Hush

Hush now
You've had your chance to speak
Now it's my turn
I know what you did
I can see through
things more substantial than you, honey
Don't "Wait, baby, baby" me
I'm so not in the mood
You made me a promise
You broke that promise
'Nuff said
Now it's time to pay, lamb
Did you really think you were so clever
that I wouldn't catch you?
Or maybe you thought I was so lovestruck
that I'd forgive you?
Well, you were wrong
I'm not forgiving by nature
You should have known what I was
when you remarked on my eyes-
so chatoyant, you said
and how I purr when you stroke me
Well, you know what they say
about messing with the cat, cupcake
Don't worry
It will be relatively painless
and quick
if you don't struggle
You won't hear me coming
You won't see me
And when it's done
perhaps I'll present your broken body
to the next one who thinks
they can love me.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Promising
and Magpie Tales, Mag 258

Play

I watch your hands

as you strum the guitar

Imagine how your fingers

would feel against my skin

I want you

to run arpeggios up and down my spine

Stroke me

Press your fingertips here

and there

Coaxing

chords of pleasure

Make me moan with

your music.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Carilda Olivar Labra

The Girl At the End of the Rope

The girl at the end of the rope
dangled like a broken piñata
Her father found her first
Tried to breathe her life back
It was rejected
like an incompatible organ

Her mother screamed
A scream full of terror and grief
It echoed
in the house
in dreams

The girl's father had twice failed
Could not protect
his daughter or
his wife
like a man should
He became a cicada shell
an empty husk of what had been
defined now by its absence

The mean girls at school
rolled their mascaraed eyes
Said it was just a joke
Only a loser
would take their taunts and threats seriously
She did

Instead of returning from spring break
with a knot in her stomach
She fastened a knot around her neck
The girl at the end of the rope.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini-Challenge, In Other Words

This Poem Is Red Lipstick, Schrodinger's Cat, and Dandelion Fluff

source

This poem is red lipstick.
This poem is Schrodinger's cat.
This poem is dandelion fluff.

Crimson lipped attention-grabber
Painted patterer
Beautiful emptiness
Nothing to say but
oh so lovely
This poem is red lipstick.

Perhaps it's here
Perhaps it's not
Maybe it lives
Maybe it dies
Study it; it changes
This poem is a metaphor
This poem is Schrodinger's cat.

Breathe and it's gone
Its seeds planted everywhere
or nowhere
Catch it on the wind
or blow it away
This poem is dandelion fluff.

This poem is red lipstick.
This poem is Schrodinger's cat.
This poem is dandelion fluff.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Hannah's Sunday Mini-Challenge, Boomerang Metaphor Poems

Never Forget

source

It never really goes away, does it?

Some mornings I wake up and forget

for a little while

But sooner or later

the skipped heartbeat comes

and with it, the realization

that nothing has changed.

Constant companion

never invited but

arrived with suitcases nonetheless

establishing squatter's rights in the bloodstream.

We lie down at night;

it is the space between us.

We hold hands in the sunlight;

it is the shadow overhead.

We float in the ocean;

it is the undertow that pulls us out to sea.

We are never alone now

It is with us always,

lurking like a lie,

waiting to come crashing down

Crushing

us.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Claribel Alegria

Passover Blessing

In

April

We remember

Our lives as slaves

Long  ago  in Egypt

Eat unleavened bread

to   commemorate

the    Exodus

And we pray

for others

to be

free

 Ba ruch 

 A  t a h 

 Ad o nai 

 Eloheinu 

 M e lech 

 ha-Olam 

a s h e  r 

 kid 'shanu

 b'mitzvotav 

v ' tzivanu

 l '  had lik

neir  shel

Yom Tov 

Blessed

Art Thou

O,   Lord

Our  God

King of the

Uni v erse

Who  Hast

Commanded

Us to kindle

the light of 
the holiday

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Mini Challenge for Easter Sunday

Secrets

source

 There are things we kept secret

After all, who wants to know everything

about the one they love?

