You put your unusual turns
at the ends of your lines. You
live and die as one body. You
are the mystery of belly touch. You
Optima Domina
are the boundary walker’s
great love affair.
-M. Ashley
Excellent Lady (poem)
Tag: Creative Writing
Poetry Goals (poem)
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
Nobody Likes a Racist Sandwich (found Haiku)
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.)
Bliss in the Butter Keeper (poem)
I’ve had almonds today and chocolate and
dried cranberries and French press coffee
and a bit of a ham sandwich and real butter
on real bread. All signs point to the blissful Elsewhere
being right here in my cabinet with the chocolate
and nuts. Swimming around in the French
press before being all smashed to bitter
oil and wakefulness. Shivering in the fridge in
an off-brand baggie. Baked in an industrial oven.
Treading lukewarm water in the blue
porcelain butter keeper.
-M. Ashley
Saddle Sores (poem)
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
Loving Your Jealous God (poem)
If you make your god jealous, submit to him.
Love him. Ruffle his curly black hair. Offer him
your body and all your softest parts, the ones
you only offer some of the time.
Swear on the river, the unbreakable
swear, that you will give up
the offending one. Kiss him all over.
You didn’t mean to hurt his heart,
but you did.
-M. Ashley
Ghost Heart
“Much have we loved you, but speechless was our love, and with veils has it been veiled.”
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
In a moment of pain, suffering again with a traumatic memory, beyond trauma, that gave me tremors in my right arm and down the length of my leg, I cried out in loneliness and, in the imaginary conversation I was having with my therapist, I said how lonely I was with my trauma and how talking to my god was not enough because “he’s a ghost!”
(I am thinking of a ghost’s sheet as a veil.)
I hurt my god’s feelings. He has been right here with me through all the blood and guts.
Many times, talking to others about him, I have referred to him as “a figment of my imagination,” and “my all-powerful psychosis.” He joyfully laughs.
I called him a ghost and broke his heart.
-M. Ashley
Eau de Summer Camp (poem)
The base note has something to do with
sunscreen—a fair haired girl’s
most important piece of camping gear
next to bug spray
which is the sharp second layer of the scent.
The whiff of stiff, chlorinated towels,
unwashed and hot from the top
of the waist-high chain link fence
they were draped over to dry
completes the first perfumer’s chord.
For nuance, a drop of happy sweat
from happy children come to wash
their hands and faces with pink powdered soap
from lime green metal dispensers
hung over shabby sinks
on which daddy long legs perch
each rolling their eight dull eyes
at the rush and frivolity of the new generation.
-M. Ashley
Ravens Are Self-Aggrandizing Assholes (poem)
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
NaPoWriMo: We Prostitutes
We don’t look down on
each other here. This one forced
this one willing, this one forced
by force, this one forced by
circumstances, this one forced
and not knowing it, thinking that she,
in her non-stripper shoes, in control of
the chess board, receiving presents
is above it.
We all cry into the same
sweaty pillows.
-M. Ashley
M. N. Ashley 