Lush Life
We’d drink until the stars went out, then scrounge
an hour or two of sleep before our shifts
hopping the subway in from Brooklyn, Queens,
jacked up on NoDoz, Yoohoo, vitamins
eyelids sagging like chintz drapery.
Tag: poems (Page 4 of 12)
up to no good.
how long? how long
will you put up
put out
shoulder blades
heavy sunburnt
gold nugget eyes
*
Before this field blossomed
it was already scented
from fingers side by side
darkening the lines in your palm
the way glowing coals
once filled it with breasts
Everything happens a little more each day.
I’ve had a good time; even my fear has been a twinkling light.
The best place to be is right in the way.
I am sewing my flesh into the costume.
There, in your bed, a warm body bends.
We all like each other in a surprisingly realistic fashion.
A little bit further along to the mass grave and the Tilt-a-Whirl.
Outside, metal bangs against claw.
What a dull needle!
Reach for meaning, step on the sleeping.
Nauseous, a practical girl lay down beside the memorial fountain.
Your date with fate reveals a mutual attraction.
POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #88
Speak to the cicada.
They have the violent
sounds we need
to coal the ridges
of Ohio, to set the fires
& watch the state run
away from complacency.
The rich will cover
their ears, Katie.
The rich will drop
their guard. Take all
that you can.
POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #89
I have great hopes
that you will have
your mother’s dark
hair. If you can be her
continuing, if you can
be her without
all of that goodness
you might just take
the unpretty state
of things here
& thrive amidst
your revolution.
POEM FOR KATIE, QUEEN OF OHIO #90
Dear young lady,
if anybody else
addresses you
in this way,
you should probably
take their property
first, then give
their lilies to the sky,
& then burn your name
in their field.
Fuck any minimizing
of your ecstatic.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of ten poetry collections, most recently “Lady, You Shot Me”, which was published by 8th House Publishing. He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
I’m dreaming
Always
Of my grandparents
My preacher
Of you as a small boy
The nights are days
Of finding you all
In turns
And patterns
Fields and haunts
Unearthing
Old treasures
And smiling
They minister
To the migratory in me
But you look at me
Helpless
As a broken-winged bird
And I’m trying to figure out
How to mend you.
Oak Ayling is an English poet whose work, both current & forthcoming, can be found in the Literary Magazines Anti Heroin Chic, From Whispers to Roars, Foxglove Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Memoir Mixtapes & in print anthologies ‘For the Silent’ from Indigo Dreams Publishing & ‘Light Through the Mist’ from author Helen Cox.
Follow her on Twitter @OakAyling and on Instagram @oakayling
Recent Comments