Monday, April 30, 2012

The Wordsmiths Song




He laid her to rest in a bath of his brightest verse
Still growing hair propped under a poetic pillow of Christ and despair
Her fingers circled in the finest agony, neatly inscribed in fourteen karat metaphor
Her bosom draped in sonnets that would make Hera blush

You sleep now love
God save me
And eat in filigreed finery
God save me
I'll weep for your ghost
God save me
And companionship lost
God Save me
Take with you these words that I sing
Amen
They are all that I have to give
Christ....amen

He kissed her forehead with senryu lip gloss, cherry
And brushed her hair back with yesterdays melancholy sunset blazing
Her skin was as cold as a Russian winter, inked with an icicle
But her memory was as fresh as a teens infatuated lovers glance

Goodbye dear love
God save me
And fly with lightning bug splendor
God save me
I'll toast your soft touch
God save me
And companionship lost
God save me
Take with you these words that I sing
Amen
They are all that I have to give
Christ....amen

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Campfire Love


A little late for Fireblossom Friday's prompt at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads. Did not use a specific Mucha pic, but wrote on the feeling that they gave me when I researched them on line.  Cool prompt Shay.




You said you wanted hoops so big you could train poodles with them
When you wore them with the matching bangles I bought, you shined
Laughing over wine and an unnecessary camp fire, you drew short
And you told me of the intensity of supernatural love

I drank from that spring for a hundred years or maybe a night
The sweat that pooled in that spot in the small of your back, an elixir
Honey that coats a soft mind hell bent on fingering those brunette ringlets
And lips that hypnotized, fogging your words, yet I still remember

It was the day of the comet and your breath became tangy with regret
You called in tongues to your dead father and took my hand swiftly
Plunging my pink skin into the white hot of a fire seasoned with oak and rosemary
I fled unburned but unhealed all the same, forever searching my soul in every crowd


Friday, April 13, 2012

Effervescence Lost

Everman was everthere at Evermore with everone
And faeries danced on lightning strokes
Enchanting all the largest blokes
Til Eustice captured one by wing and tail

Evermore was eversad at everthing in evertime
And hollered fits in ancient tongues
Shout the curse from  ladder rungs
And searchers took no time to unfurl sail

EverKing was everkind but everspoke of nevermore
That man and light will ever meet
Dance in kind in the village street
Forever hidden masked by magic’s’ veil

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sundays and Sarsaparilla

SUNDAYS AND SARSAPARILLA
 
By
 
Corey Rowley
 
 
 
