ALL RESPONSES |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
There’s a wasp in my whiskey.
He sensed something tasty, flew
circles around the glass, and
dove in. Now he’s swimming
in alcohol. Why can’t he fly out?
He’s probably already too drunk.
Should I help him escape? Or
is it too late? When he sobers up,
he might sting me. He might
bring his buddies back for a drink.
So, I leave him there in his bliss,
sipping carefully as he falls asleep. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Bad boy Brad had a pocketful of rubber wasps
that he dropped in drinks to entice those
he felt attracted to. However February
in Minnesota was not always the time
of year to drop a wasp and intend
to sting. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Fly in the ointment.
Stinger in the drink.
w
a
s
p
needs help I think. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
This is the amber of the Polish diaspora,
the amber of Baltic woods,
of time frozen from time autumnal,
of the field’s rye panzered under,
of the lost village, that sweet harsh sadness.
Cities flamed in war, incinerating
the houses of civility, all those
who may have remembered are gone.
O little, nasty wasp, you drowned
in the easy euphoria and oblivion.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
amber colored river
of sloshing booze in
a bottle, hidden in the
desk drawer, slammed shut
when she called from
the stairs.
a drafting table, brown desk
with black phone, drawings
with thin blue lines. I couldn’t
breathe from the worry of
ruining them somehow or
losing your approval
so I, frozen artless accessory,
sucked in breath when she
called from the stairs.
Jerry! Jerry! What are you
doing don’t be calling Lima
don’t be calling Peru
we can’t even afford milk.
Shrill now. Can you hear me!
Are you calling Lima?
Are you calling Peru?
From you a wink and
a nod were my cues.
I thought you were
an architect or something
I thought you were someone
important not a pharmaceutical
salesman but even that
would have been great
had it lasted.
The terror you set in motion
the moment you walked in the door
─quick, throw everything under
the couch and chairs stand
at attention by the holy
water font
would have happened less often. But
what I remember most is that flowing
amber liquid after you slammed
the drawer, sloshing back and forth
in the glass like a river like a
soothing comforting river of life.
oh I could wrap myself in its
swarthiness I could swim in its deep
bronze waters I could breathe in its heady
fumes I could wrap myself in its
azure blanket I could leave
this house of lies.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
The sting by these words
Vice and Verse in poetry
and what gives it’s oath
Vice Versus in prose
“Tis too starved an argument for my sword.”
- The immortal bard.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
The air this afternoon is heavy
with rain and Seagram & Seven
Twelve loud men argue
over who has the better baseball
team; duct tape holds the pool table
rack together as it hangs from one side
a deer antler on the west wall
A soft girl rushes in with a blue coat
over her wet hair; asks for change
for a fifty from Felix, the bartender
It’s hard to tell if she’s been crying
or just wet from the rain, but twenty four
eyes follow her cute ass to the pay phone
All the while an angry wasp has fallen
into Phil’s whiskey he left beneath
the poster of a half-naked woman sipping
a wine cooler from Bartle and James
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
A command, an instruction, a mandate.
You are given no choice in the matter.
Get well. Feel better. Breeeeeeeaaaathe.
In and out, back and forth, nice and slow.
Sing. Quietly, if you will, of fall colors.
Color the world around you with visions.
Visualize the lines of force that hold us
All together in communal consciousness.
Paint the spaces between our lines with
Tones in uplifting keys, note by note,
Creating a symphony of harmonic voices,
Your choir, synchronized with all living things. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
(for Giamarie, because I still love you)
It must have been the fabric of our lives
that brought us here to drink house Chardonnay
and giggle, touching thighs below the bar,
so comfortable we are. Most other days
she's decorated in synthetic shields
of lace and Lycra, vinyl and chiffon,
and velvet gloss in shades of raucous pink
across a hungry mouth. Tonight she’s gone
and traded satin lingerie for jeans,
dark denim frayed from heel to knee to hip.
