Tag: Poetry Community

God Guy Buys Me a New Purse

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

“Open your hands, if you want to be held.”
-Rumi

If your hands are closed or, worse yet, clenched, where does your lover lay the present? I wrote a poem to that effect once and it’s quite profound, especially if your lover is Rumi’s THE Lover and the presents are all the good gifts of god.

I have this sort of boyfriend—this man who loves me unreadably as I have shattered his heart many times. Maybe in this unreasonableness for exactly that reason, he is exactly like god. Jokingly, (sort of), I told him he should buy me a new purse because I was soon to be acquiring a lot more stuff—gifts from actual god. I was (sort of) joking, but he said, enthusiastically, “OK!” And I might accept. I don’t want all the sticky little strings that are attached to love-in-desperation presents, but unlike with god gifts, I can keep my fist clenched for this one.

I can keep my fist clenched. He can go ahead and hang my new Hermes bag on my one outstretched arm.

-M. Ashley

God Is So Gangster (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Behind the big desk in
The big office, one shock of
Lamplight making the dark
Wood desk shine. The carpet
Greenback green. God in
Wedding white suited.

Big men come to the big office
Stand and stutter in front of
The big dark desk, hatless hands
Clutching for something to cover
Their crotches with as they go
Begging. Help me. Help me.

Help me
They say.

God says no.
No. No. The question is:

How can I help you
In a way that helps me?

-M. Ashley

The Bridegroom Cometh (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I don’t even want to be kind to this
Sad man. If my god were to come

For me in the same moment this
Sad man grabs for my hand in the

Parking lot, desperate now the date is
Ending—and my god were to show up

Between the parked cars all masculine in
Twilight purple, head to holy toe, I

Would wrench my hand away from this
Sad man and give myself to god rirght there–

Slut-in-the-parking-lot—while the
Sad man cries and watches me

Fucking my way to apotheosis, spread
Eagle on the hood of a dirty white Prius.

-M. Ashley

God (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

There is a guy on my street.
He has an orange muscle car.
He lives in a sky blue house.

He warned me once about mail
Thieves–a couple in a gold junker
Slinking from box to box at
Night, pilfering birthday money.

He is a nice fellow.
He keeps his lawn nice.

He takes his orange muscle car
Out once a week–rolls slow
Down the block. Our windows
Shake. My dog barks.

It’s Sunday.
The whole neighborhood
Knows it’s Sunday.

-M. Ashley

Un-Whole (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

It doesn’t have to be good.
It doesn’t have to be whole.

You will never know
What you never knew. Any god

Who tells you he’s honest is
A malicious liar. All gods lie

A little. We are eager for god lies
And lying gods prefer to keep us

Eager and (mostly) un-disappointed.
They tells us that cracks in the vessel

Are natural—Inevitable—beautiful.
They teach us we must appreciate

the cracks. We need the cracks, we
sing. We need the cracks

To let the light in. But why, gods—
and be honest:

Did you make the vessel opaque?

-M. Ashley

Dear Poetry Book Inside Flap Writer (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I forgive you for being a pompous
Windbag and using words like “nexus”
That make us, and you, feel smarter
Than we are. I forgive you because
You’ve got to sell windy books
Somehow to equally windy people
And breezily walk the edge of
Overblowing it without, oops, I
Overblew it! You had to prevent us
Muffy and Buffy poetry reader
Types from seeing too much of
Ourselves at that blustery
“Nexus” of blew and blow
And putting the book down
And closing our handbag flaps
And whistling as we walk away.

-M. Ashley

A Drink with Houdini (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

My wine glass is a coffee mug
with handsome Houdini painted on,
tied up, cuffed, dipped upside
down in cold water. He’s got a face
like he’s sure he’ll get free, like
if he doesn’t, he’s sure he’s at least
immortal enough to be reborn one day
on a mug in the next millennium.

Houdini’s wine mug is tricky.
You pour the cheap stuff in
behind the antique-colored, faux
posters, and the wiry escapist
slips his bonds without a twitch.

Or, to be more accurate,
the bonds slip him. The handcuffs
disappear, the straight jacket undoes,
the lung-crushing water drains
into the polished black scrim
that works the inside of the cup,
into the pulse-lulling red
that sloshes behind it.

The bonds dissipate, almost,
and slink their way down my esophagus—
a rain of deconstructive intoxicants
to ensnare the presto hands
and abracadabra body
of the guilt I carry, at the bottom

-M. Ashley

Missing Frank Bidart (poem)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Oh my poet-y friend… how I have missed thee.
I have missed myself defacing your books with
Purple ink notes like, “Love it!” and “Scary.”

Remember that time I humiliated myself on a
Plane pompously overblowing poetry to a
Stranger who turned out to be a PhD in poetry

My nose in your book
My ass on my shoulders
Me talking out of it

But then you were there for me
For that—for my ass face too
And my starry eyes for you.

-M. Ashley