Wherein I wrote a poem for a class that isn't a writing class

On a Modern Maiden Most Fair

With pants so tight I don't know
how blood gets from top to bottom
and back again.  I mean it,
I really don't see how your
sultry knees bend more than two degrees.
I'm near one-hundred percent certain
you stood behind a curtain
and pranced in a tub of India Ink,
or doused yourself in latex-free paint.
And your shoes!  My god your shoes.
You took the term 'stiletto' and ran
off with it.  Those heels haven't seen
the light of day since renaissance Italy,
since literal cloak and dagger play.
Blacker than the night when all the stars have died,
with imitation rhinestones to remind us
how those heavenly bodies used to twinkle.
And you jingle! With every stabbing step
you take across the floor, distracting me
from wondering how your feet don't sink.
You've got more fake gold than a Ralex vendor,
more fake gems than a bedazzler gone wild.
It's amazing you can even lift those
arm-like sticks hanging from your shoulders.
And the only thing sharper
than your weaponized footwear has to be
the embarrassed-red nails on the end of your skeletal fingers.
How you got in here armed to the teeth is,
to put it simply, far beyond me.
Your hair is a hayfield
in the middle of a monsoon, a wind-blown
strand damn near obliterated my eye from across the room.
What a black and tangled mess nests
above your head, I bet
even Medusa would fill with dread.
I'm not sure what else to say,
other than it must be uncomfortable, having
an octopus orgy raging above your brow.
Looking at you I now understand why
Picasso stopped his brush.
You stole all of his paints and threw them
on your face in a way so haphazard
a haz-mat team is on their way.
Your eyes are bluer than
that clue-seeking dog.  And your lips,
oh those lips, are two Hindenbergs in bloom.

wherein i did not win a poetry contest

which honestly isn't a big deal! it cost me nothing, literally zero things, to enter it so it's not a big loss at all. the good news is now that the contest is over, i think i can post my submission! like i said in the last post, it's a revision of an older poem of mine, so it might seem familiar to the two readers i have. without further ado, here it is!

Thoughts While Flying Home

One

steamboat’s weight worth

of cicadas’ droning

drowning out whatever

my cousin twice removed is saying.  It’s not important

that the sun hangs low or

that the air is closer to a stew,

thick and bubbling with the scent of heat.  I’m numb to it,

the vibrations of countless crystalline

wings blocking it all out

everything

block out the sun

two

times this week I sat legs crossed

head back laughing while grilling meat

told a tale, full of sizzle with a spiced up plot,

our mouths drip dripping with lust,

and our tiny plastic pitchforks hungry in the air

three

nights straight we sat while artificial

stars on our vine hidden porch blinked in time with

their highborn stellar kin.  And all I

could do was sit and watch, bourbon

in one hand and cigar in the other

four

kids in a tree,

no fears, no cares

responsibilities unheard of

sap the only worry, once it sticks

to hair or skin the only way out is a bath.

back to the tree one day and

all we found was a stump

five

redneck hick prick bastards

hollering that the South will rise again,

too full of cheap rotgut whiskey to realize

the South they want, She’s not ever coming back

She never really fell in the first place

No, she just changed, she just grew

into something a little less ugly,

a child after a tantrum

hi there i am alive still

i entered a poetry contest.  the poem i submitted was a revision of "thoughts I had while flying home".  i'll post it up here sometime next month, whether i win or not.  i was proud of it, there weren't huge changes, but still.  also i am totally going to make more of an effort to post on this thing more than once every few months, i promise.

pinkie swear