That Guy

Does anyone know that weird guy over there?

He's been here all night, just to drink and to stare!

Does anyone know who invited him here?

He gives me the creeps with his grin and his leer!

He's been nursing that drink for well over an hour

His hair is so greasy, and he needs a shower!

Everyone else is just dancing and talking

He hasn't moved once; I think that he's stalking!

Not anyone here even knows this guy's name

How'd he get in here and what is his game?

He's holding that cig like he thinks it's seductive

Doesn't he know that it's counterproductive?

Oh my God! Really?!! He gave me a wink

Now I feel dizzy-hey, what's in this drink?

I think that I'd better just go and lie down

If he comes near me, I'll puke on that clown!

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 256

and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Tuesday Platform

Amber Waves

image courtesy Magpie Tales 72

Amber waves.
She leans out of the back window of the family truck as it pulls away from the farm for the last time and heads down the road. She's already said her goodbyes to the cows and the goats and the chickens but somehow she feels the need to say it to the fields as well.  So she waves.

Yesterday, as she was helping Mama pack the last of their things, she asked, "But what about the song, Mama? What will happen if we leave the farm?"
It took some time and some figuring, but finally Mama understood. She laughed, then gently explained that "amber" was just another word for yellow. Amber always had thought the song was about her, her family's farm--"Amber's waves of grain." She felt better knowing it wasn't. And worse.

As the truck picks up speed, the yellow and orange hues of the wheat fields blur together into a Van Gogh painting.
Amber waves.

submitted for Magpie Tales 72

Eat Up!

Tournier's Banquet Scene With a Lute Player courtesy of Magpie Tales 67

I may be a courtesan

But I have got a master plan

I'm going to escape these men

They won't bother me again. 

See the one playing the lute?

He's nothing more than a brute.

And the one with the eye glass?

He is nasty, cruel, and crass.

The other two are even worse-

They sport habits most perverse!

They wanted a little food

To set the tone, to set the mood.

Over dinner I will serve

Exactly what they most deserve.

Lots of arsenic should suffice

To end their dinners off real nice.

They may detect metallic taste

Never suspect their meal was laced.

And by the time they long for bed

If all goes well, they should be dead.

The final course I save for me-

When they are gone, then I am free!

submitted for Magpie Tales 67

and for May Poetry Challenge, Crime, at Verse in a Nutshell

A Triolet on Violets or Teenagers

image from Magpie 57

Benign neglect helps violets thrive

Don't light them too directly

Too much care they can't survive

Benign neglect helps violets thrive

Thirst a bit, the blooms arrive

Overwater, they wilt abjectly

Benign neglect helps violets thrive

Don't light them too directly

submitted for Magpie Tales 57