Neon nefarious nepotism among the clouds creates chasms of lightning and love. Deep in the gorge, I make a boat out of a pallet and an umbrella. The umbrella is purple. So is my grieving spirit. The river will rush through the canyon into my veins. The rain nourishes the curving river as it cuts around red rocks. I hear it coming closer. I have my boat. I have my bruises. I have no reason why. The river lifts me up. I am 37 34 25 21 19 and then 9.
Author: Lisa Marie
Only Jesus and I See It
The flavor of his chocolate pie is deafening. Today is marbled, a muse of comfort. Or maybe elegance. I’d like to say comfort and elegance can “coexist” like it says on those stupid bumper stickers, but for me they seldom can. Around the table, saints with no stigmata. But the barbs in my brain break free frequently, and deep in my husband’s psyche, a wound tears softly, as though my husband’s essence were perforated. His halo is turquoise and silver and shines like the sun. Only Jesus and I see it.
Horror Poem
My blood flows out in icy spurts. The sun sets overhead, sullen and unwilling to go down, but with no other choice.
Periwinkle Aliens Piss Me Off
Periwinkle aliens piss me off. Get your saucer off my lawn. You don’t pay rent. (None of my neighbors fear an alien invasion thanks to me) The prowess of a dragon fly hunting inside me is matched only by the wolves that hunt beside me. I wear a ballgown to funerals and black to parties. Sometimes, my personality rips at the seams a little, a frayed strip of rainbow fluttering in a recalcitrant breeze. Who will carry me home after a night carousing with the coldest stars?
How I Avoid Death
Death sings in an acapella group. I’ve only avoided him because my voice makes angels cry, being made of shattered glass, a northerly wind, and incompetence. No one will let me sing with them.
Time
Time is seldom sober, and he trips a lot. He tried to pick me up in a bar once, and I told him I had a boyfriend. He didn’t know the boyfriend was poetry, but silence is sweet like fudge. Now, Time loops over my arms in an embrace, pulling me from my quaint little dollhouse – and I tell him I’m not interested. He slides his slick tongue in my ear, licking my discontinued brain, and whispers, “ I have my way with all of you eventually.” Gradually, the dollhouse recedes as I enter a place where Time is meaningless.
Together
I am your cloud, your muse, your curving texture of unequivocal light. Everything in me is designed for you, darling, from the tender, disturbing flower of my mouth to the soft places you rest your hands. The mountains ask what will become of us, but we know. You were born to dazzle, I to sparkle quietly. Together, we will light a path for the one most precious to us, a path to help guide her through the darkening world.
Depression
Beneath a violet sky, I tap my slippers together 3 times and end up in DC. It isn’t home. I wish I could untap my slippers. But it will have to do. The day unfolds like a receipt, a radicalized holiday that smells oddly hairy. This place withers my soul, who really ought to be tougher by now but is battered and worn by shifting storms of mood. The day weighs 25 pounds – not too much to carry but enough to ensure I’ll be tired. Depression fills me formlessly like water, filling up the cracks and crevices of my body and mind.
Prose Poems Scare Me
Idiosyncratic ice, sculpted by wind and sun and cold, seals the world like lamination. You can see it if you look closely, a thin, almost wet sheen on handrails and sidewalks. Underneath ice, my heart is a room everyone walks out of, saying, “The yellow walls were garish, and the music stilted.” In my yard, a carousel filled with the dying in their Sunday best. The ice protects the world from cold wind with cold water, and I find myself mulling over the concept of wasted desert effort. Prose poems scare me. They’re so true that no one believes them.
They ask, “Do You Have Any Suicidal Ideation?”
Lyrical breezes swirl over a Van Gogh landscape, unsure how to define the words, “ Give him your marrow.” My frustrations were vented and flew up to the sky like a bright yellow balloon, happy and eager to be heard by the clouds. Then…..well, they popped, of course, their remains falling imperceptibly to choke the natural world. My smile must be put on a leash and dragged into work sometimes. If walls could talk, I think they’d say, “She tries to be useful, but finds her presence redundant.”
Miniature Moon 