Good Fortune - Manny Blacksher

You may remember Manny Blacksher from the ALSO THAT Poetry Contest I held last year. You may also remember him from the ebook of his poetry I published here on the site. I'm proud to share his beautiful words with everyone today. 

Manny Blacksher is an editor, freelance copy writer, and researcher living in Birmingham, Alabama. His poems have appeared in Measure, Unsplendid, Works & Days, Digital Americana, and The Guardian's Online Poetry Workshop. He had the exceeding good fortune for Mick Theebs to design his mini-chapbook, earthly Sharpness, in 2015. He is now revising a full-length manuscript.

-MB

Check out this video of Manny reading his poem 'The Procession'.

Editing for Heartache

In Chapter 3, you mastered the “Old-New Contract”
and combined it with strong characters and actions
to give a gas utility shut-off notice
clarity and grace. Think of how a typical
“Dear-John” letter obscures purpose and fixed resolve
with abstractions and meaningless modal phrases:

4.1.A
    Hey, I know things haven’t been good lately. I mean, 
    we tried what Dr. Floss advised. I think we both
    know it’s just not working out. God, I’m sorry, but
    I’ve got to go away. I need some time alone.
        
I’ll bet you’re shaking your head. The lover has missed
a chance to tell the dumpee they will never fix
concrete problems, and the dumper cannot be swayed
to go on with their irreparably damaged
coupling. The letter needs help from a confident
prose editor. Let’s sink our teeth into this draft
and make the story both lucid and dramatic.

4.1.B
    Dear Aubrey,

            I have been thinking of us. A lot.

    We agreed with Dr. Floss to give ourselves six
    weeks to make the important changes we discussed.

You still don’t clean the tub. I found more pubic hairs.
You forgot to pay the electric bill. Again!
Last week, I went down on someone from Marketing.

    Clearly, neither of us wants this relationship
    to change. I hold it annulled by common consent.
    Appeals will be considered for forty-eight hours.
    Please contact me with any questions. 

                        Yours truly,

 

Precision Finish by Cimex

Good that you and I should like surprise.
Repaved, familiar speedways feel new
to old drivers. We gauge each other through
quick looks, customary jokes, apprise
the field: road-worn but going odds are under-            
valued. We’ve bright eyes, firm smiles. We’ll
take Manhattans, and, later, should we feel
the itch, a room to run that circuit. Blunders
of drifting hard through curves have taught us all
the risks incurred by transport on strange beds— 
but what bed’s not strange if one doesn’t park
alone to cool beneath clean sheets? Infested
mattresses race with other bodies, remark
jumping thighs, fast times never bested.

The Procession

When they had rested, Jesus left that place,
But Ethel came behind him saying, Lord,
You’ve left your coat, and he replied, I’ll get
Another coat in Pergamum to last
For all the ages. Blessed be the fleece
Of Pergamum. All praise the tailors there,
The skillful needles. Narrow eyes can see            
How best to sew a button. Dust rose up

Before their watchful feet and kissed the sky.
When they had reached the hill where is a well,
They saw a multitude of Pharisees
All spitting beans at ghosts and crying out,
Leave us, Accursed! The Chosen One beheld
These fearful scribes and laughed aloud. He said,
You must not vex the dead, but come away
With me. They went with him but brought their beans.

Upon the road, a stone rolled hard against
The thigh of one whom Jesus loved. Hold up,
I’ve hurt my leg, said the Disciple. Wait,
My thigh is very sore, he told the Lord.
Let’s see how bad it is. The Son of Man
Put forth his hand and touched inside the wound.
I fear I may not walk. But Christ said, Thou
Will soon feel better. Don’t be a baby.
        
Later, they approached a market where
Was every kind of good thing on display,
All very keenly priced. The Lord said,
How difficult it is for wealthy men
To enter heaven, but I really like
This coat. What does it cost? The merchant said,  
Lord, if thou command, how can I not,
But I must sell this wondrous coat to you

For only thirteen silver pieces. Hear
Oh Sons of Judah, Jesus cried, how great
The faith of one who sells a decent coat
To me for six. Forgive your servant’s sin!
The vendor pleaded, Ten is this coat’s price.
Be healed, said Christ, and go in peace with nine.
He bought the coat and both were satisfied.
Ethel said, That coat looks good on you.

