Novembered

Quick, the year is moving on
without you. December is grabbing the air;
cold, empty light fills the lawn,
and you’re still here in your chair.
You should have left long ago. You can still spare

your life. At least fix your hair
and find your shoes. Hurry, it’s stepping away.
No, it’s gone. And you don’t care
anymore. Why do I stay?
I watch you recede within our dimming rays.

Written for last week’s writing challenge at dVerse. The challenge was to write a poem using the “Spanish Lira” stanza form which I hadn’t heard of before. I was way too late because I like to procrastinate, but I was still interested in trying out the form. Bonus points for writing about Thanksgiving and/or November. Those I’ve heard of.

Nonperson

No language. Yet their faces flap.
Nowhere to go. Yet they’re everywhere
and stand and snap the air with insipid
sounds. They look at you and see
light twisting your mind. You are
fluent in their idiocy, but they have
no word for you. Neither do you.

Written for the Weekend Writing Prompt #444.

The Astronaut

numbers elude me,
can’t think of anything
more abstract than fingers.
geniuses curse their oversized
minds but if I could memorize
dates or equations, I wouldn’t
cry. I would have a job
that isn’t killing me. maybe
even a girl. maybe even understand
how far the stars are.

no, even if I knew numbers
there would still be something larger
than my hand. even if I built
my red rocketship from childhood
plans, I would still be floating without
a clue. but I wouldn’t complain.
at least I would be up there instead
of down here with my 6th (or 7th?) beer
in a clueless grip.

Inspired by the dVerse Tuesday Poetics post on numbers. However, I don’t think this poem really fits into any of the prompts provided so probably won’t add the link the “Mr. Linky”.

Another Holiday

Not even 4:00 and the sun is already slipping
into silence. The days are understaffed;
everyone wants everything right now
before they leave. All this stress
and then it’s done. Now it’s my turn
to stop work for a couple days.

Already tired of the family.
“But you’ll miss them once they’re gone.”
True, but it’s hard to appreciate…this.
Not even the threat of mortality can change
the muted colors of our words.
I love them, but they are just people
I have to see. We know so little of each other.
We don’t want to know. The person I want
to see is at a distant place.

The weather again: sidewalks turning to gray
mushy skin. The day is already paved
with black. The stars barely speak. Coldness
fills my throat. I’m not even sure
what I’m doing. Maybe I could visit
something on this day off, but the world
is clogged up. Time to hunker down
in my room, as I usually do. Another holiday.
Another day.

I’m beginning to see

the stars beginning
to fall into the buildings.
In the morning, there will
be no more Mondays. America
and the rest of them will be
glass. Maybe a couple of us
will survive, but what to
eat? Wish I didn’t have
this vision. My stomach
has slipped off a cliff.

Maybe a great man
will stop the stars.
Not me. I can’t
even touch your arm.

A late response to the Weekend Writing Prompt #443.

Inner Strength

You say you don’t need another
and this is true. You’ve been doing well
on your own, as always, and next year
will be the same.

The air begins to rain. People run
but you don’t. Wind and cold mean
nothing against your skin. You step
over the night huddled in a pool
and snatch a taxi.

The driver begins spilling all
the things he’s lost, and a part of you
smirks inside. The buildings slide
across your eyes, and his words
become lonelier than rain.

In your room now, but the world
still has desire: voices next door,
a car alarm, a dog between masters–
all things trying to find you.
Those windows below compress
into light, and the voices turn
into rain. There’s nothing
we can give you that you haven’t
already taken from yourself.

Written for the dVerse Open Link Night using the optional prompts which includes the above photo and the opening line from Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “Love is not all”: Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink nor slumber nor a roof against the rain.

Somewhere

No one listened to her
when she was over there
in her favorite chair. On and on
with her stories, her songs,
her legends and scraps of the past
that only mattered to her
even when she smiled
with her hands.

Her chair is quiet now. The sun
fills the wood. I try to invent
something out of silence: her hands
shaping in the sunlight, flakes moving
as if trying to make a breath. A tale
lives somewhere, but I can’t find it.
Maybe it’s nowhere. Someone said
memory is a creation, a lie, like her
tales. The light shifts behind the drapes,
the air moves, and I hear something.

Annie

She attacked another dog.
There was no food bowl around
or toy the dog could seize as its own,
no real decision made; Annie just flew
from under the table and wrapped
its jaw around the chihuahua’s neck.

Annie taken to a different home.
No other dogs, just two old folks
who don’t see Annie’s gums
coated with feces as she returns
from their tiny backyard. The man
walks Annie, but the mastiff’s eyes
find another dog moving. The leash
nearly snaps the old man’s arm
as Annie barrels across the street.

A needle. A whimper. Urine.
Annie anonymized into dust.
Placed in a tin buried somewhere.
No more destroying another
being. No more being an animal.
The rain comes, the insects come
and path their own destructions.

Safe

They’re putting Dick Cheney’s brain in a jar
so he could witness things a little longer.
It’s good that he gets to exist a few more times
as the many lives above are paved over.

They will place his being next to Kissinger
and they will beep and boop and process
the inputs. Elon Musk will be right there
soon, along with Peter Thiel; their machines
will continue making sounds, moving
numbers here and there.

And they will attempt to forget
about death; they will avoid living within
a world that hates them. They will be
below, humming below the flames
of their design, breathing lights
and tubes beneath the creatures
who have no choice but to war
and live actual lives.