Poetry | Short Fiction | Creative Nonfiction
One brief clash with a batted lash
And in that blindered, lossless moment did I pawn
Everything to be with you: so how do you do?
And under this spell, we do so remain
For the snap of a finger, then slip and away
Before the vows can have their say
A lusty panache, drawn to eyes, and ass
I will again, and soon, give my heart away
In a peerless fraction of the live-long day
Yours truly, P.S.
My head once more is turned
To flirt is divine, is what I’ve learned
A housefly caught
in the bedroom buzzes
between the two lamps, back
And forth, the cat
watching: fly has no clue
where it is, how
it got here.
Come morning, up
and out: I will buzz
around among the lamps
of my world, the cat
still watching.
photo by me, 2014
Words mean what I seem to think
So I insist that’s what they mean
And I seem to think that you think you know
Upon which page we think we’ve been
By turns we’ve come to disagree
At what is true and what is scheme
Now don’t let’s come to blows my friend
We’re likely in some pedant’s dream
A short fiction of mine called Temping, is included in Crack the Spine’s Issue no. 257. Thanks to publisher Kerri Farrell Foley and her staff for selecting this piece. A synopsis might look like:
“A talkative homeless man on the bus rambles on, delivering a sort of fever-dream term paper about the burdens of a life structured by time, his philosophical insights into such a dilemma, and his effective status as an outlaw due to his contraordinary behaviors and being without means or property.”
Every moment is bundled
with a multitude of beginnings
and endings and we feel we’re right
in the middle of it.
But this locale, this fixation
is penciled in with a wink
and cannot be held, numbered
ordered, kept or used.
Gathered up, possessions
summon the negations, come
then clap, the knowns disperse
like startled pigeons.
Who can make way in all of this
without faith or handholds
when enlightenment is the activity
of no one in particular?
A tricky business
this name-dropping the Buddha.
May all beings find grace and good fortune
under the wide and dispassionate sky.
May the wisdom tradition that speaks to you
speak to you. And may we hear.
Don’t be quick, don’t dash or start
or do one thing beyond the pause
of pristine silent gloom
Light outside’s been slowing down
in days of narrow corridors
that all lead to my room
—Solstice, December 21, 2019
poem was plywood ugly
so I burned it, and the smoke
wiped its greasy fingers
on the lower skirts of sky
and flicked, for good measure
a bit of ash in my eye
—name one word
that doesn’t hint at what
it doesn’t know
—name one move
that doesn’t meddle, but
mingles with the flow
—name one time
when stay stayed put
and didn’t up and go
—name one oath
with passing time
did not fade yes to no
before I knew you well at all
I filled your gaps with charmed ideals
when now and then you think of me
you’ll know exactly how that feels
