Objectionable Obligations

Optimistically Opals

obvious

oblivion

Offsetting the

offensive

odors of

oddish Odums

overcritical

ovals

Coffee ringed slips peeking out of spindly stacks. Stacks that sit precariously on stools, up turned logs and flat surfaces made tall. Some slips are deep into the words, while others barely skim the creamy pages. Sometimes these coffee ringed slips are replaced with hastily torn jagged shreds of old lovers whose overused bone and flesh foreshadows the future.

Pauses, two worn pages forward, two water stained pages back record the days. Flesh marked interludes gouge pencil indentations within parchment skin. Gentle feathers of breath register passages of laughter and sordid adventures. Time between readings is never consistent but rather insistent. A rifling of smooth tongued pages then covers banged shut.

A longing for a study of pages that would last for days or months. A slow caress of opaque pages turning buttery soft from each negotiation. Embraces diminished to a finger flick along the spine. The coffee ringed slip now a faded remembrance on a bone weary page as the placeholder fades away.

cjtaylor 2023

Sunday's

weapon

snagged on the

fence

greets us

with abundant

charm

a treaty

with no

rational

charity that

awards us with

holes and

bows to

a boy

whose teeth are

cutting socks

tiled to a

camera lens

hiding and

sticking

to a socialist

key

devoted to

the weapons

headquarters

cjtaylor 5/23

It starts the same every time. This nightmare has been a few times a week occurrence for about the last year.

I am drifting off to sleep and smell the faintest of cigarette smoke from outside my bedroom window. My brain is confused by this since no one smokes cigarettes in my life and I live alone. As the intensity of the smell increases the music starts. Always the same. "In Spite of Ourselves" by John Prine. The song grows louder and now the smell of the cigarettes are right under my nose. And there is a shift of weight on my bed. I can feel the breath and warmth of someone. There is no face. Ever. Just a shadow. The conversation starts with "Hello my dear." I know the voice from the recesses of mind. It is so cool and seductive and absolutely terrifying. The coldness of a hand is rubbing my arm. I want to run but am frozen. And in that split second I feel that hand around my neck soon joined by a second hand. A shift and the shadow is straddling me, pinning my arms. I try to scream but only a tiny whimper escapes. I can feel the pressure building around my neck. Each fingers warmth. And the sound of the song and the shadows laughter intermingling. The shadow telling me no one will ever want me due to the scars. I struggling to get away to no avail. The shadow is taking a more distinct form. I know it is a man, someone I know, I just can't figure it out. The fingers loosen for a second and I scream myself awake. The feeling of those hands still around my neck, the song fading along with the cigarette smoke. I stumble to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and scream more. My neck has the perfect outline of ten fingers on it. And the bruising is starting to show. I check the doors and the windows. They are all as I left them; all locked. There is no one there in my house. I slowly go back to bed. Sleep comes in fits. In the light of the morning there are no marks but there is still the faint smell of cigarettes lingering outside my bedroom window.

cjtalyor 2023

What does a wordsmith do? We take words, place them on an anvil and hammer them to do our bidding. We heat or cool them to make them pliable and hard. We use them like glass to cut to the core. We use them like raindrops to soften a blow. We take words and merge them with other words thus creating a new bridges to close the gaps. Most of all the wordsmith uses words to shout out "Here I am world."

He is staring over the top of his glasses with an inane curiosity and I am not sure what to say. Past experience is weighing heavy on my brain --- overthinking has commenced. I have told him I am a poet and now he wants the details. So I start.........I write poetry. He says "So cute, rhyming love poems?" I almost spit out my tequila. Um, no more like dark, sparsely worded poems that rarely rhyme. Poems that leave one asking questions or hating it. Why would you write something someone would hate? I look at him and am slowly coming to the conclusion that while there is a chemistry, there is no mental connection as I am coming up with a response. I look up and look past him. I tell him I write for me, not for an audience, not for the applause, not for the bound books. I write what my mind twists to explain the darkness within me and the world. I like the words that you rarely hear combined in new ways that maybe don't always make sense. He touches my hand and says "Have you sought help for this?" Sought help for what I ask? If you mean letting the dark out on the sidewalks covered in shadows and sunlight, the answer is no. I ask him if he wants to read one to get an idea of my writing. He makes this odd noise and fumbles with his phone. I look at the legs of tequila on the inside of my glass and know its time to run.

Rooted in

a flowering

fruit

the hoe

hit a hardy

seed

watering the

till

while picking

at spades

waiting to

dig a

growing atery

Sacrifice

Predicts

the constraint

of an incalculable

equation

the pat

practice

of gene

sharing

Provokes

a less than

democratic

association on

cable news

each cycle

Incapable of

despair

Paragraphs

of distance

tumble along

unable to ban

prosecution

or to

qualify

compassion

to squash

a diversion

that is

really a

war on

humanity

cjtaylor 2023