Writing Life
Walking tired the plains of Desolation,
a lost man lowers himself hard to the earth.
A woman comes to sit beside him.
This is her home and she is not lost.
She uncovers his face,
pulls his shaming hands away.
She has drawn dust angels for him
with her clay-covered toes.
He sees them and sees they are miraculous—
her toes
and the way her naked legs lay
parallel to the angels’ outstretched wings.
And he tells her she is beautiful.
And she does not believe him.
-M. Ashley
Hear me read it:
Artificial light blue to beat the blues
Try 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 Blue Eyes
Blue—nothing artificial about you-ooh
Tell me again
How the mental health benefits of exercise
Cap at thirty minutes so I can
Lap my sad to death in the
Beautiful chlorine blue.
-M. Ashley
(Found this one buried in my notebook. I had almost forgotten about it. One of my very favorites.)
Hear me read it:
His senses perk
to the smell of green grass
in a fertile garden, the light
of a broad path made plain,
a promising crack in the wall,
and the laughter
of better women echoing.
The one beside him mercifully
slips his fingers.
The one beside him mercifully
speaks.
Leave me a kiss for my collection,
here in the tender crook of my arm,
and remember me sometimes
that I was your Darling
in the dead and lonely place.
-M. Ashley
In a bigger city, later in life, I would visit
the first floor of World’s Largest Porn Store
and, the same evening, all three floors
of the purple neoned Madame X.
On this day, however, a little after 1pm,
Bill and I pulled into the parking lot
of the little porn store on Highland,
the one we grew up walking past
with its cream painted windows,
wind beaten sign, and handy bus stop access.
He and I sat in his red secondhand Jeep
with the engine running and air conditioning on,
“I will if you will” daring each other to go in.
But then we had to get going
or we’d miss sixth period gym.
-M. Ashley
A line of palm trees standing demure
before the great purple face
of the city’s eponymous mountains
god-gifted with resort quality snow.
Behind the trees, glinting and sprawling
like the many mansions of God
are the warehouses of Stater Bros. markets,
their trucks lining the city’s eponymous avenue
ready to serve it first, before serving the rest
of the southern half of the state.
Industry portrait
of one local boy
done good—
chamber picture
of the wished-for city.
-M. Ashley
“My poor world!” I want to say,
as I sit here surrounded by abundance.
We’re poor until we aren’t and then
sitting in a room full of gold like
Scrooge’s Money Bin we wonder
why the gold isn’t at least one foot
deeper so we could move our diving board
one foot higher and get that extra
adrenaline rush as we free-fall
further into the abundance for which
we are never quite grateful enough.
We hit the pile of gold like a ton of bricks
(Family Guy did a cutaway about that—
great minds…). We aren’t made of feathers
like Scrooge McDuck, so we platz
and break all our bones when we intended
to dive in and swim through, sensuously.
There is this riddle about what weighs more:
a pound of gold or a pound of feathers.
A pound is a pound
unless you’re talking about the pound
of flesh that hit the unforgiving gold.
-M. Ashley
We are not the arsonists of August
nor the fire-pushing winds of pre-fall.
We are the burnt black hills of November
in the hot, short shadow of which
we gather our families in thanksgiving
that from us
the doomed young grasses of March will grow
to blue the sky for a month
and draw foreign shepherds here
to graze their great flocks of bell-ringing lambs.
-M. Ashley
Me and a priest not in a bar.
Me and a priest in a red-carpeted office.
The windows are stained.
I can’t see it in the dark but
I have faith in the stain.
I have faith in the red carpet.
I have faith the lilies in the wallpaper
will fade but never go gold.
Me with a little scroll in my hand—
questions for the learned man
rolled out on that carpet, the length of
God’s hundred arms outstretched
fingertips to shoulders to incorporeal fingertips.
We roll up our sleeves.
He cracks his knuckles.
I swivel and pop my neck.
Someone or
some thing
will be salvaged tonight.
I lead with my best foot:
“I’d be Catholic, but
I don’t believe in sin.”
-M. Ashley
Happy National Poetry Writing Month everyone!
My bestie’s cousin–they call him Sketch
Pad–has a tattoo on his penis
But was too pain-shy to finish
The right half of his left-right
Two word rib tat. He was supposed
To be “Black Sheep.” He ended up
BLACK
SH…
(Ellipsis implied, not actually tatted.)
-M. Ashley
I hope this is the last time my
Tired ass leaves the seat of
This gray vinyl hospital chair
Turned forty-five degrees to
My mother’s gray blanketed
Hospital bed. She’s being
Discharged today to better things
I hope.
Today—leaving day—
Is the first day I noticed there is
Color in this room. I have nothing
Poetry profound to say about
This presence—the coral and blue.
Nothing you can carry in your pocket when
Your mom attempts slow suicide too by
Refusing to eat—to comfort you. To
Reckon the anger. All the anger.
Except to say the color is there.
The color is there, aloof
Of whether you see it or not.
But do see it. See the color.
It’s there.
-M. Ashley
photo taken at Kaiser Ontario Hospital, Ontario, CA
M. N. Ashley 