it hovers, then
alights
upon your forearm
hope-curious and tentative
humming
you see it has
eyes like mosaics and
iridescence in the twitch
of
its wings
and
whining
it moves in a sort of
halted
stares in a sort of
awed–
eyes like shattered mirrors
wide and faceted and eager,
strange
buzzing
it is a persistent and incomprehensible
Irritation–
Your dismissing gesture crushes me.
Thirty years in, Mr. Kent fell again
for the Ms. Kent he’d loved the first three.
She’d been a slip of a girl then with
sweet eyes and a
dancing gait
with
smooth legs
under a cotton skirt;
the memory
crept to his side in stolen minutes
or idle hours
when he could lie with it a while
and feel relieved.
Ms. Kent was a woman
who aged quietly,
shrinking with little opposition
into the hollows between her bones.
Still, she liked sometimes to go out
and find some manically colored dress
to take home and try on for just herself.
She’d pull the fabric to her hips
and let it drop to her calves–
It’d drop
like a sheet over a portrait.
“Take more care of yourself.”
Friend said
from behind a plastic clipboard
and wire-framed glasses.
“Communicate your feelings.”
I nodded
and tucked away
this piece of advice with the others.
It was the evening after
when I waded waist-deep
into stagnant waters
and dredged up a heart and
three empty littered cans.
The cans I tossed back,
but the organ I cradled a bit
in one arm while
with the other hand
I smeared away the mud and algae.
It absorbed me the way
the thing throbbed so
fatty red
underneath my fingers,
helplessly vital
with the aortic valve
gasping open and closed,
like the scrunched lips
of a crying babe.
I looked at it and, making a decision,
carried it the half mile home,
to drop it on the kitchen table,
where He looked at it
like a sodden boot
and asked what I was getting at.
I wiped my muddied hands off
on the front of my dress
and told him
it could be a conversation piece.
He repeated, with patient irritation,
that he wasn’t much for conversing
and got up to our room
to go to sleep.
I sat a while in silence.
Then, picked the heart up off the table,
and mopped up the mess.
The next afternoon,
He sat in his chair
reading his paper
while I worked
to the murmur of my thoughts.
He glanced up eventually,
and asked about dinner.
I wiped my bloodied hands off
on the front of my dress
and told him
I’d prepared a small meatloaf.
He nodded and scratched his stomach,
so I left to set the table.
Our forks whispered back and forth
over the ceramic of our plates.
We looked at our laps
and filled our mouths.
—
“You’re making steps”
Friend said
from behind a plastic clipboard
and wire-rimmed glasses.
“Relationships require compromise.”
I nodded
and tucked away
this piece of advice with the others.
——————————————————
Fwew, turns out that moving involves a lot of paperwork. Anywho, popping in here amidst the madness to break the radio silence. Take care folks. 🙂
~Smithy
So yesterday, I was splitting a scorpion bowl with a friend of mine at a tasty Hibachi place.
About halfway through the meal the alcohol went to my head–and by the end of the meal, I was slurring a bit. Naturally, my decision at this juncture was that I should pull out my phone and begin texting my partner about Mr. Junior–his penis. This was not an unusual gesture; drunk texting his penis has become a bit of a tradition between us, a form of affection. Yet yesterday I had received good news that put me in a particularly inspired mood, and I decided that the regular cock compliments would not suffice. This time, his penis needed poetry.
The following texts were what ensued.
—————————————————
8:28pm
…I love your penis. And scorpion bowls.
8:33pm
A limerick:
I met Mr. Junior one day
and asked for a roll in the hay.
Mr. Junior said no,
and called me a Ho.
Since then I have been a clinically diagnosed alcoholic.
8:37pm
Haha! I joke. I’m not an alcoholic. I just cry and fap a lot.
8:52pm
Haha! I joke again.
8:53pm
It’s mostly crying.
——————————
There was no immediate response. Forgetting it a while, I went to a friend’s house, watched a terrible movie, sobered up, and went home.
It wasn’t until the next morning that my partner responded, asking me if I’d had a fun night and expressing his belief that as a poetry blogger, I had a duty to share the whole debacle with the internet. I hope you found this enjoyable.
Image credit:Â http://dtfjihky7xwic.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/article_section/public/Restaurants/scorpion-bowl_0.jpg
I lie back as Earth spins and falls
listlessly pinned against its crust;
We can’t seem to feel it at all.
Pooled on the floor’s my wine-stained shawl
We whet our mouths and barter trust
I lie back as Earth spins and falls
Voice husked in morning’s slurry drawl
You feed me poems coated in dust
We can’t seem to feel it at all
As midday hangs its firey awl
We trade our tersely tempered gusts
I lie back as Earth spins and falls
Winding starlight into taught balls
I leave the sky bruised black and mussed
We can’t seem to feel it at all
I wash and fold my wine-stained shawl
We trade no more words than we must
I lie back as Earth spins and falls
We can’t seem to feel it at all.
———————————–
First attempt at a villanelle. Tricky buggers these.
Take care,
Smithy
Stone after stone tossed
I watch them sink from view
as their ripples fade into the lake’s passive face
and silence returns.
The feel of cotton weighs heavy on my tongue
and my skin is too full of heat.
Spent, I lie down on the water bank
in a bed of upturned soil
and let its damp cool my fever.
My hands are emptied of stones
and my bed is scarred with digging.
Lethargy numbs my limbs.
I have changed nothing.
Take this small bit of chocolate
and hold it on your tongue.
Feel it melt without
swallowing
a single drop
just yet.
Then perhaps you’ll understand
what it means to me
to kiss your inner thighs without
dipping my tongue between them.
Hey folks, quick note–
It’s finals time for me, and life is getting desperately busy. I will continue writing, and won’t always get to respond as much to comments, but I read and appreciate every one. Thanks for reading.
~Smithy
——————————————————————————-
Wrapped tight in lace, she knots a mass of curls at the nape of her neck,
applies neat rouge, and smoothes her skirt with slender, polished hands.
Beneath his plug stretches her wide; wetness slicks the inner thigh.
I am upset, because I am bad at not wanting you.
I have tried, mind you–
New diverting hobbies
Coffee with other people
Sex with other people
Relationships
And all these things I always
eventually
shed like a skin
and my lust for you remains
a constant thriving thing
pulsing warmth into
the new skin growing beneath
I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment
when you sunk to those places inside me
that cannot be removed
without uprooting bits of
attached flesh,
tissues of the deep kind–
not the thin, flimsy layers
I scratch off month by month
while trying to claw down to the itch beneath.
I wish I could
(during our inevitable relapse)
wrap my legs around you
fast enough,
cum around you
tight enough,
that I could hold you within me
and not release you
until you’re willing to dig around
find the wanting you left in me,
and take the goddamn thing with you.
just…
please, please,
I want you
in
or
out
but not this aching thing
in between–
get it out of me
A warm tingle
sparks dully
in my lower abdomen
as I lie on my back,
stare at the ceiling,
and roll a memory
between my back teeth.
My limbs are magnetized by my lethargy.
The ground pulls them.
A finger rubs absently
at the inch below
my waistband.
My hips push slightly upwards,
never leaving the mattress,
hold a moment
and then collapse slow
like a sigh.
I am,
it seems,
too tired
for the vigorous frigging
of masturbation–
though not nearly too tired
to lie back
and idly want you.
The Iniquitous Forge 
