Writing Life
Jaw set
Gray eyes clear
Seated at a loom
In an officer’s tent
One battle
One pass
One well-placed blow
Nike woven in gold
-M.
(Day 19 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. I’m not going to lie, you guys: today’s poem sucks. Sincere apologies to Athena. As bad as the poem is, I think she might appreciate at least the fighting spirit. I feel like absolute hell but I AM going to make this 66 days. Write a sucky poem. Live to poem another day.)
My god at the wheel
Grinning
We’ll never get there alive
-M.
(Day 17 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
One feminine hand one
Masculine hand wearing
A heavy gold watch ticking
She sat down inside me
Settled down inside me
Her heavenly blue
Robes enfolded me as
Heaven IS and enfolds
Her, Her head all my head
My thoughts all Her
Thoughts She the Law the
Law Love
She said
Don’t
Be Afraid
-M.
(Day 14 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. I made it to two weeks! -Victory lap-)
All I said
All I said
All I said to ALL That IS
Volumes volumes volumes
Unrecordable
All She said
All She said
All the ALL She said
Don’t
Be afraid
-M.
(Day 13 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Gods misunderstand
Death—Death himself
Deathless misunderstands
Forever destruction—forever
Loss—a self that decays inside
Itself until it disappears.
A god, from a full-
Bodied god can become a
Lesser-bodied god—an
Insignificant pinpoint of
Flickering ether, but still
Sovereign though infinitesimal and
Over unbounded time can
Gather unto its own flickering
Ether substance—body new
Come to body that was and
Will be forever
Body new come to body eternal that
Misunderstands body new
Come to dust
Depersonalized as dust comes
To gather to itself
A noisome film
On the cradle ledge of an infinitely
Born and born and born
Infant god
-M.
(Day 12 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Dear god, I would prefer
You not
Carry me over the rocks
I would prefer
You let my feet touch earth
Once in a while
A smothering love
That atrophies my appendages—
Hobbles my run and walk
Is no proper penance
For absenteeism and
Hard neglect
And me allowing it—
The crippling love
Is no proper forgiveness
Find another way
Find another way
Find another way
-M.
(Day 5 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
A god in golden overalls leans
Out the driver’s side of an open
Lincoln in the drive-thru
Late night
Tries not to puke
Pukes anyway.
Smiles
Checks his watch
Pays too much for his tacos
Pays too much for our tacos too
Swerves off
We won’t forget it
Who could forget him
He won’t remember
How he got home
-M.
(Day 2 of the 66 Day Poetry Habit)
These beautiful men
These beautiful women
I was their bright angel
in a time of bright angels
in the time when I and my kind
were toppled to the desert god
the one and only
the perfect to our many
flawed and
unchaste.
Rapture is the word
closer to the word.
There
that makes me feel better
confessing now as a dear and
moral friend to the mortal race.
I came and came and
pigsty sex to me was
to them the quickening
touch of the holy hands and
body all sanctified
of an agent of their lord.
It is no excuse but
they were better for it.
In a way
I loved them all.
-M.
Mortal soul in
mortal vessel broken
spilled out on earth
Thick water on wanting
ground
too dry to drink
God puts his
lips to the dusty
puddle and is slaked
-M.
Serrano, Latino
Sunburned dark
Jeans
baggy T-shirt
train soot gray
Trenchcoat
patched leather
slain ranchers’ tack
115 degree morning
blacktop risen
shining
son of god
Round shoulders
Clinging glass
windshield clear
beer bottle green.
-M.
M. N. Ashley 