I didn’t expect
to go home alone
tonight, that’s all.
it’s fine, I don’t mind,
it’s all good. I’m waiting
for the train, drunk
and wearing my
jukebox dress. I
have to pee. I
just missed
the train. I left
my book at home
because I didn’t expect
to go home alone
tonight.
Month: September 2016
that bird
that bird, the lone little guy
who came to visit me
in my aerie, and
who ate some of my crumbs?
I thought he might
have been a grackle – a
delicious word for a
delicious-looking bird,
at least to my salivating cats – but
further investigation
(i.e. Googling)
tells me he was not.
he was merely
a common blackbird. they’re
not very big – I can see
how it could take
four and twenty of them
to make a decent pie.
still, he was very cute
and brave, and it’s not
his fault he doesn’t have
a better name.
metaphors
my love is a candle-flame,
not a bonfire. it
won’t blaze up and burn us
both to ashes,
but slowly, steadily go
down its little wick
to keep us company
in the dark
until the wax is gone.
then hopefully
I’ll keep it safe
in a new candle
we’ve built
to receive it.
respect, and how to learn it
last night at dinner I was rude
to you. and then later, at home,
you were rude to me.
turnabout is fair play,
I guess.
you said you respect me,
but your eyes and your behavior
belied it. I thought I
respected you, but
my actions, too, told
a different story.
the pillow book of Elizabeth the First
I.
the plants do not
abandon the earth
with the absence
of the sun. they
merely wait patiently
for the next season
to flourish again.
II.
as the second child
of a capricious father,
I learned from my mother’s fate
not to depend on the
kindness of kings.
R. Brookes McKenzie 