When they were on the road, the sun drew down.
The sun was broad and shone upon the fields.
Its light was gold on trees and stones, and wind
Bestirred the grass to din like distant cymbals.
The one whom Jesus loved was muttering,
It’s grown too hot, but Ethel looked about
And said, It feels like keeping promises.
And Jesus said, I know just what you mean. 
                                
Later, when they had reached another hill
Where is another well, a crowd of men
Possessed by ducks accosted them and waved
Their arms in fury. Rabbi, have you come
To foul our nests? The hour is at hand,
The Lord replied, when nests will be subsumed
In cypress boughs, and rivers cover all
The bank, and catfish eat your eggs. Fly south.

The sun was low. Christ said, Those ducks were nuts
—What a world. The Disciple who loved
Him said, You are the meaning in my life,
And Ethel said, You’re my inspiration.
Christ replied, Give thanks to God, it’s been
A perfect day, but I could eat a goat.
Let’s get inside. They shook the dust from off
Their coats and entered into Pergamum.    

Ordinary Subjects - Elizabeth Howard

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I had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth through the Coastal Arts Guild of Connecticut. She's a hell of poet and an all-around awesome person. I'm honored to share her poetry on ALSO THAT.

Check out her website.

Follow her on Twitter. 

I’ve been writing poetry since I was old enough to write. When I was 8, the poems were all written in rhyming, four-lined stanzas. Now I write primarily in free verse. I write about mundane, ordinary subjects, but I find the themes of my poetry often reflect my frustration with the oppression and violence that on which our culture seems to feed. I've lived in London, Kansas City, Colorado, Iowa. I worked at Disney World, selling popcorn. We traveled to Egypt, Amsterdam, Paris, Wales and beyond. Place deeply impacts my writing. I studied poetry under award-winning poet Michelle Boisseau. Every poem I write, I am still in her class, in that circle of desks, holding my breath. In 2008, I started writing Demand Poetry: custom poetry that I usually write at live events on my manual, Italian-made Olivetti typewriter. The part of this work I love most is hearing people's stories and translating them into a piece of art. I am a journalist and a marketer, so I am always writing something. I am a member of the Coastal Arts Guild of CT and the American Society of Poets.

Old Dog You Are

Old Dog you are
Electric blue sunrise streaked with amber.
You are single leaf drifting to blacktop. You are
One blood red Japanese maple in
Bone yard row of oaks. You are
Still beauty of one
Perfectly kept lawn in
Scattered season. You are
Questions rolling like
Dryers balls in my mind and
You are
One cold, still answer.
Old dog, you are
Tow headed boy held in sepia, now
Stretched long and darker.
You are grocery list and
Drying laundry and fish scales
On stones. Old dog you
Are.

The second person reveals herself

First, take note: the zucchini is a metaphor.
In all your self-help, writer’s way, dream journal busywork
The zucchini remained.

The zucchini remained, unperturbed
In your patterings, like the possum
You absently called Beatrice.

You. Remaining absent, as if stillness
Equates to nothingness. You, in all your
EST-you-not-me patterings.

Beatrice, you are not. You skulk not pine boughs in
Darkness (as if skulking equates proceeding). You
Proceed more like a metaphor, tethered to its vine.

Beatrice sleeps. The garden bed resolves unto itself. You
Skulk in the artist’s dream along decomposing vines. Proceed on:
As if busywork remains 

And shall remain and you — the absent you belonging—
Unscrolls with the stranger’s composted dreams,
An EST-you-not-me baton to drop and run. 

