Author: M. Ashley

I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
 For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
 When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
 I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.

Conception (poetry)

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Purple kangaroo wine, cheap and bitter
Gratitude shouts louder than a flash flood warning
Climax withheld for one notch less drunk than this
Red solo cup abandoned on the windowsill

Gratitude shouts louder than a flash flood warning
Half full of wine–collecting rain
Red solo cup abandoned on the windowsill
Pajamas and flip flops in a tangle by the bed

Half full of wine–collecting rain
God’s body happens where lightning strikes something
Pajamas and flip flops in a tangle by the bed
Only one window opens wide enough

-M. Ashley

Czar of the Heavens

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“…but I resisted the thought of a Czar of the Heavens, however loving His sway might be.”
-Bill W., “Bill’s Story,” Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12

I have chronic PTSD nightmares. I woke up from a particularly bad night—screaming screaming screaming—orange and red death screaming all night—and when I took my pup out for potty, I saw that her pee spot, over time, had formed an unmistakable heart on the pavement. An unmistakable heart with dog plops scattered about.

I sat on the edge of the brick planter box watching her squat, my arms wrapped tight around me, still shaking a little, and I smiled. I hadn’t the energy to laugh, but here was the Czar of the Heavens laughing for me.

How loving is the sway of this Czar that he would draw with his own shining finger a dog piss heart for me while my horror was screaming in my sleep? Pretty damn loving.

“I love you,” says this Czar, “even when things are shitty, and maybe especially then. This heart isn’t drawn around the shit. It’s drawn right thought it.”

-M. Ashley

Alcoholics Anonymous
Overeaters Anonymous

Hopeless. Interested. (poetry)

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“Certainly I was interested. I had to be, for I was hopeless.”
-“Bill’s Story,” Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 10

Abandon all hope, ye who enter
Here I lay all enamored of Interest
Who sexily swayed into the stuffy
Room where I divorced Hope—finally
Mouth all full of sugar
Heart all full of hate

Interest the mistress—
The new
Promised woman

Show me
What you’ve got.

-M. Ashley

A Dictionary of Angels

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Is in the boring section where
The bright kids go
Bright and boring is the book
They whisper over, holy thing
Bright, boring, book bound
Just like the angels they read about.

Not that I have a hangup about
Angels. If only their books were
Dark and dusty, we might know
Each other better. But I
Bet there are boring dark spots
Too. I have to bet because who
Would know? The spots are dark
Dark as a yawn
Dark as the inside of a
Closed fist. Dark as a book
Bound mind. Dark as a priest’s dark closet

Not that I have hangups about
Priests either. Or hangups
About what they hang up in
Their dark, yawning closets

Skeletons on pink padded
Hangers, white ribboned
Rose and garlic sachets
Tied around their necks?

-M. Ashley

Learning to Live Without (poetry)

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I wonder whether the casket lid is
A death trap like those recalled
Drop side cribs that snatched
Babies into the jaws of death

But if it is a death trap, it isn’t
Inappropriate for this funeral
Where my little Christ-love lay
Blessed barely an age
Before being laid to rest with
All this ceremony. All this
Ceremony. I’m going to miss this
And funeral/baptism cake and potatoes
Going off into the worldly world
Christ-love less. Loving without
Magic underwear and ordinations
And special water and oil
For anointing and dove
Down comforters and man—
That casket crib was chock full of stuff
I think I can live without.
I think
I think I can live without.

-M. Ashley

God Guy Buys Me a New Purse

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“Open your hands, if you want to be held.”
-Rumi

If your hands are closed or, worse yet, clenched, where does your lover lay the present? I wrote a poem to that effect once and it’s quite profound, especially if your lover is Rumi’s THE Lover and the presents are all the good gifts of god.

I have this sort of boyfriend—this man who loves me unreadably as I have shattered his heart many times. Maybe in this unreasonableness for exactly that reason, he is exactly like god. Jokingly, (sort of), I told him he should buy me a new purse because I was soon to be acquiring a lot more stuff—gifts from actual god. I was (sort of) joking, but he said, enthusiastically, “OK!” And I might accept. I don’t want all the sticky little strings that are attached to love-in-desperation presents, but unlike with god gifts, I can keep my fist clenched for this one.

I can keep my fist clenched. He can go ahead and hang my new Hermes bag on my one outstretched arm.

-M. Ashley