Mystery is more enticing than mundane

and the unknowable is irresistible

So there are things we kept secret

after even decades had passed

and thousands of nights in the same bed

There are words we never spoke

Wishes we never shared

Walking around with dark glasses on

we bumped into edges of expectations

and tripped over each others'  hopes

until we were both so bruised

it hurt to be around each other

There are things we kept secret

after they didn't matter any more

after we bled until there was no more blood

when it was time

to either mend the holes

or die.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, A Month of 5 Sundays Mini Challenge, There Are Things We Kept Secret

Mask

source

mASK me

I can be anyone you want, just

mASK me

I can be naughty or nice

Sweet or nasty

Your angel or

your whore

It's really all the same

Trick

Treat me however you wish

Pretend you don't know my name

Know my shame vanishes under the mask

So mASK me.

submitted (late, sorry!) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Masks

inspired by a glance around our local Halloween costume store in the Women's section, where every costume, it seemed, was overtly sexual and provocative

Two Tanka

Fall leaves red as blood
Cling to branches like pin pricks
Biding time until
Heavy, they drop to the ground
Pooling in crimson puddles.

--------------------------------------------------

The cherry blossoms
Hold spring in their clenched, pink fists
The essence of hope
Released in falling petals
Soft and shy as new love's blush.


submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, My Thoughts onTanka, Pt. 2

October Rain

October Rain by Timothy Corbin

October rain makes colors bleed

Bleed from sky to tree to leaves

Leaves the ground in autumn shades

Shades her brown eyes when she grieves.

Grieves a friend she never knew

Knew his soul from words he wrote

Wrote his life as though a song

Song she loved from the first note.

Note how his life embraced hers

Hers far better for the time

Time she wished were ever lasting

Lasting memories, love sublime.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Loop Poetry

No Phoenix

inkblot by lolamouse

You love the exits

Dramatic flair

I have to watch them

Pretend I care

I’m tired of playing

the audience

Waiting for the

Next big entrance

You are no Phoenix

You’ve just been burned

You lie in ashes

The pain unearned

So brush yourself off

It’s time you learned

There is no rebirth

Though you may yearn

The star performer

And now I see

You love your mirror

Much more than me

So take your bow and

Walk off the stage

Proselytes waiting

You’re all the rage

But you’re no martyr

You have no cause

You show your scars off

To gain applause

You claim redemption 
but that's untrue

There is no savior

There's only you

You are no Jesus

You’re just a man

Bloody and beaten

Please understand

This ground's not sacred

Not holy land

No Second Coming

No God's command

You are no Jesus

And I’m no whore

You cannot save me

Not any more

You are no king so

Get off your throne

You want to suffer

Suffer alone

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Doctor Mouse Is In the House

The Widow

She stood, staring
at the bathroom wallpaper
She had liked it once-
Now the roses were faded;
the seams showed.

The left side of the double sink
held no toothbrush or
soaps or
medicines
The bowl was dusty,
toothpaste gobs long gone.

She squeezed the Colgate onto her brush
The crimped end of the tube read
EXP OCT06
It still worked, but had
lost
all
flavor.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, A Birthday in September, William Carlos Williams

She's Mine

I
am
Mama
Understand
If you hurt my babe
I will tear you into pieces
I would sink an entire ship
to keep the sea safe
for one fry
because
she's 
mine.



Artwork by Judith Clay 
 

submitted for dVerse Poets Pub, Poetics, Judith Clay and
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Fib Poem

Love Letter from a Gun to a Hoodie

Thanks for covering for me, baby

You make my work so much easier

No one paid me a bit of attention;

they were all looking at you

I did the dirty work;

you took the blame

That’s real love

You let me do my job

with impunity

I kill the children;

you go on trial

Thanks for covering for me, baby.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, A Love Letter

Beautiful

my beautiful daughter "Baby Mouse"

The day she started smiling

for pictures is when I knew

that she had finally begun to see

herself the way I see her

Beautiful

Perfect

Deserving

She started loving

her curly hair

her curves

herself

She stopped avoiding mirrors

and started looking in them

Now she sees, not a collection of flaws,

but a bounty of treasures

I don’t know who showed her

the beauty of herself,

but I am forever grateful

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Sunday Mini Challenge, Love After Love