Drop. Run, you -- dredged in self-help stories, you,
Along the writer’s way, along the cracking bough,
Along this hypothetical fence rail. And shall in sleep, take note: 

The second person reveals herself. In compost, its withered
Processions, as a copyeditor possum frozen.
equates nothingness, 
that  metaphor passing, from
you to me.

Plain

Out here it’s all mostly nothing.
It’s a line of scrub trees;
A chain link fence to divide that
Patch of yard from this.

Out here the horizon is a friend:
She doesn’t have much to say,
Her mind filled with a run-on, tension
Wire conversation that never ends.

Out here an oak tree is true love;
And a water tower stands sentinel
To all the children’s dreams of
Falling, and flying away.

Out here, the overpass goes to
The softball fields, and the Casey’s,
And the driving range and to
Plain spoken hellos at an amble
Speed.           

Here along the sidewalk
The bike path the road the drive
That heads out
Home.

earthly Sharpness

A few months ago, I held a Poetry Contest with the grand prize being, among other things, having your very own e-book made by yours truly. 

Today is the day I finally make good on that  promise. 

I am proud to release earthly Sharpness by Manny Blacksher.

It will be available for free for a very limited time and then available for purchase through the ALSO THAT Art Store. Physical copies with bonus content will be available for purchase in the near future.

Click the button below to download the free PDF today. 

Guest Post: Three Lives- Abba Furry

You may remember Abba Furry as the third place winner of the ALSO THAT Poetry Contest held this summer. She makes her return to ALSO THAT with this inspired guest post. Check out her art collective, Lion Tail Media, and her personal blog!

“We each have three lives, the life that was, the life that is, and the life that might have been. ”

— AF

The life that was

Mountainside

Do you remember the teeth in the side of the mountain
piano keys with snakes underneath lifting you up up up into
the maw of the rickety blue beast
that swallowed you into a stomach that felt like timelessness
 
Do you remember the staircase with the
jars and jars of once-jam stacked up on the steps
that led to heavenspace filled with clutterhell
under and around a window
 
Do you remember lace made into butterfly traps
with the guidance of a coat hanger and a wooden stick
and that of the crumbled goddess of the mildew ladybug
daddy longleg fire castle
 
Do you remember the upside-down freezer and the tissue paper
hummingbird that flew overtop of it
there were too many strawberries and it’s doubtful what
you actually ate but it was the work of a deity
 
Do you remember the swing inside the gate
that flew from the peeling chair to the edge of the driveway
and only a small jump would send you tumbling
into the foot of the van and a stream of human waste
 
Do you remember when rocks could be found
with magazine cutouts magically glued to them
and the slightly scary neighbor
would come out to say howdy
 
Do you remember the cowboy and the bulldog
and later the Newton’s cradle and that ugly stuffed dog
you loved in the face of opposition and the lace-trimmed
plastic bride waiting next to the clock
 
Do you remember when you looked up at the clock
and behind you there were pictures across the wallpaper of
people you didn’t know—“family”—and you also
didn’t know that the goddess was crazy
 
Do you remember the little TV for VHS
where you, the stubborn child with the
Fourth of July toenails, hid from argument
and watched that ancient woodpecker
 
Do you remember the tipping bird
and the icky carpet and the gas flame
the wooden swing on the porch and the feeling that
mystery was here in the mist
 
Do you remember the last time
much later, standing half-naked in the moonlight
changing, remembering funeral and grandmother and light,
boyfriend, excitement, escape

The life that is

How art works

My entire life is a whirlwind of sketches I am
ideas
manifest in
scribbly glory
My art is all more or less shit
sometimes I get compliments
on the more-shit stuff
and funny looks for the less-shit stuff
I don’t understand why art is so hard
to digest
If I could eat all my poetry
—even just that on actual paper—
I would have the cleanest colon
this side of the Atlantic
but then again the Earth is a sphere
and I would probably poison myself in the process
I am always in a process
of discerning what it is I’m
actually about to do
commitment is hard
where my pencil is involved
it just draws stuff and that’s like all I know
Don’t shoot
I’ll prove myself valuable see
this is a lamb like in
The Little Prince or um
this is a sailboat uh
then there’s this thing I drew when I was bored
which is really the only way to get any art done
It’s hard to be done when you never get started
hard to call finished what
is not in ink or color but
your lazyass black and white graphite
I don’t care if it looks alive you can’t be done
unless you do it like a real artist

