Writing Life
I would love to swan around and
say dusty things about poetry and
have everyone give a damn and
have groupies who show me their boobs
and read at Carnegie Hall to 53,000
screaming teeny boppers in poodle skirts
and all that other shit
that real poets do
and don’t actually do
but always do
in my sweaty
jealous
glory hogging
little mind.
-M. Ashley
Sliced Turkey Stacker
Only the whitest turkey
With Best Foods mayo.
-M. Ashley
(Real menu item. It was ten years ago, so I have no idea what restaurant it was, but you have to love it when the poetry Universe delivers like this.)
I wonder if Jesus got
Saddle sores from the donkey
He rode into Jerusalem.
Lay down the palm fronds, people
And pass the thick healing balm.
This son of God is going
Bow-legged to the cross.
-M. Ashley
A raven would
Literally have to scream
Nevermore in my face for
Me to know the difference
Between him and the
Crow over whom he has
Elevated himself
Largely by having once
And famously screamed
Nevermore
In this other poet’s face.
-M. Ashley
I trace your ribs
In cerulean ink
Dewdrops of blue
On the skin
A connect-the-dots
That somehow
Resembles a unicorn
In calligraphy lines
A unicorn with the stripes
Of your bones
A child of myth
And the Serengeti
A mythical zebra with a horn
They must have had unicorns
In the Serengeti too
And your ribs
And my ink
Must have been
What their pelts looked like
On the walls of mythical hunters
If they had pottery
In the mythical Serengeti
And this cerulean ink
Would stick
I would trace your ribs
On the pottery too
While you are sleeping
The rise and fall of your abdomen
With your sacred breath
The reason the lines would be blurred
Not my tears, my love
Not my tears
-M. Ashley
Where we gassed and gabbed
we ground our cigarettes out
on the concrete window ledge
in front of the bustling store—
in front of our managers, what
kind of fuck did we give? Our
feet and backs were killing us and
somebody pissed in the fitting room
again. Someone left a dirty diaper
open in a shopping cart. Literal
shit. You customers deserved
every dirty thing we said.
-M. Ashley
My pharmacist’s assistant boyfriend
gained weight.
It brings us closer as our fingers
touch over the Hydrocodone
and our wrinkles show
and our noses shine
under the fluorescent lights.
I say in a low voice
“You know they’re for my mother.”
He leans forward and says
so gently
“I know. I remember you.”
I tell him they’re for my mother every time
to prompt his sweet nothing.
I am unashamed. I flounce
out of the pharmacy with my narcotics
swinging my hips.
-M. Ashley
We put up with a certain level of
Gross from our lovers and
Farting on each other in bed and
Giggling about it and
Don’t you dare Dutch oven me
Again… Chester!
Can be as intimate as
The world’s sweetest
Sulfur kiss.
-M. Ashley
Find me on TikTok at: MNAshleyPoetry
Deja vu all
Over the place
I’m waiting
For the second
Shoe to drop
Again.
-M.
With milk
only milk
only whole
milk a
middle-aged
no-frills
dairy maid
grumbling into
her cup
“Cows these
days get
up too
damn early.”
-M.
M. N. Ashley 