put down

Once upon a time there was an empty prom. And she filled it with burgundy velvet and the
swish-swish
swish-swish
of taffeta and despite the attention she gave to her mane of strawberry curls and to the application of burgundy gloss to the convex curve of her lower lip and especially to the deep
deep
divot of her upper lip (as if it were always reaching for a word, or a kiss) and despite the rhinestones and the shoes which she has now forgotten, her father refused to tell her she was pretty.

And when she stood before him ready for the ball she saw barely more than his narrow eyes above the broad sports page and then the shaking of his thick head in front of the La-Z-Boy backdrop and because he asked her the question of whether she had considered that others might think her a whore with her shoulders showing and her lips glowing and her young diminutive chest exposed just so
her heart
sank
below the modest plunge of the velvet neckline and landed somewhere in the tangle of her 20-inch waist (which he also resented) and there it lies today (now 24 inches tangled) buried but not rusted, glowing, waiting still for him to
put
down
the sports page.

groove

for Lacy

sinuous and strong
her song
like birch wood
wound round
the clef of my neck
stand-up bass at the
base of my spine
lays
down
and starts to
climb
all the way to the roots
of my teeth
my tongue
a wet drum
I become
keyboard tears
trilling down
her ivory neck
and into
that grand throat
that groove that defies
the needle
that
groove
yeah
that one

This poem also offered as part of this week's One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry.

lawn chairs

This poem is another collaboration between myself and the uber-talented and ultra-cool Athenian poet Costis Demos.




Angie: two sunlit chairs
four empty arms
the space between

Costis: fashioning wind woven poems
tossed in close proximity

Angie: outer spaces
inner pieces

Costis: constellation's garden
piece by peace
cosmic

Angie: porch-framed stars
lovers still
life

Costis: stellar frame
Andromeda the pin
Venus the hammer

Angie: love
hanging
on a sky full of nails

Costis: stars
past pins
comet loves
connect the dots
for the true picture

Angie: beneath the stars
blades of grass
stir the milky way

Costis: the fox's tail
northern lights
white brush
a kiss
above two lawn chairs