Bad Poetry Friday

Anniversary
by [REDACTED]

A year comes and goes
And a decade
Mark the day to remember what we have lost
And what we have found
And re-found
Was it us?
Was it we?
A thousand years can come and go
And what will change between us?
Only the color of our hair
And the creases in our skin.
The death that makes our lives complete
Can only stop our beating hearts
But not the throbbing pain of love

More Bad Poetry Thursday

Miniature America
by [REDACTED]

Outside there are a thousand tiny lights
Each one as bright as the last.
One thousand blue glowing screens
And one thousand cats.
The world revolves around one hundred men
Here they are.
One thousand other men in cars
Going faster, much faster than ever before
To find that empty place
The place where they can stake a claim to what is only justly theirs.
Where do they go from here?

Tales of Ricky #5

Ricky dragged his feet a little as he walked to the bus stop. It was only the fourth day of school but he was already exhausted. The bus stop felt like it was a million miles away. There were three other children that got on the bus with him, all from his new neighborhood. He didn't know them, and they didn't seem to want to know him. Erika was even in his class, but it's hard coming in as a new 5th grader. Friendships and groups are established and it's hard to break in. Same as 4th grade, same as 3rd grade, same as 2nd grade, thought Ricky. Four schools in five years is tough.

From behind him, Ricky heard the low rumble of the bus's diesel engine as it rounded the corner of Fern road and Anthem street. He was still about fifty yards from the bus stop, so he started to jog. He didn't want to miss the bus in the first week. He would have to show up late to school and walk in to his class with everyone looking at him. Being the new kid was hard enough. Seven steps into his jog, Ricky's backpack zipper broke. It was a hand-me-down backpack from his older brother Steven. The zipper failure sent his binder, his lunch, his library book spilling onto the sidewalk.

"You're going to miss the bus. You're going to miss the bus," played over and over in his head, an incessant drum beat of failure.

A girl roughly Ricky's age ran down from the bus stop at the corner to help him. She knelt down next to him and started picking up loose sheets of paper before they could blow away.

"I'm fine," said Ricky. "I don't need help and you're going to miss the bus." He looked up at her next to his right knee.

"No, it's fine," she said. "That's the middle school bus, not ours." She grabbed the last of the papers, a form that Ricky's mom had forgotten to sign last night before her sixth glass of wine, that she had promised to sign this morning before she had to run off to her job at Shepard's. He took the papers from her and stood up just as the bus pulled up to the stop 100 feet away. Sure enough, the older group of kids waiting there at the corner got on. The doors shut, the bus pulled away and Ricky stood there next to the girl, a confusing jumble of emotions rolling around in his body.

"Thanks," he said. "You really didn't have to help. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I know. I like helping people. You're new, right? Aren't you in Ms. Garming's class? I'm in Ms. Yellen's class but my best friend Ana is in your class I think."

"Uh, yeah, I am in Ms. Garming's class" said Ricky. He didn't remember an Ana. He only remembered two names from the first few days, Dorian J. and Dorian M., because it was so strange to him to have two Dorians in the same class.

"I'm Marianne," she said with a smile. "Nice to meet you, and welcome to the neighborhood. Didn't your family just move in a couple weeks ago?"

"Yeah, we did. Me and my mom and my brother Steven. He's in high school. My name is Ricky, by the way."

"Oh, I think I hear our bus coming! We better get to the stop," said Marianne. The two of them walked briskly up the block and made it to the bus stop with five seconds to spare. Marianne spotted three of her friends near the back of the bus and she ran to sit with them. One of them looked like a girl in Ricky's class. Maybe it was Ana, he thought.

Ricky took a seat on the left hand side of the bus, about halfway back. There was only one more stop before their arrival at Strasburg Elementary School, so the odds that someone would sit by him were pretty low. He was relieved.

