It doesn't scare others

that I like the slaughter

of flowers,

and find it worthy

of our center table.

But I worry

about the ants

in funeral procession

who come

with respect

to their end,

beneath a thumb

that gently rearranges

my fragrant wilting bouquet

--This symbol

of our infatuation

with Life & Death--

only my Heart

will understand,

in the great unsaid

static shock divide,

how it is

Love also dies.

Mariah closes out what area_man opens, while anchored in the middle beetween is something from ModernAntigone that can only be described with words like addictive, gorgeous, seasoned... Just like the piece before and the piece after. From the finest dining to feed the arts, to the light blocked and two litanies of sorrowful flavor so deliciously dark and told with iron breath, to the sweet song of what has died on the vine, number 53 on Prose. Radio features three writers with something beautiful to say, no matter how we slice it

Here's the link to Prose. Radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpGJ5qRys8Q

And here are the featured pieces.

https://www.theprose.com/post/822012/blocking-the-light https://www.theprose.com/post/819551/litany-i-ii https://www.theprose.com/post/811664/loves-death

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

I was in the car

she was in labor

my grandmother

who now has dementia

driving like a racehorse

on too many steroids

my uncle

her brother

said, I thought

for sure

this baby would have

been born

outside the house

in the yard

my mother laughed

she held her belly

tightly

I came out

in a rush of

blood and happenstance

I am thirty-two

sitting next to

my infant self

in the backseat

of a Buick

I woke up

after I saw myself

my bald baby head

coming out

I was

immediately conscious

once again

are dreams always

in the past tense

the fact that

once awake

they are gone

we are left

with the residue

of them

an umbilical cord

tied to the future

a remembrance

while still in utero

born again

a rebirth

but never sure

in which reality

I am my true self

which reality

do I live in now

Last week, I applied for an MFA in Writing.

Today, I am going to dye my hair peroxide blonde.

Because I am all talk, apparently, with very little substance.

Five words isn't very many. You have an incurable disease. You are going to hell. You are a bad person. It's only a flesh wound.

Nothing I haven't heard before.

So why do these five words hurt?

Let me explain it as a Facebook post:

[I read a post on Facebook yesterday that lobsters can't scream when they're being boiled alive. Their exoskeleton releases a high pitched noise when it boils, and that is their scream - the only way they can release the pain.]

I put that in "[]" because it is contained.

When my hair strands meet the peroxide, they can't scream, either.

It will be contained, and I will be contained, in this little post where I share that my dreams were put in a pot, boiled, and were determined to be nothing but hot air.

It will be contained, in a hair salon, where I will ask the hairdresser to make me blonde.

In five words, she will say: I will not do that.

In five words, she will say: You will regret doing this.

In five words, the lobsters boiled to death.

In five words, I couldn't scream out loud.

All it takes is five words.

I haint no spring chicken,

("Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!")

but in Summer re:

long in tooth sexagenarian

nostalgic for the following imagery

evoked yesterday with very little effort

(aside from sweat of my brow – just existing)

June twenty second hazy, hot, and humid

at least here within the environs -

of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

tooth thousand and twenty four,

the air analogous to a steam bath outside,

though such insight

strictly predicated on meteorologist

as seen on the flat screen.

Now before scrolling down

lemme forewarn you of dire prediction

reading about how yours truly

doth suspire for Old Man Winter

returning with a vengeance

delivering a white July Fourth, Halloween,

Thanksgiving, Christmas,

Groundhog Day, Saint Patrick's Day...

yours truly desiring experiencing

becoming comfortably numb,

after envisioning, invoking

then summoning forth cold spell.

Should deep freeze rain (reign)

crystalline precipitation pure as the driven snow

blanketing large swaths of webbed wide world

wreaking havoc courtesy

unparalleled blizzard conditions,

would stump and confound earth scientists

suddenly finding themselves pensively trumped

subsequently becoming overnight skeptics

and staunch Republicans to boot - argh,

who grudgingly, hesitatingly scrap

what seemed to be

irrefutable air tight evidence

with reams of data proving global warming

and side with deniers –

mostly non Democrats

courtesy artificial intelligence

hinting at inexplicable

significant ice age approaching,

barreling, and coming fast as a freight train

virtual models prognostication

would show Polar Vortex

engulfing the entire planet

clamping down hard

much of the United States

likely a couple short months in the future,

forecasting temperatures to register absolute zero

taxing the electric grids to heat lovely bones

chilling, freezing, immobiling civilization, whereby

government agencies regularly issuing

permanent code blue declarations,

which teeth chattering cold scenario

impossible mission to imagine or avoid

with wind chill factors in triple digits

Jack Frost overstayed courtesy welcome,

when climate controlled central heater

allows, enables and provides

man/woman made respite hooray,

apartment cozy as a poetry nook,

whereby yours truly his head he doth lay

(under crocheted blanket)

quickly slipping into deep sleep;

the missus (madre) and her padre

(me) taking a siesta until spring

in my dream I take treadway

from such new zzz land

to Piccadilly Circus, London,

welcoming me to early twentieth century

balmy weather all year round

place named Willoughby, where one

unnecessary to get bundled

and wrapped up –

like a mummy dearest

kvetching in vain at frigid forecast oy vey,

where surveillance cameras take x-ray

of suspicious character - Not Me,

while actually in reality

outside apartment B44

one after another Nor'easter

howls like bajillion banshees

vents wind chill factor

as temperature dips

into low double digits as high,

and subzero higher negative number as a low,

I summon (with a puff) fire breathing

friendly quasi magic dragon,

an acceptable and laughable substitute

calls for none other than Barney

purple anthropomorphic

Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur.