The Life that Might have been

Blue Things

Half-read poem in a tab
in another life I called a cab
and went rushing out of here
down the drain, into the year
of rhetoric and prose
where is the poetry?  Nobody knows
nobody looks underneath the folds
of a skirt where treasures untold
are the subject of conversation
I felt a spark of elation
as the sign for Timbuktu
passed over into the deepening blue
of faded jeans shoving down
she holds my throat so I won’t howl
as I get lost behind her lips
in a world of slits slung up to hips
I wandered in a New York fur
the washed-up has-been that you were
is set down in careful rhyme
in precisely metered lines
you could not be reborn Shakespeare
so you got your ass out of here
the city soon went sour without
the sweetness of your thighs about
I followed in a later season
stirred by your redundant reason
there was so much left to see
lovers dance between the trees
unaware this world is concrete
the closest souls are still discrete
that where I found a tangled we
there was only you and me
packages for different offices
different condoms for different orifices
I used to think
behind the mink
one could be anything
but now that I wear the decorative rings
I know the monsters we become
are not about the way we come
but the ways we never went
the poem in the tab was sent
by a friend
I am obligated to make it to the end

Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Some Emily Dickinson for a rainy Friday.

Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –

The Dews drew quivering and Chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Were toward Eternity –

Guest Post: I'd choose to be good- Richard Rensberry

Richard is a fellow blogger and writer whose work smacks of the beer-soaked musings of Charles Bukowski. Keep an eye out for his book of poetry The Wolf Pack Moon to be released this June. Check out his site and blog.

“Richard Rensberry is the author of The Wolf Pack Moon, a book of modern poetry that will be published this June and available on Amazon and at http://www.quickturtlebooks.com.
His blog is http://www.richardrensberry.com.
His poetry has appeared in several journals including The Midwest Poetry Review,
Touchstone Press, and Impact Magazine. He resides in Oakland, California. ”

     The Big House

                           If I were San Quentin,
                           I would hold the key
                           to everything evil.
                           My heart would beat
                           with the tattooed fists
                           of men sentenced
                           into my keep, boys gone
                           crazy as their crimes.
                           I’d feel like guilt
                           most of the time.  I’d be a maze
                           of whispers and lies.  Truth,
                           if it existed at all, would arrive
                           in shackles, whimper and fold
                           on death row.
                           I’d have rats for eyes.
                           I would hold you close
                           and gnaw on your will.  Time
                           would stagger, stumble and fall 
                           still as their victims. 
                           If I were San Quentin,
                           I’d have an IQ
                           of ten.  I’d clatter and clank
                           the whole night through.
                           I’d hone my shank
                           and lower my pants.
                           I’d show you the sorriest
                           crack of an ass
                           if I were San Quentin.

From The Wolf Pack Moon by Richard Rensberry
to be published this May by QuickTurtle Books®

           A Bloody Mess

                          They came on stealth feet,
                          two of them like animals,
                          with hammer and screwdriver
                          they pried into my treasures
                          of sleep, privacy, and dreams.
                          It was their intention
                          to steal them, haul them away
                          in paper bags, spend them
                          on something worthless as crack
                          cocaine.  They crept like time
                          ticking through the house
                          with flashlights up the stairs.
                          They spoke with two voices,
                          one male and one female
                          stinking of beer.  I could taste it.
                          It was bitter and acrid and rank
                          enough to fill me with fear.
                          It was never in my head to think
                          of empathy, poetry or love.
                          I thought of blood and guts
                          with gun poised and ready
                          to kill.