Several minutes later, the bus lumbered to a stop in front of the school and the children started to exit. Ricky headed towards the front door of the school alone, walking slowly. There was no rush to get inside yet. Class didn't start for 10 more minutes. He shuffled down the hallway to the fifth grade rooms. To get to Ms. Garming's class he had to walk all the way to the end and take a left. As he turned that final left, he heard Marianne's voice behind him.

"See you after school, Ricky," she said. It was the nicest thing anyone at Strasburg had said to him yet. He turned to look at her and reply, but she had already turned right to head to her class room.

"Yeah, see you after school, too," Ricky said, trailing off, not sure if she'd heard him or not. He stood for a minute just to see Marianne walk away. So many people have come and gone, thought Ricky. I hope she stays.

Bad Poetry Thursday

Two All-beef Patties
by [REDACTED]

Hunger is crude
It runs the world like a petty dictator
Always onto the next thing
Now now now now what
There is time enough for this
And time enough to eat
Let me have your special sauce
Another mouth to feed
My stomach is gnawing
My guts are churning
Give me what I need
Give me my daily bread.
Forgive me, but I am hungry
I want to devour the world.

Bat Poetry Wednesday

Flitter
by [REDACTED]

Into the dark, flying
The black, like VantaBlack is thick
And unyielding

A tiny echo, a ricochet
Off of one thing, and then another
Replying

He stumbles in the night
Left alone, the light receded into ember
A fire gone out.

The faint thrum of wings
He is not alone here, there are others
Surrounding

He stumbles in the black
Eyes cannot see the Other, the foreigner
Now encroaching.

The slap and crash
One sound falls into another
A thousand voices speaking.

He stumbles in the dark
And wings he didn't know he had
Hold him up, keep him aloft,
Flying.

Bad Poetry Tuesday

Paranoia
by [REDACTED]

The fear comes on monstrous bear feet
It is a roiling beast
With no roar
It sits outside your door
And waits
And with such waiting grows and grows
And prepares to eat.

I know it sits
I know that it's me it's looking for
Garmonbozia
I try to swallow it back
I try not to think twice

Bad Poetry Monday

Alienation's for the Rich
by [REDACTED]

It only takes a spark
To burn a pile of hundos
You have to be wealthy to understand
To know what it's like to have more
To know what it's worth to want less
No one cares about more than your money
Not even you
There's no loathing like self-loathing
For the rest of us
For us huddled masses yearning to be drunk
There's no time to feel ennui
We don't have energy to do it
To burn all the money we don't have.
There's no righteousness like self-righteousness.

Bad Poetry Saturday

The Bear
by [REDACTED]

Spread your arms
Squat low and widen your stance
Stare with vacant eyes
Say in sotto voce
"Get away from me bear"
Make the bear flee
Make the bear wish it had never been born
This is how to do it
This is how to win
Nova Scotia knows
We know

Bad Poetry Monday

The Crash
by [REDACTED]

The sound it makes when a car hits a wall
or a pole, or better yet another car
is deafening and normal
The sound of rending plastic
and bending metal
cannot be confused for anything natural
or anything else man made
It's its own
and beautiful in its own way.
Like the light from a fire
it consumes.

Bad Poetry Friday

Clarity
by [REDACTED]

Simple combination locks
and heavy leaden chains
Can protect a bicycle or even car
But not my heart

Bad Poetry Thursday

Indefatigable
by [REDACTED]

Little tiny slivers of pine
Slide freely into these hands of mine
They fester and swell
I do not feel fine
But who can I tell?
To whom can I confess I am not well?
Swollen flesh is just a sign
Of fingers under an infection's spell.
The wood is now a part of me
Use a knife to cut it out
Call it sliverectomy
I try not to shout
At the searing pain.
Why won't you just give up?

Tales of Ricky #4

Ricky pulled into a parking spot in the lot behind the Hollywood Casino in Columbus, Ohio. He'd been driving around the state all day and was relieved to arrive at his last stop. He had one more delivery to make.