Though a non-smoker of cigarettes,

I discover pleasure slowly puffing

on my pipe, and chose one at random

from among the collection

made of briar wood, meerschaum,

corncob, pear-wood, rose-wood or clay

listening to crackling flickering hearth,

yours truly snuggling

(curled up in a little ball)

with favorite reading material

close proximity warming,

thawing, and quelling lovely bones.

For no particular rhyme nor reason

I lapse into a reverie

and hear the brutal and nasty wind

plaintively howling the song Molly Malone

her lilting voice distinctly heard

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

Meanwhile atavistic visitations hover

after hypnotizing mindscape

of twenty first century Homo sapien

as flashback visions of proto humans

commingling with competing

short and nasty brutes

brushes within subconscious

purring, mew zing catacombs

jump/kickstarting, harkening,

dawning lion eyes zing

thawing ordinarily dormant memories,

where forebears alive bajillion years ago

battle him of the republic

thumping their chests

and uttering primal sounds

against vastly outnumbered predators,

who make mincemeat of weakest warbler

similar to contemporary beastie boy punk bands

survival of the fittest

linkedin to anonymous

Monkey's Uncle recherché representatives

toehold barely latched

precarious niche easily

activated punctuated equilibrium evolutionary quirk

imperceptibly bumped uglies

begot robust progeny

offspring expanding comfort zones

penumbra expanding edge of night

dark shadows receding further

outer limits of twilight zone

phantasmagoric shifting shapes

images in the flame

(hint...think Plato's Republic in general –

and Allegory of the Caves in particular -

synonymous with Allegory of the Metals)

alluring, beckoning, daring...

establishing, foraging, growing...

harvesting, invoking, jabbering

kowtowing, livingsocial,

Ashley Madison matchmaking tinder (ha)...

now lemme zip forward

back to the future

bajillion years somewhere in time circa 1970's

British comedy troupe

nudge nudge wink wink,

say no more

know what I mean courtesy

Monty Python's Flying Circus

rollicking humorous sketches

oft times tackling primal urges

proto humans initially verbally grunted,

where guffawing laughter

rewarded survivalist basic instinct

temporarily staving rabid

quivering premonitions outside

creature comfort boundaries,

whereby Geico Caveman

will remain till... dis ember

by George thoroughly good appetizer,

viz good chilled Wren plus

Pheasant under glass

burns away hunger pangs.

I was eight. It was the end of the day. My brother was crying, my parents were yelling, I was caught in the frey. I was curled in to a ball, between corner and a wall. Just like today, and yesterday and the day before, my soul longed for something more.

I wanted my parents to stop fighting. All I wanted a belly that was full. I was scared. My only comfort remembering that this isn’t my home. But it was. That was the thing. There was no where else to go. No escape for me. I remembered the dinner I had the night before. Then heard my dad say it couldn’t go on anymore. Everything I’d done, all the moping and crying, all it did was delay the inevitabl.

No matter how hard they tried, no matter how much time my parents spent it was never enough to win in the end. It never drove away the suffocating pain. The traffic, the head lights, they left me insane. They had helped me before, when I told them what was wrong, but it always went back to the way it was before. So this time, I did something new. I got up and asked myself what I needed to do. There was a mess in the kitchen and everything else besides, but I decided to start with a dish at a time. Slowly, slowly the pile grew. I couldn’t clean them faster than make them, can you? I tried to carry it all and never fall. I became a diplomat, carving peace on a wall. But the tower of dishes, one day, did fall. I guess it was bound to fail. I couldn’t fix it all. Now I sit, after the ashes are cleared. Wondering when it all disappeared.

hunched

in the corner of a room,

in shack just north

of the highest mountain

on a lush hill, that hill

the one square within

the eye of god

gnashing

wiping crumbs from whiskers

alternates, gulps wines, continues

the bodies bake in the heat

the pungencies draw near

the lord's leering gaze

weeping

the woman in black

hair pinned to her crown

sweeps coins from eyes

mumbles words unknown

receding

the eater chases wealth

into the darkened valley

diminished by His watch

Pouring salt,

rub the skin as if it might remove the excess.

And then, feeling for the smoothness that lay within.

Sprinkles of sugar,

excess of sweetness too good for the times of later dates.

And then, lick the icing off until it burns down the throat.

She is the thing of blackened dreams.

The mental anguish she brings is a burn that can't be reprieved.

Torturous agony, she brings on again. Tempting me, tempting me until I come undone.

Bleed into me.

Bleed the full length of your needs into me.

Despite the desire stretching long into my belly, dig into me.

Take me on the ride I know you never meant it to be.

And I can hear her, hear her sing to me.

Break my heart, bend me over backwards to bring her into me.

She wants to be my muse.

And I want to tell her no, but the word is used against me.

Playing on her vengeance so...

Bleed into me.

Bleed the full length of your desires into me.

Despite the gnawing ache of desire, pouring from your soul, dig into me.

Take me on the ride I know you unintentionally paved for me.

Upon a green hill, half swallowed by the dawn

I stand burning brightly

Like a dominating quasar

Scorching the grass around me

You try to extinguish the fire

But my blood fuels the blaze

As the flames turn my body to ash

The wind carries my remains away

Far away to a distant domain

Where the dust that was once a mere human

Reforms into a shining star

O, Lord, if I am to die of asphyxiation,

let it be of carbon monoxide

let it be in the garage of my home

let it be the smell of my dad’s 1967 Porsche 911’s engine filling the room

it smells like nostalgia (purified)

it smells like a memory (fading)

it smells like home (home)

O, Lord, if I am to die of asphyxiation,

Lord, let me die at home.

-

(2023)