Dissociative. When I was but a young stranger, my train rolled slowly through an area of wilderness. Muskeg, tilted tamaracks, power towers. And I thought not of my destination, but of wanting to paddle a canoe into that green buzzing haze. And I myself would find the answer.
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A dream Dad, a burning yearn.
Why’d you lead me into corn-stubbled hills? This mind of mine swirls with overthink. Come on, old man. We’re supposed to be waiting by the highway for that Buick to pick us up. It is to take me home. You’re just a distraction.
Suggestibility is a downfall of mine. I’ve followed too many false prophets. And, why do you take the name of my dead Dad? You’re not him. So I’ll turn and defy you. Walk right by you. Screw the corn, it’s without meaning. Highway it is for me.
Hah! I look back and see you following in your rubber boots, making dusty puffs in the dried mud, defeat and aggravation on your puss. Now, over the last rise, there’s the fence by the highway! The beige Buick with the young kid driving it…
He must have been waiting and didn’t see us, ’cause now he’s pulling away.
I shout. Shout No No No! and he sees us, stops. Smiling braces, freckles, ball cap. Say something, Old Man. I done beat you, you couldn’t take me to your false halls.
We start to roll on the smooth road. The young kid is from my nucleus. He’s been sworn not to say much, but he tells me the car has to go in for repairs, and he’s going to drop us in town for some “entertainment”. And, Old Man, I know you’re a lecher, and I do believe that you and Alfred, here, have been talking. Entertainment. Yah. He drops us off in the red light district, and you try your come hither again, but no, not this time. So you shrug, and I watch you descend long long stairs into a floodlit mine.
I know my lot is going to be something better today, and I don’t even care about the Buick no more. I walk slowly, through side streets of old houses. I wonder why I’m so warm, and then I realize I’m holding a cat. Then, through a hedge, I see a house with a picture window.
The living room has a soft glow of orange, and there’s someone in a rocker. And I stand, a voyeur with his cat. Kitty purrs now, and I can feel it through my chest.
A slow hand parts the lace curtains, and I see knitting. And I cry a man’s tears at the rosy cheeked face of Mom.
“A living thing” is on Spillwords!
A feint hope
A sudden cessation
A last surprised breath
A fall
Then nothing
An ignominious end
To a mediocre life
A clamber and a clamour
For divinity
Yet still better than drawn-out agonies
Words and words and words
Feeling the insistence
Of a slow knife.
Thin Lizzie
I am with the thin cat~
her love, she shows~
uncaring of sharp bones~
face pushing, pure purring ~
knowing~
how long she will be needed~
to carry me home, after toying with Joy~
and just how long I might stay.
The tail of the thin cat
It is two in the morning,
and the toik toik echo
of dripping water
seems conversational.
Whisper-hisses ask,
in fancy,
~How long is a piece of string~
~When will withdrawal end~
~In what manner will I die, and when~
Good to the last drop.
Stay with the thin cat.
She can tell.
What’s brought to the table
The note said:
Come to Ferny Forest
under boughs of night.
Follow Coyote’s howl,
for he will lead you true.
Come to our long table.
Your place is set,
and blood will let.
Nick a vein,
mind the pain.
Words of spell we’ll speak.
Obscenities we’ll leak.
And all, by morn, Medusa’s stone.
Denise Ruttan ~ The Innocence of Alders
In a moment of reckless fury, Amanda buried her face in her pillow and screamed, her breath coming out in wheezing sobs. Then, panic overtook her next, as she fought to silence herself. She pounded her fists on her bed, the sobs turning into weeps. What if her mother came in to check on her? She was making too much noise. Amanda could see it now — her mother, craning her neck in the door without knocking, approaching her bed, inspecting every line of her face as if she were a machine part off an assembly line. But the door remained closed.
Amanda was in trouble this time. She had been allowed a rare moment of freedom and was permitted to take the bus home from soccer practice. But she missed the bus transfer and was an hour late and forgot to call. Her mother called the police, marched straight…
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no tell motel
I used to think it was figurative
when people would say
“sparks flew between them”.
But, for a long time now,
I’ve known that the Old Wives were right.
And oh I have such a story
that I may never tell,
and, as people would say,
“God only knows”.
Homeless
What’s pulled us so far from shore
Tethered no more to the drumbeat of the soul
Senseless we fish further afield
Stymied by the junk of jetsam
From others who’ve been here before
And shout for joy at fools’ gold
So easy for the taking
Then turning to tarnished tinfoil.
Aremyfeetofftheground 