Category: Humor Poem

Critics Rightly Observe My Poetry Often Lacks Context (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment 
It could be anything
An orange peel
Sunset on a fractured path
Sunrise
On a fractured path
Cellulite on a 
Fake-tanned thigh

Funky cheese

See here. See here. See here.
I’ve got my pointer out
Round the borders with every
Line-measure of words

But
Did you notice
Never on the actual
Thing

My frustration is quantifiable
I’ve made a chart
See here. See here. See here.
Just to the left of the 
Glowing picture screen

Reader
I think we have both
Lost touch

It might have been longing
It might have been 
Sunset on a fractured heart
Or some such 
Trite shit as that

I give

Give up with me
Let’s call it 

Funky cheese

Put our heads down on our desks
And take a nap

Poetry sucks anyway

-M. Ashley

Theos: Boxed (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Roll up your sleeves
my golden god
these clavicles ache
for the cracking.

Your bare knuckles scrape
but are not scraped.

My blood spatters.
You stay freshly washed.

Dear god,
my kidneys have grass stains

and

I need an oracle
to locate my spleen.

-M. Ashley

Wax (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Every two weeks I pay a college senior
(engineering major I believe) to rip
most of my eyebrows out of my face.

The right one always comes out higher,
arched more elegantly than the left.

“It’s the way your face is constructed”,
she tells me, as if an accusation of
the original engineer’s design.

I nod—a permanent inquisitiveness
in relief
over my right eye.

-M. Ashley

Blue Light Therapy (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ 3 Comments

Artificial light blue to beat the blues
Try no sugar in your cookie, Cookie
Cutter approaches don’t often
Help problematic inflammation in the gray
Matter of fact exercise
Is another lever we can pull
Me closer Dr. Beautiful Blue Eyes
Blue—nothing artificial about you-ooh
Tell me again
How the mental health benefits of exercise
Cap at thirty minutes so I can
Lap my sad to death in the
Beautiful chlorine blue.

-M. Ashley

(Found this one buried in my notebook. I had almost forgotten about it. One of my very favorites.)

Hear me read it:

Rib Tat (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

My bestie’s cousin–they call him Sketch
Pad–has a tattoo on his penis
But was too pain-shy to finish
The right half of his left-right
Two word rib tat. He was supposed
To be “Black Sheep.” He ended up
BLACK
SH…

(Ellipsis implied, not actually tatted.)

-M. Ashley

Conception (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

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

Missing Frank Bidart (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Oh my poet-y friend… how I have missed thee.
I have missed myself defacing your books with
Purple ink notes like, “Love it!” and “Scary.”

Remember that time I humiliated myself on a
Plane pompously overblowing poetry to a
Stranger who turned out to be a PhD in poetry

My nose in your book
My ass on my shoulders
Me talking out of it

But then you were there for me
For that—for my ass face too
And my starry eyes for you.

-M. Ashley

Yogi Poodle (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

My poodle does downward dog
Ten times a day at least
Farts a slow fart
Presses her narrow chest back
Yawns with a long lolling tongue

Lord Shiva—First Yogi—Master
In a curly coat showing us all
How life and farts should be done

-M. Ashley