Her chocolate hair, unwoven, soft and tucked
away behind her ears. With naked lips
she gulps the wine -- her laughter giving birth
to crops of cotton pulled from barren earth. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Drown, drown, taken down
in a sea beset with forget
No pain, no reason to blame
No need for proper haste
to time’s tawny bouillabaisse
The last word has been spoken
though your wings be unbroken
In solvent one cannot stand
much less fly somewhere to land
This autumnal swill is cheat
nothing but pure liquid deceit
A place of burn and harm
that works exactly like a charm
Yet into the proverbial soup
you dived a full fathom five
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
theres a wasp in your whiskey
cooed her voice softer than fresh fallen snow
her finger gliding around the inside of the rim
ill get you another watch the fire
a fire of white ash much like the day
its own pulse slowly fleeing
languid she slipped between
the sheets of twilight and dream
I raised up against the glass reveling in its pungent death
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
so we are too the sting--the sting
liquid of deep bog afterthought spice and scent
clinging to the sides of the tumbler clinging to the insides of I
bury me in you deep wonderling bring nothing but afterthought
flavor on the tickled tongue waft of wasp in the nose
then closed the cork and bury me again.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
i can’t stand
the smell
of whiskey
it brings back
memories
of raging
broken thing
and bruises
nightmare
nights
waiting
for him to pass out
when the punishment
for breathing
would be over
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Whiskey
straight up.
Whiskey
sour.
Whiskey
and coke.
Whiskey
and gunpowder.
Whiskey
and rye.
Whiskey
headache.
Whiskey
dick.
Whiskey
wasp
doing the backstroke
in a place he doesn’t belong, in
a poem which shouldn’t have been written.
Sometimes you’re the whiskey,
sometimes you’re the bee.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
She honeys her face.
It's said to sooth
the skin. She takes
it out at night,
and makes the bear
stand on his head. |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Sip
i didn’t know whiskey
till it knew my tongue
better than it
knows itself.
Peck
i didn’t know lips
till I knew yours
faster than touch
itself.
Shot
i didn’t know burn
until I swallowed streetlight liquid
orange
and then I was like
night trapped in my
skull
Kiss
i didn’t know romance
till my lips sat in the couch
of yours
napping, rubbing
against the red
fabric like
a cat’s declawed
paws.
Chug
i didn’t know the
river Styx
until I put the penny
liquid to my eyes,
tilted my head
back
and crossed
into the empty
whiskey
bottle of
heaven.
Make out
i didn’t know wetness
until my tongue
fell like larva
into your cave
throat
now it
drowns, is born
in the succulence of
our cesspool
love.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
It must have seemed
like a windfall,
like the lottery:
Shelter from the cold
and a seemingly never-ending
supply of exceptionally delicious
food:
sunflower seeds;
cracked corn.
I wonder if the mouse
came to realize –
too late of course, as I might -
there was nothing to drink
inside the bin.
The mouse feasted.
He feasted until he was fat –
he was notably fat when
I found him.
He feasted so that
the level of seed
in the bin
was dropped
by his gluttony.
Thus escape –
to source water,
solve loneliness,
or share with others his bounty –
required
a particularly strong leap;
a particularly strong leap
from
a particularly fat mouse.
Was it weeks or days
or hours?
Did it occur to him
to starve himself free?
Or did he die
as he only dreamed
he might,
old,
with his gullet,
for once in his life,
full? |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
Sweety,
There's a time of year for swimming lessons,
and certain lakes have better reputations, too.
It's well known that inebriation is not a safe state
to swim in, nor whiskey the best medium.
Water wings, not others, are helpful,
and legs are third to flippers and fins.
Dearest Wasp,
you ought to have invested in life-saving equipment,
as is, I'm fearing for your life.
I would like to offer my condolences,
and prayers for a more sober life
next time around.
Goodbye, my sweet friend.
Love, your Honeybee |
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
|
|
You had to do it.
Attracted by the scent of danger
you came to me as a wasp
looking to dip its trunk
into something sweet, forbidden.
Me, the Whiskey that inebriated you,
the glass, the story containing us...
The problem is I am not sure
who from our story
came out of it alive, you or I.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
