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
Saddle Sores (poem)
Tag: Poetry
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
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
NaPoWriMo: Worst Poem Ever
I trace your ribs
In cerulean ink
Dewdrops of blue
On the skin
A connect-the-dots
That somehow
Resembles a unicorn
In calligraphy lines
A unicorn with the stripes
Of your bones
A child of myth
And the Serengeti
A mythical zebra with a horn
They must have had unicorns
In the Serengeti too
And your ribs
And my ink
Must have been
What their pelts looked like
On the walls of mythical hunters
If they had pottery
In the mythical Serengeti
And this cerulean ink
Would stick
I would trace your ribs
On the pottery too
While you are sleeping
The rise and fall of your abdomen
With your sacred breath
The reason the lines would be blurred
Not my tears, my love
Not my tears
-M. Ashley
NaPoWriMo: Clean Laundry
My own soul, these days,
Dry but mostly cling,
needs a little static release,
needs a sacheted drawer
to sleep in.
-M. Ashley
NaPoWriMo Binge Eating Disorder
Rebellion in a thousand silver
Candy wrappers thrown on the floor
Each one reflects a side of my face
My face gets bigger
The mirror must also get bigger
So say the lying mirror wrappers
-M. Ashley
NaPoWriMo: The Algorithm Loves to Sell You Diet Products
And once you lose the weight
If you do ever
You will have hours of free time
To focus on everything else you
Hate about your body. The algorithm
Has products for those things too.
-M. Ashley
NaPoWriMo: We Talked a Lot of Shit When I Worked at WalMart
Where we gassed and gabbed
we ground our cigarettes out
on the concrete window ledge
in front of the bustling store—
in front of our managers, what
kind of fuck did we give? Our
feet and backs were killing us and
somebody pissed in the fitting room
again. Someone left a dirty diaper
open in a shopping cart. Literal
shit. You customers deserved
every dirty thing we said.
-M. Ashley
M. N. Ashley 