The sodium arc lights gave the parking lot an eerie glow. Depending on how his day had gone, the glow either filled him with foreboding or made him feel wrapped in velvet, smiling at everyone, it was never neutral. Today had been a good day. He opened the trunk and grabbed the black leather duffel bag he'd picked up in Dayton just an hour or two ago. He never asked what was in these bags. It was better not to know, he figured.

Ricky walked up to the employees' entrance on the west side of the building and knocked. Regular employees had a security badge they could use to enter, but he had to wait for Rhonda. She knew he was coming, and so she answered the door immediately and shuffled him into her office three doors down the hallway on the left. It always felt slightly sinister entering a casino this way. There were no flashing lights or clanging slot machines, just fluorescent track lighting and drab walls. Like being in the underbelly of a creature plotting evil. All business.

Rhonda reached out to shake Ricky's hand as he sat opposite her in front of her desk. She had a firm handshake, firmer than you'd expect from such small hands. She couldn't have been more than 5' 1" but her aura was large and dark purple, almost black. Today she had a gleam of gold. Sitting down herself, she smiled at him and he returned it with a lopsided grin.

"Good to see you," Rhonda said. "Looks like you have something for me?"

"Same as usual. Jonesy in Dayton said to tell you that it's exactly as he promised, whatever that means."

Rhonda chuckled under her breath and said "Oh, I'm sure he did. He's a good boy."

Ricky handed the leather bag across the desk. He sat for a moment while Rhonda picked it up and looked briefly inside. She seemed satisfied, so Ricky stood to leave. "Leaving so soon," Rhonda asked.

Ricky gave her that crooked grin again and said, "I think my work here is done."

"Wait, I have something for you," Rhonda said. "Not another delivery or anything, I know you're off the clock now. It's just something I thought could give you a feeling of peace at the end of the day." She reached into her lower right hand desk drawer. Ricky tensed up. No one had ever pulled a gun on him, but it was the first thought that jumped to his mind. It wasn't a gun she came up with, though. It was simply a ziploc bag full of casino chips. "Just my way of saying thanks," she said.

Ricky took the bag. It was heavy and the chips weren't all 1's and 5's. Probably north of a thousand dollars in here, he thought. He gave Rhonda a nod and turned for the door. "Until next time," he said.

"Don't spend it all in one place," she said to the closing door as he walked out.

Ricky sat down in the driver's seat of his 2010 Avalon and looked at the bag again. He would cash in the chips tomorrow, or maybe the next day. He smiled to himself and pictured the plastic turned to green paper. The sodium arc lights fell on his face and he felt like it was a coronation. It's good to be king, whatever it pays, he thought as pulled back onto the freeway heading north, heading home.

Good Poetry Wednesday

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Bad Poetry Wednesday

The Ancient Myths
By [REDACTED]

Saturn ate his own children
But was supplanted all the same
A new king reigns for us

Romulus and Remus built the City
But not in a day
A new house was built by you and I

Circe worked with herbs and potions
Turned men to pigs and nymphs to monsters
But we are our own moly

Echo and Narcissus could only love the one
Sounds and faces his alone
We are two

Gaia is the mother of us all
Bringing forth the sea, the sky, the Gods
And we have done the same
The creation of us
The birth of our existence
We made this from nothing
From the random chance of fate.
We are.

Tales of Ricky #3

Ricky sat on his flagstone patio drinking coffee. The stones were old, but like all stones they had aged well. The coffee was still hot in his double-wall, vacuum flask coffee mug. He had been outside now for over an hour, alternately scrolling through apps on his phone and looking around the yard imagining the work that needed to be done to bring it up to par.

Ricky had worked on that damn yard most weekends for the last six months, nearly as long as he'd owned the house. Some of it was acceptable, but much of the property still looked sloppy and unkempt. Mostly because it was sloppy and unkempt and had been that way for who knows how many years.

