painting happy endings

You charm and tease me to my own chagrin
to the point where my mind is not my own,
and the thoughts therein have not ceased to spin
since the idea of you itself was sown.
So I call you Muse and let my head swell
with imaginative iterations
of your temptations, natured kiss-and-tell,
to be expressed as my inspirations.
As I am the artist and you my muse,
I behold your grand form to be captured
with the key, pen, or brush strokes I so choose,
but instead I find myself enraptured.
And when I lay prone to my obsession
I am the canvas for your expression.

to market

I expose supple skin before my eyes
and capture its wantonness in still frames,
naive want and devotion in the guise
of brazen vanity and silly games.
A wistful smile grazes my hidden face
while I daydream that you might want to know
the depth of every word, of every space,
of every inch of myself that I show.
But reality tells me otherwise.
My message cast into the void is met
with the casual silence that implies
the distance between us that we have set.
So we remain as tempting skin and flesh,
just meat to buy and sell while it's still fresh.

20130502: comic, earth, enzyme, pill, bird, square

A Casual Sestina to the Benefits

Of course there is always something absolutely comic
about how two people meet, two out of seven billion on Earth.
The Internet has been my alternative reaction route: my catalytic enzyme.

Crane Fly

On a summer night when it's warm enough to keep the windows open, I let the night air waft in from places both near and far: places that I'll probably never have the occasion to visit. Air that's been curling through the apartment of my impossibly handsome next-door neighbor, smelling of tobacco smoke and the heady perfume of his latest sexual conquest, momentarily decorates my chaste apartment with the undertones of a well-enjoyed life.

Through the open window, a particularly playful breeze accentuated by the post-coital chitterings of the couple next-door blows a crane fly into my apartment. Despite its menacing form the crane fly is an innocuous creature made mostly of negative space. The wind tickles the wings of the less than adroit flyer causing the insect to tumble in the air. I wonder how such a beast with such lovely, elegant limbs can be so graceless. When the crane fly escapes the current and regains its bearings, it flutters to the far wall and clings to the uneven paint with with quivering legs.

The cat and I stare at the fly on the wall with differing intentions. Unlike the cat, I know that the crane fly has spent the majority of its life in its formative years as a grotesque grub, a lawn pest gorging itself underground on grass roots, and it emerged fairly recently as this harmlessly delicate creature. I know that it will only live long enough in its adult form to mate, and amidst the subtle scent of sex I wonder if it has done so already. The cat, having stared long enough, leaps up to bat the bug with a swift paw. The crane fly narrowly escapes and takes to the air like a feather on the wind. In a bit of panic, I stand up to rescue it from the cat and certain doom. So with as much dexterity granted to a human female I attempt to capture the fluttering bug between my cupped hands, but my heart sinks when my left meets my right.

My small hands failed to wrap around the entirety of the creature. I see a part of a crumpled wing and the end of a thin leg poking out between the seal of my hands. I open my hands to find the crane fly alive and shuddering, skittering on my open palm. Despite my good intentions the crane fly is as good as dead: some things are just fragile like that. It beats its mangled wings and goes nowhere.

The cat looks up at me with wide eyes of approval and gently paws my knee expectantly. I drop the crane fly, and it floats down to meet its swift deliverance. I watch as the cat snacks on the delicate morsel, and when I start to hear the escalating sounds of round two from next-door, I close the window.

20130416: shorts, fight, printer, rash, monster, worry, ant

I fight with my printer more often than I should considering it does more for me than my piss-ant boyfriend ever did, and I hardly ever sounded a complaint about him. But was I monster for the way I sent him packing? I wonder if it was a rash decision considering I'm at the age now where I worry for myself that my shorts are too short.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

20130128: kipper

Let me not dine on fish and wine
and call it so a meal divine.
Allow me instead to eat in bed
kipper snacks on crusty bread.
The salty, smokey, fishy stink
in gurgling gut from where they sink,
which I take as a healthy sign
when I send my compliments down the line.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

20121214: ink, practice, weather, university, caterpillar, waiter

A Bleeding Sestina in Blue

I sit in a cafe chair doodling on a paper napkin in blue ink. It is warm, and it is sunny, and I could use some practice being well-adjusted and happy about life, about good weather. I'm at the French bistro near the university, feeling like the notoriously hungry, hungry caterpillar, impatiently waiting for the cafe waiter.

Here he comes, the much awaited waiter.

