Tag: Poetry

SoCal Winter Solstice (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

The insectile buzz of a mower mowing a 16th of an acre

Patch of green grass on December 21st. Cars on the

Northside thoroughfare wooshing in waves—high tide

At sunrise commute, low tide at bright and lazy after-lunch.

The smell of your next-to-you neighbor’s cigarettes.

His cough. The smell of your behind-you neighbor’s pot

Smoke—as blessedly un-dangerous a skunk encounter 

As you will ever have. Lucious pink Cape Cod roses

Preening on raggedy brown bushes bordering an oil-

Stained driveway. Even unseasonal human

Things are made of Nature. She smiles, shakes her

Starry curls and is not all that ashamed of us today.

-M. Ashley

Fantasy. Union. (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

“From fantasy comes union” that feels like
Ecstatic gratitude. Electricity comes to mind
But seems trite although there was literal
Lightning in my gratitude ecstasy. I danced
With my windows open in a storm drunk
On an almost full bottle of table wine

I couldn’t have fantasized it better this stormy union

It wasn’t what I expected. How silly to expect
Union to feel like freedom when really
It is the ultimate binding—the ultimate us
Together. We
Eternally.

I flopped down in my unmade bed
Left the last of the wine in a red plastic cup
Gathering rain and the reflection of lightning on
The dusty windowsill—dust made mud by the
Gods’ rain. I wanted IT so much. I was naked.
I wanted IT so much but
The Lover said I was just a little too
Drunk to have IT much
Just now.

The Lover is a gentleman.
I didn’t know that.

-M.
….sometimes, from fantasy comes union.” -Rumi

Soul Filling (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Crack open my soul and tell me
what’s in there, would you?
I am thinking of a decadent Easter
egg with filling too bright and
sweet to look at or taste. A Cadbury
egg gone berserk spilling out gooey
gold light.

Is this my soul or is it gooey
gold godly Ichor?

What’s the difference
anyhow?

-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

Lie (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

One fourteen-year-old lies in another’s lap
face-up
squeezing the pimples on her
I’ll-die-for-you-sweetheart’s scabby
sunburned face.

I lie with you
naked back to the earth
dug deep
moist and recently turned
picking the teeth of a death trap.

-M. Ashley

God’s Skeleton on the Sunset Strip (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Legally drunk on The Strip I slide
anonymous past the break-dancing boys
who sell CDs and their phone numbers
on the liminal bridge between
The Lion and The City.

Blurred, a bronzy man walks in front of me
gray skinny suit filled out to six feet, six inches at least
almost big enough to be the ancient god’s skeleton
found by archaeologists in an unmarked grave
somewhere in the backwoods of Greece.

On this night,
Caesar’s is the best he can do.

Its plastic emperors, audio-animatronic mythology,
and the gray-water fountain Evel Knievel jumped
wait to praise him

just north of the newest destructions—
about ten blocks shy of the lonely Stratosphere.

-M. Ashley

The House on Doheny (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I saw you bought that house I loved
on the hill, off Doheny, hard to get to

during rush hour or when the veins of LA
burst and bleed all over West Hollywood

up Sunset
and gush through the Bel Air gates.

The skin of my inner wrists
with her oxygen-blue undertones

(soft contemporary design)
is up for sale too.

Ten million or best offer
(like the house on Doheny)

plus, realistically, another million
to meet your execting standards.

How deep, my Darling,
are your lightless pockets?

-M. Ashley

Unbuttoning (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

He laid back into the arm of the sofa
and let me strip him to the waist.

I worked the buttons of his dress shirt
methodically, counting

(there were so many buttons)

I felt
I would never reach the shirt tail

never release him
fully,

(until I did).

His skin was cold and seemingly
lit of its own. It was

the sickly purple gray of a hot
oncoming

(interminable) night.

His chest and abdomen
all full of little scars.

He opened his languid arms, wrists
still buttoned

(and bound)

into the shirt as I bowed
to kiss

the ancient wounds.
“Like you,” he said

(graciously)

“I know something of war.”

-M. Ashley

Gods of the Inland Empire (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Of the Smoggy Valley—mountains, desert, ocean—
whichever climate you like
within an hour.

Of the sacred gray arteries—bloody asphalt—
broken glass shimmering in the shoulders—jaw-dropping
overpass knots.

Of the train that no longer whistles
the graveyard where railroad men rest—
the abandoned Catholic hospital
where railroad men were born

Of gunshots in the night—the green and
black—the godly ghetto birds—
NightSun—criminals who cannot hide.

Of skinny backyard coyotes—un-collared dogs
left to roam the neighborhood—the scarred
faces of little children mauled on their way to school
making the national news.

Of the withering Empire
of “these gangs came from LA”
of “we’re number 1 again!—
most dangerous city in the US.”

Of everybody’s got to proud of something.

Of heavy lungs
Of visible heat
Of prostitutes who stroll anyway—
immigrant tweens who twist their ankles
spiked heels stuck in the melted asphalt.

Of “this way to Vegas”
Of “this way to the baptismal sea”

Of kissing the corpse’s mouth

Of lying with it
one more night.

-M. Ashley