            The Gamble

                 If I were luck,
                 I’d choose to be good.
                 I’d live in your pocket
                 and kiss your fingers
                 long before you roll the dice.
                 I’d blow on your hands and help you out
                 with a flippant flip of a silver coin.  If I were luck,
                 I’d pick from the deck 
                 the ace of hearts.  You’d hit the jackpot
                 of love and friendship.  We’d trick the devil
                 and outwit gods.  If I were luck,
                 you’d beat the odds.

From The Wolf Pack Moon by Richard Rensberry
to be published this May by QuickTurtle Books®

A Vehicle to Experiment- Mike Campbell

I have known Mike Campbell for several years and have finally badgered him into sharing some work here.

I’m Mike Campbell, and I’m, well, a poet. I was lucky enough to begin my writing career with your own Mick Theebs at the opening meetings of the Northeastern Writing Club; since then, I’ve used poetry as a vehicle to experiment with language and to explore my ideas about myself and the world I live in. The most profound writing, I think, is introspective and not necessarily meant for popular consumption, until it finds itself being brought there by its merits. And while I can't vouch for the merits of any of my writing you'll find here, I can certainly endorse it as introspective.

The two poems you will find here are special for different reasons. The first is my first finished product, a poem investigating questions about the malleability of personal identity that I had at the time. The second is a criticism of consumer culture, and product of a cultural spoken word unit that I taught in my first year teaching English to high school seniors. Enjoy.

 

Crowd of One

Hungry Eyes, all mine,

addressed in introspection:

They exert their will,

I cerebrally spectate,

and am perplexed in retrospection.

They play their taxing game

Of conflict and submission;

The victors lead without shame,

Left to question their decision.

My family of wandering eyes,

Acutely aware in cerebral exploration:

Existing in relation, self-gratifying

Through incestual fornication.

They survive their contests,

Subsisting on daily rations.

They ebb and flow, shrink and grow,

Survival of the loudest.

Each has their time to be heard;

Each alternately swallows their pride.

Yet over time, all combine

To join this one—

To be mine.

 

 

 

“I Am”

I am…. a mosaic

I am an amalgam

of artificial sweeteners supplementing

a cup of please mask my hangover lingering

from last night’s escape from

corporeal punishment by

consuming the refuse of

producers attempting to

drain my main vein that sustains

“quality of life.”

 

Whatever that is.

 

I am…pixelated.

I have been painted by a

bombardment of advertising stimuli exemplified by

the rapid stream of vapid scenes emitted in

sickening :30 second spans that

I have no remote control of.

I am a regurgitation of

Crest-white smiles

painting over inadequacy,

heartfelt encouragement to

indulge my worst vices,

console commands controlling

my immersion into that which is not my own.,

and that dude

on that reality show

that distorts my own reality.

I am a walking billboard dominated by the

P-L-A-C-E-M-E-N-T

of

P-R-O-D-U-C-T.

I am the product.

 

I am… a question mark.

I am lost, wandering

in half circles that

I cannot

complete

until I am forced downward,

straight downward;

A downward spiral might imply some

uncertainty,

but there is nothing uncertain

about this question mark.

I suddenly STOP.

And I lose myself for a

period.

The newfound freedom is overwhelming.

I eventually come to a point.

But what point does that period plot?

Where do I find myself?

 

That

is the question.

 

  

Lot's Wife

It's human nature to look back. We are a nostalgic species and there is much to learn from retrospection.

The story of Lot's Wife from the book of Genesis has puzzled and intrigued all manner of artists as it seems to serve as a warning against our impulse to look backwards.

Lot was a citizen of the original sin-city: Sodom. Being a good Christian, he took two strangers into his home and protected them from an angry mob of rapists. The strangers reveal themselves to be angels and tell Lot that he needs to GTFO of Sodom before pissed-off Old Testament God torches everything. They hustle Lot and his family out of the city just as the fireworks are starting up and the angels tell them not to look back. Lot's Wife, (sometimes called Edith) looks back and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt. 

There are extensive artistic works examining  this story- painters painting her shocked face as she gazes on the ruins of her home, poets writing words from her perspective as to why she turned to look. Here are three poems that give us some insight on what Edith might've been thinking.