There was one section, though, that he was quite proud of. It was a shade garden filled with 31 ferns that Ricky had purchased at the local nursery and transplanted to fresh soil under the outstretched limbs of a larger mulberry tree and an even larger tulip poplar. Three months ago, that part of his property had been covered with English ivy, blackberry, and Asiatic bittersweet vine, the most evil of them all. A lot of work went into clearing all of it out. His shoulders and back were sore for weeks from the constant digging, pulling, yanking, and cajoling. Mixed in with the ferns were a few foxgloves, now in bloom for added color.

It seemed that nearly anything would grow here in California as long as you did a little research. In a lot of ways, California was a paradise to live in or see. Much more so than Central Ohio where Ricky had lived until recently, until his career change and cross country trip. He was anonymous here, which was exactly how he wanted it. No more beat up old brown briefcase in the trunk all the time, just in case he needed to make it across the border. Out here in the California desert, he could remember his name, who had once been, long ago. It felt good to be out of the rain.

Bad Poetry Tuesday

I Was Gasping for Contact
by [REDACTED]

The orange core alone
Can't stem the tide
The dark blue lonesomeness outside
Washes in.
Where is my beautiful house?
The house that we built
Together, long ago
Before the flood?
Where are you, my love?
You are water flowing underground.
Lost to me, but you are not lost.
I let the water hold me down
I was gasping for contact.

But now
Maybe
Now I can breathe again
Start to imagine I can breathe again
I don't want the tide to recede
But I want to breathe again
The air is sour and empty
But it is air
Not water
This is still our beautiful house.
I am gasping for contact.

Tales of Ricky #2

It was the loveliest party that Ricky had ever attended. The decorations were understated and elegant, without being cloying. He'd never thrown a party like this but he could tell that this wasn't easy to pull off. He had been to many parties and been drunk at many parties and made a mess at many parties, but he didn't feel the urge to get crazy tonight. Maybe it was old age, or maybe it really did have something to do with the decor, the ambiance.

An hour later, Ricky stumbled down the hallway toward the bathroom, 5th glass of a 2014 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir in hand. It was classy to be drunk on good wine, he told himself. Everything's fine. As he pivoted on his right heel to enter the bathroom, he wobbled backwards and bumped into the framed Ellsworth Kelly print on the wall opposite the door. The print fell to the floor with a thunderous clatter of splintering wood. Ricky froze with widening eyes before slowly turning around to survey the damage. He squatted down next to the fallen picture and saw that the glass in the frame was intact, but the bottom left corner of the frame itself was broken in two. His host and good friend Elizabeth rounded the corner from the kitchen into the hallway to see what caused all the noise. She saw Ricky hunched over the picture and walked the few steps up to him to help.

"I'm so sorry," Ricky said, standing up to face her. "I accidentally bumped it with my shoulder on my way to the bathroom. And I spilled my wine all over your floor," he said, just now noticing his glass was empty and a dark red splotch was spreading across the hardwoods.

"Oh don't worry about it," responded Elizabeth with a smile. "If the frame is truly broken, I'm sure it could be mended. Go grab a towel from the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom to clean up the wine and I'll put this picture away so it doesn't get damaged any more. Use a dark towel if there's one there so the wine doesn't show up as much."

Sheepishly, Ricky did as he was told. The wine cleaned up easily from the gleaming floors and he tossed the dirty towel into a hamper he found in the laundry room next door to the bathroom.

The house had filled up, and the wine was flowing freely when Ricky walked up to an acquaintance of his, Andy, to chat. Andy was there with another man that Ricky didn't recognize.

"Andy, man, what's up? It's been a while since I saw you! How've you been?" said Ricky.

"Hey! Ricky, good to see you dude. I'm good, not much new, still just working and stuff," replied Andy. "Oh, hey, this is my friend Matt. He just moved to town a couple months ago. We went to school together."

"Matt, nice to meet you," said Ricky, shaking Matt's hand. "Welcome to The City."

"Thanks," Matt said. "Nice to meet you, too. So far The City is good for the most part. I moved here from a much smaller town, so the traffic is really something new for me. Everybody seems so aggressive."

"Yeah, I hear you," said Ricky. "That's why I prefer to ride the subway. I can't stand sitting in traffic, even if it ends up being a little bit faster."