 
         It was crazy hot, after dinner, and Sunday afternoon.
         Three generations of men were on the porch, doing what Grams referred to as loafin’ dem bones.  Dad was reclining in the old wicker rocking chair, chewing on the remnants of a week old cigar.  Although the look on his face was one of relaxation, he could never completely hide the face of work and worry behind his Sunday afternoon face.
         Pap sat in the porch swing, his feet dangling, not touching the floor.  He wore the same I think I’m going to have a stroke expression on his face that he brandished regardless of time or emotion.  He muttered about how he thought the heat was making him shrink, a comment that never garnered much attention since it was one of his main topics of conversation every day that the temperature would reach ninety degrees or better.  Grams would always derail him from that topic by telling him that the heat don’t shrink a good man, but, it sure as hell might give him some wrinkles.
         I would sit on a cinder block, leaning against the wall of my grandparents’ house, which I had always considered to be nondescript.  Nondescript with the exception of the smell of cooked cabbage that seemed to have worked its way into the soul of the house, overriding all other odors, no matter what might have been stewing in the kettle for dinner.  To this day, the smell of cabbage cooking always reminds me of the colors Avocado Green and Harvest Gold.
         My shoulder blades would rest comfortably against the house, my head tilted back completing a three point nap position.  I would pull down the brim of my Cub cap, close my eyes and enjoy what little Sunday afternoon relaxation that I could.
         Air in the summer time was nonexistent.  What you breathed in August around those parts was heat.  This was the only thing that could explain why every soul was so quick to temper during the latter parts of summer, even me.
         The silence of our summer Sunday would always come to an abrupt end in the same fashion.  Pap would smack his dentureless gums and thin pale lips, and utter one word. “Parched.”
         He would stand up, trembling, and fish in his back pocket for his wallet for what seemed like hours.  He would come close to losing his balance and tumbling over several times before he would finally work the ancient leather case free.
         He would pull a single dollar bill from the depths of a wallet that rarely saw the light of day, at least not in the company of friends or family.  I was pretty sure that the only other living soul other than me and Dad that had laid eyes on that wallet more than six times was Crandon Birch, the white trash boozer that ran the girlie show down on Devonshire.  I had seen Pap sneaking in more than once after his Saturday morning haircut when I was at the arcade.
         Once the wallet was safely stashed again, Pap would sit back and study the dollar bill.  He would turn it over in his hands and look at it from every angle.  I knew Pap wasn’t oblivious to the fact that I was watching him, but, at the time he didn’t want me to know that this was the case.
         Pap would squint hard.  He would fold back the corners of the bill one by one, taking the greatest of care to ensure that there was only one bill in his hands.  He rubbed the bill between his thumb and forefinger so hard at times that I thought he was going to rub the nose clean off of President Washington.
         My mind would fester, tarrying on the fact that I knew he was going to ask me to run up to Charlie Applegate’s market to fetch him a sarsaparilla and a bag of Goobers.  As always these items would total eighty-three cents.  And, just like every Sunday for the last two years, he was going to play with that single dollar bill for ten minutes until he made damned sure that he wasn’t giving me more money than he had to.  Not once in two years had he ever offered to buy me, the faithful servant that fetched his after dinner goodies, a little something for my troubles.
         As if the same old routine wasn’t bad enough, on this particular Sunday, Pap added a new wrinkle to his festival of cheapness.  He held the dollar bill up to the sun to see if the transparency was consistent with that of a single, one-dollar bill.  It was this new wrinkle that sent me careening over the edge.  There was no doubt in my mind that Pap had secured his position in the cheapskate hall of fame.
         I glanced at my dad, who was still reclining, a grin played at the corners of his mouth and closed eyes, suggesting that maybe he had an idea of how angry these episodes made me.  My anger peaked.  I was going to demand that Pap buy me a sarsaparilla for my trouble today, and I didn’t even like sarsaparilla.
         As I stepped toward him, I became aware of a ball in the pit of my stomach.
         Pap was still holding the bill up to the sunlight when I approached him
         “Pap,” I said, trying to add some authority to my approach by lowering my voice.
Because the matters at hand overshadowed everything else happening on the porch at that particular moment, I hadn’t noticed that my dad had stopped rocking and cocked an eye in my direction.
         “Huh,” Pap said, appearing not to notice the tone in my voice, or the fact that I had stirred before I had been summoned.
         “Well Pap, I think that...well ya see…do you want me to run up to Charlie’s for ya?”
         “If it ain’t no bother.”
         “No bother,” I said, hanging my head in disgust.
         Pap handed me the dollar bill and placed his order as if I had never performed this woeful task, and I headed off to Charlie’s.
         I didn’t hear the conversation between Pap and dad that day after I left, but dad told me what was said years later.  And now, as I sit in my wicker rocking chair, on the porch of my fairly nondescript house, I recall the conversation.
         “It frustrated the hell out of me when you used to do that to me pop.”
         “Taught ya to stand up for yourself didn’t it?”
         “I guess.”
         “It’s a good thing that your boy didn’t decide to find his manhood today.”
         “Why’s that?”
         “I only had one dollar.”

Let Me Bend Your Ear

I spit my wares into the hallway of a million eyes
Expecting studied, knowing glances
Waiting, needing, justification for putting pen to paper
Eating my words, breathing my experiences, killing my desire

Images for you are weeded out from documentary length rambling
And perch among your thoughts, blending context and reality
“I’ve been there,” you shout, the echo reverberates in my heart
The pieces of my mind clatter to the shiny ceramic tile floor

I peek from behind my shield to see if you are true
You devour my intentions with ravenous introspection
Keeping for your heart, the candy of your choice
The syrupy sweetness tempts the tongue, texture to die for

Eat my words, if you will
Meet my eyes, if you will
Clench my heart in your trembling hands
Cradle my thoughts like a newborn puppy

Let me bend your ear

Copyright 2010 Corey Rowley

Can You Spare Any Change?