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Lot's Wife

by Anna Akhmatova

And the just man trailed God’s shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
“It’s not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.”

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn

 

Lot's Wife

by Wislawa Szymborska

They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.
I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now--every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
It was then we both glanced back.
No, no. I ran on,
I crept, I flew upward
until darkness fell from the heavens
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
It's possible I fell facing the city.

Painting by Janet Shafner

What Lot's Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn't a Pillar of Salt)

by Karen Finneyfrock

Do you remember when we met
in Gomorrah? When you were still beardless,
and I would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing
you, when we were young, and blushed with youth
like bruised fruit. Did we care then
what our neighbors did
in the dark?

When our first daughter was born
on the River Jordan, when our second
cracked her pink head from my body
like a promise, did we worry
what our friends might be
doing with their tongues?

What new crevices they found
to lick love into or strange flesh
to push pleasure from, when we
called them Sodomites then,
all we meant by it
was neighbor.

When the angels told us to run
from the city, I went with you,
but even the angels knew
that women always look back.
Let me describe for you, Lot,
what your city looked like burning
since you never turned around to see it.

Sulfur ran its sticky fingers over the skin
of our countrymen. It smelled like burning hair
and rancid eggs. I watched as our friends pulled
chunks of brimstone from their faces. Is any form
of loving this indecent?

Cover your eyes tight,
husband, until you see stars, convince
yourself you are looking at Heaven.

Because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors
are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god.

I would say these things to you now, Lot,
but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue.
So instead I will stand here, while my body blows itself
grain by grain back over the Land of Canaan.
I will stand here
and I will watch you
run.

Kiss With Teeth Readings

I read some poems from Kiss With Teeth.

Go ahead and give them a listen.

Don't Listen to the Bleeding Hearts

Here's a poem I wrote recently.

Don't listen to the bleeding hearts
and romantics and university students.
Art is as commonplace as a phone call to an old friend.

Artists are self-important.
It's a necessary trait
Otherwise people would see
them for what they are:
Bottom feeders.
Scum.
Liars.
Charlatans.
Sophists.

We make the effort to spin
shit into gold.
But it's still shit.
No matter how much time you spend on it.
No matter how much work and thought goes into it.
It's still shit.
But sometimes,
Sometimes the light catches it
Just right...

They're a rotten bunch.
"Tortured"
"Feeling"
"Misunderstood"
More like maladjusted.
Who isn't tortured and feeling?
Who doesn't feel misunderstood?
It's just the opposite:
They're completely understood-
Smearing colors around and 
Covering pages with lines.
Useless crybabies.
Unable to cope with the
Everyday wretchedness of humanity
And are thus forced to ram their head into the wall repeatedly
In an attempt to make it
More beautiful with their blood.

...And for one shimmering second, it's gold.

Kiss With Teeth Teaser

In the forthcoming weeks, I'll be releasing a small collecting of poetry called Kiss With Teeth. 

I have decided to post a teaser- me reading the titular poem.

Kiss With Teeth

A kiss doesn’t have to be
some tender thing
whispered 
through a chink in a wall
in the dead of night.

A kiss doesn’t have to be
something fragile
like a flower
made of glass
and paper.

A kiss doesn’t have to be
a tranquilized animal
laying in its cage
indifferent
as tourists shuffle by

A kiss can be a blur of fur
and claw
and tooth.

SUMMAH BONUS

To celebrate the first official day of summah, I wrote a little poem for all of you.

I sit and wait in the sunshine
For the piano to play a song.
I sit in this little world of mine
And quietly hum along.

Birds are chirping
Friends are talking
The smell of sunblock's in the air
Dogs are barking
Tourists walking
No one has a care

Life may be cruel
Life may be hard
The evil rein and rule
But all that darkness feels so far
Lounging by the pool.

The sun is shining
We're graced by summer's kiss.
"If this ain't nice,"
As KV put it,
"I don't know what is."

Image courtesy of saturdayeveningpost.com