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.
Category: Humor Poem
Exclusionary Gratitude re: Gum
I am grateful for gum
But only for myself and
The highbrow few who
Know how to chew
Silently
Everyone else? A crack
Or a smack should get you ten
In the pen where open-
Hearted and closed-
Mouthed missionaries
Teach by parable how to
WWJD it
In regards to absent-
Minded yet tasty and
Socially acceptable cud.
-M.
(Day 10 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Critics Rightly Observe My Poetry Often Lacks Context
It could be anything
An orange peel
Sunset on a fractured path
Sunrise
On a fractured path
Cellulite on a fake-tanned
Thigh gone terribly wrong
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.
(Day 4 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Make It Rain Manifestos
Campus communist relegated to
Literal red square, painted
Cockeyed on the sidewalk
Apathy! Apathy!
Everyone is occupied
He throws his hands and
Pamphlets up
-M.
(Day 3 of the 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Taco Bell, Downtown Los Angeles: Post-Game
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)
Around the World in 20 Taboos
Cow meat. Shellfish.
Touching pork and alcohol.
Red lipstick on strict Baptist women.
Entering the temple with your street shoes on.
Walking on your mother’s white carpet
with your street shoes on.
Genital piercing. Genital mutilation.
Showing your face. Showing your ankles.
Cutting your hair.
Sex. Porn-a-plenty. Masturbation.
That one kink no one talks about.
Having other gods before me.
Cooking cabbage in the office microwave.
Dishonoring the corporation.
Tattooing little children blue with bush thorns.
Cultural relativism.
-M.
(The prompt was “taboo.” I knew at some point I would find a use for my sociology degree.)
Dearest Dr. Link, I Still Love Your Buttons (poem)
Your School of Music staff picture made
you out to be so much uglier than
you actually are so
I couldn’t show my friends, so
we couldn’t fan ourselves with our
hot-girl palms and drool together over
you.
I couldn’t make them understand the
dark-haired, fair-faced impetus for
trotting a mile to class in
the actual spiked Mary Janes that
made de Sade himself blanch—
what pale, long-fingered hand moving
half notes from here to there delectability made
me choose the long sensuous skirt with
the long sensuous slit, (oh mid 90’s rage!),
what high-toned atonal muscle, what
used-to-be-high-school-outcast humor
made me squeeze my thighs together
surreptitiously between
this-will-be-on-the-quiz cues.
Dr. Link—may I call you Stan—
of course I may, I
was also madly in love with
every single silver button on
your early spring black jacket.
-M.
Dishes (poem)
Loose grime and stringy meat
that comes away in the water
and lies in wait by the drain,
tangled in the silverware,
ready to snarl like seaweed
around the pruned fingers that clutch
in the dark to clean the forks and knives.
Cold, gray and scuzzy water—
reason to fear sharks below,
to fear the chum they’ve spit out
not good enough to get stuck between their teeth,
not good enough to wave alongside the gristle
from where a surfer’s arm was severed
uncleanly from its shoulder.
-M.
Never Write While Hungry (poem)
You’ll roll from aisle to aisle
aimless and slow
eyeballing the shiniest packages first
overhead and at foot
at your groin and at your twitching nose.
You’ll make better bad choices
(still bad choices)
fill your cart with loud
brightly powdered crunchies
that exercise your jaw
but stain your hands
without so much as a goodnight kiss
or any nutritional value at all.
-M.
M. N. Ashley 