20121213: elastic, parent, stand, curl

I won't ever doubt my role as a parent to my daughter, a spouse to my wife, or a friend to my mate. But whenever I brush the golden, elastic curls on my little girl's head, suspiciously like those on my best mate's, I can't stand the creeping thought that my friend's best mate, my wife's lover, and my daughter's father might not be me.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

20121130: strategy, sieve

Had I had a strategy I would've poisoned you slowly, built up your tolerance, gotten you hooked. I should have refined my feelings, sifted them with the sugar through the sieve and given you a little bit everyday in your morning coffee, but instead I laid it all in front of you, unrestrained, raw, and burning. Had I had a strategy I would've never known that you were already hopelessly addicted.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

18. 20120820: umbrella, error, herb, ketchup, traffic lights, warship, slide

I stand on the corner for the lights to turn
from green to yellow to red
to stop the traffic so I can cross.

I take care as not to hold the umbrella in error
to prevent rain sliding onto my hot, brown paper package.

But a car plows though the rushing gutter flood
like a warship cuts through the ocean.

I imagine no herbs, or spices, or fancy reductions fits fries quite like ketchup,
well, aside from salt. But this water isn't even salty.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

17. 20120817: nursery, voting, soldier, train, code

Following code and voting to rescue the wooden soldier from the sticky maw of their Brobdingnagian tyrant, the nursery toys devised a clever distraction of Cheerios delivered by choo-choo train.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

16. 20120816: gears

These gears that grind inside my head
keep me from slumber, restful peace,
and bring fears to mind as I lie in bed.

Their sinister and dexterous turns shred
my brain, which bleeds blood red to grease
these gears that grind inside my head.

And when exhaustion claims me instead
they spin dreams with nightmarish caprice
and bring fears to mind as I cry in bed.

But no gross amount of tears I shed
saves me from - gives no sweet release -
these gears that grind inside my head.

"Will they stop once I'm dead?"
I wonder as their speeds increase
and bring fears to mind as I lie in bed.

So I slice from ear to ear and dread
to find that they will not cease,
these gears that grind inside my head,
and bring fears to mind as I die in bed.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

My Sweet

Your tight-lipped smile hides them,
Chiclets embedded in pink bubblegum.
Laugh. Show me your glistening coral gem.

I can't let a thin line keep me from
my tender sweetness underneath:
Chiclets embedded in pink bubblegum.

For you I crack a joke and show my teeth.
Your brilliant-cut diamond eyes graze
my tender sweetness underneath.

To you I entreat, as my star-studded gaze
bites into your lush cherry lips.
Your brilliant-cut diamond eyes graze.

But nary a word of reply, slips
on jewel, past candy gums with haste;
bites into your lush cherry lips.

So you entice me to steal a taste
with tongue pressed, to lick them,
on jewel, past candy gums with haste.
Laugh. Show me your glistening coral gem.

12. 20120725: old man, hammer, forest

After Mom died it was just me and Pops, Mom's old man. She died when I was eight. I never knew my father. He knocked her up and died in the war before I was born. At least I had Pops.

The night after Mom's funeral I couldn't sleep. A lot of things kept me from sleeping, but there was only one thing that night that kept me awake.

From the woods behind our house I heard violent sounds of a beast unlike that I had ever heard before. Howling. Thrashing. Thumping. Crashing. Crying. It sounded like someone, or something, was being attacked. Dying.

Double Act

Cecil had just sat down to take his first bite of his spaghetti dinner when a knock at the door made him flinch. The neat coil of noodles around his fork dropped to his plate splashing a bit of sauce onto his shirt.

He hadn’t been expecting anyone.

11. 20120628: dice, lover

7. 20120622: briefcase

6. 20120620: robot, aid

A sexdroid. I got her used, an older model that had not yet escaped the uncanny valley. Her female form is fleshier than the current trends advocate. Huge titties. Her coiffed platinum blonde hair and red-painted lips evoke a far bygone era.

It's not really to my tastes, but it was the best I could afford with the all the money I had left.

She came dressed in a five-piece naughty nurse outfit: crop top, micro mini, right shoe, left shoe, and cap. No bra. No panties.

5. 20120619: spar, sole

He liked hiking. Alone. It was about the only thing that kept him sane, grounded, and sociable in the meantime. Recently, it seemed she had become the sole reason he had to trek up that mountain.

So when she asked if she could join him the next time, all he said was "no." But his sparse reply put her in a sparring mood and sparked a venomous response, which he endured through gritted teeth.

At the end of it she packed her bags; he went hiking.

With her gone his steps were light. Overlooking the city from higher than he had ever been since before he had met her, he wondered when it was that she had become the sole reason he had to come down from that mountain.

He continued, still skyward, the veins of feldspar under the soles of his hiking boots sparkling like the tears that had run down her cheeks.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

3. 20120615: attack, nurse, ham, boxing, hinge

I had to go to the emergency room to get stitched up. I told the attractive nurse that it was from boxing. The black eye was from boxing, but black eyes don't need stitches.

The truth was I was attacked: taunting the cat near a cupboard door with broken hinges will draw blood.

My lie smelled like honey baked ham and kitty litter.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.