A penny for your thoughts had turned into a dollar for your thoughts due to inflation
I wasn't sure that my thoughts were worth the original price of a penny
So I offered them up for free to any who would listen, throwing in a cup of coffee
And when you heard my thoughts and told me they were patently ridiculous
I left the room a changed man, furious at my insignificance and the fact that I had shared
After sitting alone on the corner waiting for the ghosts to finish eating my heart
A man sat down next to me and asked how I was doing, I said fine, like always
He asked me if I knew how to make a million dollars and I said I did
Then show that bitch which direction the wind blows and then send her for a ride
He got up and left and for the second time that day I was a changed man
The power of a word knows no boundaries, and who was I to try to put a fence around mine?


© 2011 Crowley

Before the War

If that morning could have been any more perfect
I would have sent it to you postage paid
For you to open with your tea and toast
In a bright shaft of sunlight, dust dancing
 
It would have been the last happy moment
One light and insignificant second, beaming
Before the skies turn grey and your house burned to the ground
Life put on hold grasping for a bigger meaning
 
Those bombs steal the wet pavement and a leisurely stroll
Placing the body politic and heretical values on parade
Eating finely ground snippets of life to be blown forever up
In a direction that stinks of soot and broken families
 
And the wasted moments….


© 2011 Crowley

A Poem for Mother


The ripe smell of new birth and old mother coalescing
Her too thin hips and jaundiced skin, Dali beautiful
Screaming for me to write her a poem in scarlet strokes
Using the freshly pooling placenta at the foot of grandmas velvet chair
As inspiration.........its Mother's Day

Plucking adjectives with confused forceps, blinking away tears
Too many modifiers, slapping me for my fool wordiness
Cherub face swollen, sketching too big letters with umbilical stubs
Watching the cigarette butt smolder in the once nourishing mass
Writing of fires set brazenly by children with unhealthy respect

"You are less of a poet than you are a man"

Tis' true

"Now fetch my wine and a breast pump"

No breast feeding

"And hope that your life is short dear boy"

Hallelujah amen

"Be thankful you are not your father's son"


Copyright 2011

Monday, April 9, 2012

Ashes




The tell tale thud of certain and excruciating circular death
The air was sucked from the universe one missing breath after another
The smell of ozone and radiation intoxicated, clearing her mind
Mixed sharply with the taste of candied fear, poured from beautiful desperation

Ashes to ashes my father
Drink in the possibilities of fate
Loosen your grip on dear children
And do not temper justice out of emotional convention

She sat on the stoop, eyes closed and dreaming in harsh pastel colors
She devoured the emotional electricity of the city on the brink
A million children asking why, shut up and let me in quickly
Focus dear ones on the beauty of the still wired moment, conscious death

Ashes to ashes my father
Drink in the possibilities of fate
Loosen your grip on dear children
And do not waste precious energy in regret

As the invisible wave rolled on, feeding on primordial pain, quenching
She gathered the fear and locked it in momentary suspension and smiled
War is not real, not the way this universal speck has packaged it
She ate from the depth of the soul and its relationship to mother

Ashes to ashes my father
Drink in the possibilities of fate
Loosen your grip on dear children
Litter our hearts with a more precious understanding

With a whisper that thundered, she released her grasp and bowed her head
Sweet cacophony and unbridled epiphany filled the vacuous void
Pain shattered mid air and clattered to the clay in splendid shards of grace
And the pathetic ghosts of death danced lightly among her people, relieved

Ashes to ashes my father
Drink in the possibilities of fate
Loosen your grip on dear children
Let one be the voice of the many through telling eyes

Mother let the unrepentant tide of dysfunction starve completely
And hold me to your perfect breast until the morning has suckled wisdom
Brushing the hair of the fates, one hundred strokes with razor blade brushes
Allowing new growth and a look into the eyes of lucid understanding

Ashes to ashes my father…..


© 2011 Crowley