MFreeZone: Janet I. Buck
The Pouting Rain
I have bones that limp a lot.
Stubborn loops I’ve double-knotted.
Fidget awkward with deformed.
Frantic haste of guarding healthy.
Thorns of dreams like knives approaching
something close to sides of beef.
The steepest stairs were always eyes
and homonyms confusing faith
with ice-cold wet determination
leaking from a garden hose.
Disabled hats with thorns attached.
The headdress of a pining apple
waiting for the ripe of mobile
just like chimes that grace the wind.
Stasis is my albatross.
I have learned from watching you
that arm-less, leg-less, stuck in chairs
is not a horrid destination
even though I’d shoot myself
before I’d ever settle there.
I marvel at your peace of mind.
The irony bleeds firm respect.
You’re a Venus of a sort.
I shall die embracing pain.
Taking lettuce out of motion
makes a sandwich hard to touch.
Leaves me nothing but the onion.
I would sit in benches parked,
a victim of the pouting rain.
Dirty Shirts
We had planned this trip for months.
A getaway that dripped romance.
The fairy tale of traveling had
prickled thorns of miles to walk,
but there would be such juice within
like watermelons wishful tapped.
Pop the top on credit cards.
Stroll the paths of shopping malls.
Museums with their marble stairways.
Freezer packs. Adventure calling.
Seemed to be a promise chill
in coolers of our innocence.
The city was a maze of tubes.
Catheters to nowhere really.
Expectation’s chocolate chips
were melting into gray regret.
The lobby of the city’s bowels
drew us both like passing flies.
There was nothing there for us.
Buildings just cemented down
as posts attached to rotted teeth.
Summer had its weeds at home.
Trees that sagged, their curls brushed.
Mowing lawns and other chores
would taste a little sweeter now.
Motion here had Arctic breezes.
I would pine for mounds of dirt.
Christmas stockings of the country.
Matted hair in place of bald.
Naiveté gives nasty bites
and I would beg the plane to leave.
Home was peppermint awaiting.
Urban stinks like dirty shirts.
Summer Heat
A bike beside a rolling chair.
And I was limping in between.
The curb had edges raw with jealous.
We had sweat in different flavors.
Somehow steam transcended lame.
Motion’s check had bounced for you.
For me, accounts were running low.
Summers aren’t that awful special.
We pushed toes to meet our minds
like taco shells in paper sacks.
Thinking was a tanning booth.
Sunscreen smiles were messy lotion.
Still they had to be applied.
Never having had a choice
we would take the crippled fenders,
twist them tight like candy canes.
Somehow learn to bend them back
and sink the putt of living once
in envy of the standing rain.
Pity was an invitation
neither you nor I could answer.
Wasted stamps of raucous will.
Self-indulgence wrought with danger.
Dwelling on the empty space
like firm cement where feet would be.
Art and effort were engaged.
We were couplets in a stanza.
True, our scars were bacon blackened.
Summer’s heat was in degrees.
Wisdom Wicks
Crippled Class had just begun.
Their euphemisms stunk so much
we had to open all the doors.
I studied you like guppies floating
on their backs in water
over-dosed with pain.
Your feet, like mine,
were quacking ducks
though I had only one for noise.
Legs were lifeless lily pads.
The palsied rhythm of our ocean.
Pick the teeth of bitter tides.
The omnipresent threat of poise.
Motion was a candlestick
we polished even in the dark.
Its wisdom wick was often lit
like flashlights coping thunderstruck.
The chasm of two dreadful lives.
Its putty was a giggle kicked
like tennis balls that don’t behave.
The tanning booth of tragedy goes
straight to burn and skips the brown.
Cautious motion courting death.
Will was will. And caves were caves
that rained the art of understating
pity’s very sallow breath.
Whiplash
“Oh God, dead love.”
Writhing like a rattlesnake.
Its pulse so damned conspicuous,
yet sly as razors nicking passion
just in case it blooms again.
Horns and thorns the size of tusks,
always coming back to life.
We’re cans of tuna needing drained.
Our metal pressed into the meat.
I squeeze us very, very hard.
Juice is squirting everywhere.
Stanza breaks will buy a breath
like heaving sighs between
a cartwheel and another.
Swearing at our memories,
I cannot punctuate enough.
The menstrual cycle of a tear
that Kotex bitter cannot hold.
Catch the drift of petrified
like wood of cabins washed to sea.
I put us in the garbage can,
and rinse our matching coffee mugs.
Fender benders. Then comes art.
A puppy’s paws that pick
at threads of rugs in places
I had promised to ignore.
Whiplashed by acknowledging,
these syllables are crossing guards.
Soda crackers to an ulcer.
We were better weather once
and both deserved a little more.
| Janet I. Buck e-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com |