"Ha, yeah, no doubt. I'm not a huge fan of the subway yet. The first time I rode it to work, I saw this couple that looked like Jihadi Jamal and Jihadi Jane get on and I was like 'oh hell no, I'm not getting my ass blown up right after moving here.' So I got off at the next stop and took an Uber the rest of the way."

Ricky stared at Matt, blinking rapidly. He had to consciously keep his mouth from falling agape. "So anyway, what have you been up to recently?" asked Andy.

"I'm sorry," Ricky said to Andy, deliberately not looking at Matt. "I feel like a hypocrite talking to you and your racist friend as though everything's cool." Without a further word, Ricky turned and walked into the kitchen to grab another deviled egg and find someone else to talk to.

Elizabeth saw him and poured him another glass of wine. "I do hope you're having fun tonight," she said. "Who is that with Andy? I didn't get a chance to meet him yet."

"I think his name is Matt. I wouldn't bother with him if I were you," said Ricky. Elizabeth gave him a questioning look, but said nothing. "He kind of seems like a racist asshole," Ricky clarified.

"Ah," said Elizabeth. "I see."

Bad Poetry Monday

The Rooftop Garden
by [REDACTED]

She sits on red brick alone
Sun and shade her only company
The blossoms track the movement of the sun
and thus she marks the hours, the days
as they pass, one on top of another
until
the final pepper is picked
the last of the marjoram withers
and returns to dust
But the red brick remains
It never changes and it never dies
It sits in silence and waits
It's there again when she greets the equinox anew
She rises from the dirt to bear new life
Again

Bad Poetry Sunday

A wonder of Glacier
By [Redacted]

Swells and slumps
Rolling ridges of ice and floes
A blur of whispers
Coax us gently toward the future
Of deserts

Bad Poetry Saturday

India Ink
By [REDACTED]

At night the lights stay on
This block of ours is alive
And well

Through it all
In back of all of this
A man sits and writes
In black and white
He etches words in stone
The history of our little world of friends
This land of graying hair

Bad Poetry Friday

Nematode
by [REDACTED]

Fire, sun
Rosy swine run through windy breaks
The sunfire gleams on winded cheeks
They root with tricky noses
finding treasure in the peaty deeps

And all the while
While we sit and watch
While we watch and tremble in anticipation
The nematode burrows
Into abundant flesh
and waits without breath
For a cell in which to encyst
To bring the world to its knees

Tales of Ricky (#1)

Ricky wandered the Farmers' Market looking for ripe and sweet onions. From what he could see, 8 out of the 10 produce stands advertised Walla Walla sweets. Each one claimed to be sweeter than the last. And so he bought one onion from every farm.

He carried his eight individual bags of onion, his loaf of artisan bread, and a wedge of rosemary chevre from the market's only cheesemonger to an empty table in the beer garden. He ordered a Twin Twin Forks Brewing Hopalope IPA made with Galaxy and Mosaic hops, tipped the bar tender a dollar and walked back to his table. His food was undisturbed. He knocked back half his beer in one long sustained gulp and then started carefully cutting onions, one grower at a time. He would eat a single slice of an onion, cleanse his pallet with bread, cheese, and beer, make notes on the taste and smell of the onion in his notebook, and then move on to the next onion.

He tried them all and found none to his satisfaction. None were sweet enough, none were balanced enough. He packed up his leftover bread and cheese, slugged down the warm remains of his beer, and headed to his car. His trunk was full of flash drives, passports and international money orders. He drove directly toward the freeway on ramp and headed southwest towards Las Vegas. He wouldn't be back. Not to this Farmers' Market anyway. There was another highly-rated one a couple towns away, right on the Idaho border. He would stop there if he had time.

Bad Poetry Thursday

Highway
by [REDACTED]

Asphalt cracks patched with hot tar
stretch ahead for miles
Exit 178 flies by and we can't stop
not now
now that we're almost there
almost to Canada.