Augury

Swallows scatter at my step
an augury of angels harping,
angry at my mortal marching
through the garden I had left.

Damn the nest that spilled the egg
now broken on the pebbles -
a yellow eye of devils
open, witnessing, and wet.

For Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

The Cursed And Captured Highwayman

Give me the blindfold and the cigarette.
Bayonet my rib cage moon.
I'll open easy as a dark night
for you.

I was just another bastard on the highway
till I robbed that gypsy show,
and a bone in my throat turned brittle
and broke my silence.

Now I can't sleep for my own speaking
or keep any company for the truth
that comes spilling out -
in whispers or shouts-
oh, the violence words can do!

So give me the blindfold and the cigarette.
Bayonet my rib cage moon.
I'll open easy as a dark night
for you.

You can't help but hear my confession
unless you slice my tongue plumb through.
Just give me the blindfold and the cigarette
and shoot.

Originally published by The Five-Two

Unkind

Short tempered, stingy handed; still, I never thought myself unkind.  Small souled, that was a self I couldn't see.  In these years, I try to smile a little warmer and put a few extra dollars in the tip jar.  As if there is such a thing as making up for.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Hive (In Support Of Teachers)

The hive is quiet -
no life behind
its honeycomb windows.

Bells ring on the hour -
shrill, punctual, pointless
echoes in the hollowed halls.

The drones are gone.

Too many hours at nectarless flowers.
Too many gardens promised, but never planted.

The drones are gone.

On strike.

Because honey at half-price is bitter,
and a man, once stung, might better tend his bees.

A very rough poem for Marian's "School's Out" prompt at Real Toads.  Oklahoma's teachers are the lowest paid in the nation.  If legislation is not passed addressing education funding and teacher pay, our teachers will walk out on April 2nd.  They have my full support.

damned as dragonflies

we war for place
and space, waste
our fragile wings and do
the devil's darning

our mating
heated
and heart curled
but bloodless
in its grace

our children
our warped work
malinger
in the night

shade to see
the devil's face

For Paul's prompt at dVerse.  Also submitted to Real Toads

Dear One

for the (be)coming years

Dear One,

You were knit natural in the womb -
a Gemini
constellation
of bones and blood,
blessed
with the twin fullness
of creation,
born good, but, perhaps,
more at home
in the stars.

Dear One, this earthly life is hard -
unforgiving
as a mother
is unforgiving
of herself.

Hard
and unrelenting
in its condemnation
of any liberation
of the mind.

You are not made of common clay
for common hands
to trifle with.
You are not a collection of breaths
for others to spend
kindling fires
and burning time.
You are not even mine
to cage with my smothering love.

Dear One, listen
to my words,
hide them in
in your heart,
hear them
in the dark days.

Dear One, stay
natural as you were first knit
of strong stuff and star stuff
in the world of my womb.

Dear One,

find your tribe.
Find a girl.
Fall in love.
Naturally.
And never let
"ought to be"
stand in your way.

A letter for K's prompt at Real Toads

Silence

The only hope for a daughter
to silence her mother
is to tear her own tongue
                                       from her head.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Untitled

An erasure by fire

from her diary of ash

            it's                                                   

      better                  burn                         

                               a                            liar 

than  to                                                       

 drown            an honest                           

             rat                                                  

Or, the straight version:

An erasure by fire

from her diary of ash-

it's better burn a liar

than to drown an honest rat

A tanaga for Toads.  Also submitted to Poetry Pantry 

Curtain Sky

half-moon
I've had enough
back and forth
and grasping
curtain sky
open wide
but dreaming
is not sight

For Sanaa's prompt at Real Toads

There Are Stories

In the pasture, dog harried horses hoove
the hollow ground.  The guts beneath the prairie grass
are gone.  The great alabaster bones creak and groan
like some old arthritic god.  These are the stories

my grandfather didn't tell me.
How the red dirt wind had teeth.
How it chewed holes in his mama,
leaving her a little crazy

and mean.  How any extra
food was left out at night
somewhere easy to steal
so as not to make beggars of men.
How malaria took chunks
of his childhood -ice baths and isolation
in a hospital no one visited
because it was too far off the farm.

He sang Yellow Rose
of Texas and walked
the floor with me cradled against
his strong, steady heart.
His hands were calloused
from days spent pulling
crude and beating the derrick drums,
but he always held me gently,
and there are stories he never told me.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United