Earthly Delights

Circe daydreamed under an oak tree that grew on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Her pet pig, Ulysses, dug truffles while she watched the sunset roll in. The truffles smelled woody, fresh, and clean. She felt wise when she nibbled them, almost as if she’d lived on the island for centuries.

She had thought she might live forever, cloistered from humankind. Young, tech rich, cranky, and prone to fits of passionate revenge, solitude suited her until she longed for company. Her TikTok video advertising island paradise dream homes went viral. Ulysses, in a straw hat, held an open house sign.

Doomsday Clock

Sun and rain ravage her wind tossed hair,
jet black strands smooth as onyx glass.
Silken threads like kitten's fur, 
new as morning dew on grass. 

A child, yet grown, eyes intent, 
round with wonder, bright with fire. 
Her night brings monsters, malcontents 
wreaking havoc in dreamland's mire.

Ruled by demons dangerous dark,
audacious lies we can do without.
Perdition's putrid stench arises 
ignoring famine, flood and drought.

An omen for tomorrow? 
Resist the slippery slope. 
Stand together against oblivion, 
build barricades of hope.

The future waits. We can save one another.
Honor the Earth for she is our mother.

Afternoon Nap

Fleeting memories of something standing behind

me on a path. It catches up,

steps a crackling of gravel that grate,

disrupt, scatter the inner rhythm of the narrative flow.

Something omitted, textual. I keep

to the point, a crucial missing piece.

Pen in hand, letters to words.

Sentences slide past closed eyes, the ink dissembling,

thoughts assembling,

meaning transforms a tissue of dreams.

A new idea stands.

Can it survive the waking world?

Piercing

light delivers me from sleep. The ghostly paper vanishes,

the words, a memory.

The poem a floating fragment,

a vision, a fleeing image shrouded by forgetting.

Demon New Year

Photo by Juan Felipe Ramu00edrez on Pexels.com

“The demon lurks around the corner, under the house, under the bed. If you sleep, little one, she will drive you mad.”

“What’s mad.” The tiny child jingled coins rhythmically in a red envelope. The metallic noise soothed. He wake-dreamed of sweets from the shop where a nice old man scooped cones of syrupy ice. Eyes dropped. But something, maybe wisdom, maybe obedience kept deep dreams away.

Fearsome looking, Sui demon opened the door. Leaves swirled underfoot. She reached; she intended an evil touch.The child and his father stirred. Coins clanked together. Moonlight gave chase and Sui melted away.

We’ve Slept Too Long

Rip woke in a frenzy. What a nightmare he’d had. Befuddled by layers of dust on the furniture, his feet numb with sleep, he left the house. How long had it been?

A trail behind his house led to an overgrown pasture. Where were the cows he kept? And if they were gone, why hadn’t the deer replaced them? He tuned his ears to the sounds of birds and heard nothing. He found the river, now a creek. Sixty years ago, there’d been a spring that gushed from a rock. Now it was silent. Hope’s season had come and gone.

County Fair

That summer Gene, eyes longing, looked at Billie Jo like she was a county fair roller coaster. She got dizzy thinking about that look. Sitting in a lawn chair, sipping iced tea, and reading starlet magazines, Billie Jo thrilled to stories about Hollywood. She and Gene would play opposite each other as romantic leads. She was sure they’d have fantastic careers in show business.

Come the fall chill, Gene never looked at her that way. It was always some other way and she didn’t always like to admit it, but she should have known things would turn out less exciting.

A Dream, Really

All of this is true. I wore a forty year old skirt I’d made when I was fifteen. I’d lost some weight. I brought my teenagers to the party. While eating appetizers, the hostess gushed and I blushed. Rhyme intended. All I could think about at dinner was how much I wanted to be sitting with the teens, talking about horror flicks. I have no interest in expensive wine.

Segue to the kid’s table. I’m patched in. The one upping seems more honest, until it seems more pointed. “You sew. How retro.” The daughter glibly changes the subject to France.

Gypsy

A woman worked the aisles of the train, singing a minor key Middle Eastern version of the blues in a guttural language. She wore primary colors in ancient patterns, suggesting crystal balls and gypsy caravans. You could tell she wanted money. Her stooped shoulders and broken teeth said she deserved it. At the end of the car, she pulled a metal bar from her skirts. Twisting it to jimmie the door, she took a breath in before crossing to the next car. Her scarves wrapped around her hand, she skipped across the swiftly moving gap of light above the tracks.

I Woke Up

The careening red VW, no license plate, jumps the sidewalk. Zero culpability. It simply climbs over me. Waving my arms, I’m screaming like a madman while it turns the corner. The bug is looking for an address, looking with yellow insect eyes mounted on the windshield. What does it see through those compound eyes? Multiple images of the same thing from slightly different angles enhanced by kaleidoscopic colors like it’s on an acid trip. How will it know when to stop? I call the police. After the adrenaline ebbs, after I hear the explosion, then I wake up.

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