Writing Life
Artificial blue to beat the blues
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
Blues—nothing artificial about you-oo
Tell me again
How the mental health benefits of exercise
Cap at thirty minutes so I can’t
Lap sad to death in the beautiful chlorine blue.
-M.
A soul heavy as wet July.
Steam rising from the grass
lazily curling and uncurling its come-hither fist
in blue efficiency streetlight.
Windows fog over
in droplet-streaming screens obscuring
the midnight hush-your-mouth in each
of a line of bricked and columned houses.
This is a city morally opposed to sidewalks,
where stoplights go down at eleven.
This is a city whose treacherous shoulders I trudged
for a decade in the dark.
-M.
She sheds herself
one rough skin at a time,
drops them dripping into the hamper,
and, naked innards walking,
drags the dripping hamper
to a sly-smiled laundress
who has her discount ticket pre-filled.
Heavy duty cycle, she says,
and remember,
hang is the only way to dry.
-M.
Holding yourself close to yourself
the record skips
the song is long over.
No room for the Holy Spirit
the nun with the flashlight will say
when she ejects you from the dance.
-M.
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.
Dogs have races. Dogs have war.
Dogs have Shakespeare.
I think someone ate a dog in some
Shakespeare play.
I got that from a movie where a teacher
taught Shakespeare.
Simulacra upon simulacra
the coolest concept in sociology.
I see a dog in a meadow. He is well cared for.
Sometimes when we think of dogs
we get a pain in the pit of our stomachs because
we think of dogs being mistreated.
Innocence makes us fear guilt.
Little children sing creepy songs in horror movies
give us the chills.
Serial killer has the heart of a child.
Animals are innocent.
Shark seeks food and procreation
the height of evolution.
Lamb of God doesn’t bleat
on the bloody altar.
-M.
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.)
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
and swing my hips with purpose.
-M.
(I’m starting a little late for National Poetry Month’s 30 in 30. I owe you three. I’m on it.)
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 