Photo by Brian Michael Barbeito

Tunneling

 

I.

her daredevil, embalmed with thorns:

the frigorific fog afflicting

this ferine february wasteland

 

II.

she excavates uncivilized theologies

from sullen, tattered shafts

replete with intricate blueprints

of spaceships resembling cigars

 

III.

the beetle-browed trenches

bordered with jutting stone lips

echo with eternal labyrinths,

consumed carcasses of cabooses

 

IV.

beneath delirious raving sidewalks

she unveils the festooned tomb

of a plutocrat’s prized crocodile

cloaked in citrine and pirates’ pearls

 

My Second Cousin’s Date to the Wedding

 

She was primitive and posh,

all lilac lipstain

and fenestrated poise.

Within those cloistered chromatic caverns

lurked a tactful tigress

tarrying elusively

behind fineprint claws

and jingoistic jive;

a cherry-coiffured ringer

for The Dorothy Malone

in her jazziest B-queen A-line swing.

Backstroking through buoyant babble,

she emerged fluently definable:

another fantail fadeout fayalite

wizening beneath the floodlights,

unable to pause the palpability

of cocksure bottom lines.

 

Mousetrap Molly

 

she was something between

a fabrication and a famine

disclosing her leeway

along saint fausta avenue

 

clocklike pear-drops pleading

the falter of her framework

unrobed for all to remiss

 

crystal women in abridged kaftans

passed by in peckish parades

coddling pussycat pocketbooks

inhaling the spicy corkscrew sun

 

pendulous men with wilting wives

uprooted quarters for cajolery

bracing for a madcap show

 

she twirled her violent stare

skivvied down to weeds

undulating underbelly bones

 

the garish grace of defrocked queens

 

Strongman

 

Delilah was his altar, his pyrexia,

his bottomless pyre.

Her gambled glamour was

wild lilac quelling quaking trees

through terraces of fruitless coulees.

 

Alone she could assuage his aptitude,

eclipsing genesis.

 

Her peregrine prowess humbled

cloven poachers and penurious priests.

Volcanic vipers writhed in the lithe of her limbs.

No man could withstand the herald of her hipline,

nor the rush of flustered lips so artfully opined.

 

She could smooth her limber graze through his vainglory

for all the moondaze through.

 

 

Megan Denese Mealor has appeared in numerous journals, most recently Fowl Feathered Review, The Opiate, Really System, and The Visitant. Her debut poetry collection, Bipolar Lexicon, is forthcoming in October from Unsolicited Press. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens, Megan’s main mission is to inspire others stigmatized for their mental health. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida with her partner, son, and two cats.

 

 

 

Brian Michael Barbeito (photo) is a Canadian writer, poet and photographer. Recent work appears at Fiction International from San Diego State University, CV2 The Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Writing, and at Catch and Release-The Columbia Journal of Arts and Literature. Brian is the author of Chalk Lines (Fowl Pox Press, 2013, cover art by Virgil Kay). He is currently at work on the written and visual nature narrative titled Pastoral Mosaics, Journeys through Landscapes Rural. http://hyacinth-wildflower.blogspot.ca/