sad, sorry, spineless relief
this being kept and becoming meat.
Losing tongue / keeping teeth
and silence

saltybittersweet

For M's prompt at Real Toads

Salt On The Rim

Too quiet means there's trouble,
as every mother knows.
A little salt on the rim of paradise
preserves a humble soul.

Got wine to cleanse the palette.
Vinegar for scrubbin' the floor.
Honey to draw the flies to your fingers;
duct tape for the old screen door.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Chasing Rabbits

I fed my head a photograph

hoping for some second sight.

Insight.

Hindsight.

Or, whatever else might shed some light

on who you were

outside of me,

where you've gone,

who I'm to be.

Is there a story left to tell

or is the bottom of the well bone dry?

I fed my head.

Just like Gracie said,

I fed my head.

For The Mag

Woman Of Faith

When I lost my mama,
I wept in the arms of a woman
who had just lost her only child.

My grannie is 82 years old,
and she is a woman of faith.

She stayed with mama
right up to the end.
Nursed her.
Soothed her.
Came when she called in the night.

My grannie is a woman of faith,
and she bears what she has to.

Yesterday, I called her.
She had spent most of an unusually warm
January day cleaning out her flower beds.
"Clear away the dead, and there's already new
trying to come up.  Can you believe it?"

My grannie bears what she has to,
even my doubts.

For Karin's prompt at Real Toads

Wolf And Wheel

I was born breach and reaching
for a Bible and a break-up song.
It's eight months to the day
since I last saw you.

I've weaned myself of counting breaths,
redeemed myself by wanting less;
it's only when I dream
that I break and call you.

Sunrise sees me clothe the bones,
grease my braid, and carry on.
Summer's come and almost gone -
wolf and wheel.

Let autumn steal my time to think.
Winter, chill my blood to ink.
Spring is soon enough for me
to thaw and feel.

For Kerry's prompt at Real Toads

Country Road

I pull verbs
from your summer
sticky
black-
top.

Nouns
from your ditches
deep with weeds.

I string them
like barbed wire
through the fence
posts.

My sentence -
This heart
cannot
leave.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

From The Missed

Rising from the missed my

goddamn train like a totem on the track,

I'm soot black and swearing blue -

Casey, can you turn it back?

I'm a first time suffragette.

Haven't kissed a sailor yet.

Haven't broke my temperance vow.

Haven't had a chance till now.

I'm not plain, but I'm not pretty.

My best hope is in the city

far away from this endless prairie.

Otherwise, I'll have to marry.

Good Casey, if you'll turn around

and whisk this totem off the track

away from all I've known and been,

I'll never miss a train again.

For The Mag

Expiration

Shivering and straining
from  the bottom of the belly.
Muscles rivering behind the breath.
Dizzy at the edge of an eye and hot,
but for the cool, blue clutch of her hand.  I am

keeping vigil
for the next wet
exhalation

The next weak whisper.

Expiration.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Wanting Not, I Waste

Devils scream.
Angels whisper.
Whore/moans keep me up at night.
Daylight's just a fracture
in the blackness.

I write it down

             to erase,

Cut out my tongue
             to kill the taste.
And, wanting not,
             I waste
my peculiar madness.

For Grace's prompt at Real Toads

Pasture Princess

Lips
honeysuckled.
Fingers tipped
with trumpet vine.
A pretty rock
mine and secret
as the language of the fireflies.

4 o'clocks
slowly pursing
purple petals
to a kiss.
I'm brown and barefoot;
pasture princess
of all of this.

For Ella's prompt at Real Toads

The Night You Came

I walked circles
sacred and profane
under a full moon
sacred and profane
and I told you things
sacred and profane

as all of me
gathered
to push.

For Midweek Motif at Poets United

The Bipolar Poet

Writes happy sentences
that end in black periods.

Swings from exclamation!
to ellipses . . .

and is often (an unwilling)
parenthetical to herself.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Southern Gothic

I buried a book
under a cypress tree.
Watered it with whiskey
and sweet tea.
It took seven years
to grow Tennessee;
now he twines through my half-breed hair.

Over there
is a fine Sunday suit

for dressing up all of Saturday's sin.

Over here under the cypress tree root,
Southern Gothic

rising again.

55 words for Kerry at Real Toads