Thursday, August 26, 2010

Unclean Title

The hibiscus are in bloom.
There. That place. Where I used to live.
Engine running, Jackie-O sunglasses and scarf, I resemble a 1960's starlet in disguise.
But if they came out, they'd recognize me.
I hope.
I dread.
Its not yellow any more. My favorite house color.
Every house I ever owned was some shade of yellow,
Porch, shutters, gingerbread, window trim, if not all.
The sun bouncing off the clotted red hurts my eyes. I blink a few times to focus.
The crepe myrtle is gone, and the palm
-I don't know what kind it is, I never cared about that-
is so tall it shades the optional bay alcove I paid extra for.
Its just a place I used to store my things and pace the halls because I couldn't sleep,
hornets stinging, subdermal demons writhing,
while the voices threatened to trap me in between the sheet rock and cinderblock.
It was never home.
I put the car in drive and ignore the stop sign at the corner.

A Promise is a Promise is a Promise

A campaign promise
is not a champagne promise
is high gloss lipstick over veneered teeth
is not a testament of intelligence, integrity, talent, education or, most certainly, sobriety
is a curtain over honesty with hypocrisy smirking around the tiebacks
is not a vow of devotion but a paean to opportunism
is drawn and quartered by all comers in a bukake baccanal
is what I won't make you because you deserve better.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Houses and Homes and Promises

I'll build a home with you and we'll never need a king size bed.
We've both been there. We've learned.
I think so anyway. I like to think so, that we've, that I've, learned.
And I promise to smile when you come in,
no matter how busy I am,
no matter how distracted,
because.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

A Roving We Will Go

Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.

She sang as she picked the roving apart, but it wasn't soft, safe, wonderful cotton, despite her assumption, despite its appearance.
It was fiberglass.
Carcinogenic, full of slivers that weaseled under the skin, shimmied into the lungs and brain, and set up housekeeping, eager for spouse, children, third cousins twice removed to come along ans expand the compound.
Fiberglass.
That miracle substance so pervasive in the housing industry that it was regarded as the lead paint of the new millennia and no one was sure whether the better approach was to remove the contaminant or contain it in walls and spray foam polyurethane.
Fiberglass in toys and drapes and attic insulation, where she sat, fluffy piles around her. She liked the way it glistened, the hologram effect when she held a piece to her eyes and pulled, until the light coming through the tiny window was a rainbow. It was her favorite game, that fall, hiding in the attic and singing, a pretend princess waiting for prince charming to kiss her into forever-never land.
Years later, when the doctors told her she had ‘white lung', the fiberglass version of asbestosis, she wouldn't remember that fall.
Who remembers the innocent games of childhood, anyway?

Random

Time weighs too much. Not a volume measure, but an endless press.
Way back, breakfast bile.
No more. Now I eat happy,
Faith trust pixie dust.

Wrongness is past life.
Wake to joy, right, comfort. No tears.
Love hope charity.

Six points make a star
that lays above my heartbeat
to keep me aware.