Three poems

Thistle and yew

It’s gray and empty in the spot where the feelings go

Calm but sharp like the whispers of a jackal and

Lemonade yellow around the edges.

I can see the spot where the sun could shine through

If the inside wasn’t all mist and rain and thunder

Peppered mornings with thistle and yew

Reflected droplets of Monday mornings in my mind

A treehouse of twisted thoughts, half-truths, and

Imaginary lies.

Peeling whispers from my skin and dropping them

Down the ocean of the drain that leads to nowhere

Washing away the claret and the clear, clear liquid

Of my face and my hands and the spot on my thumbs where

I’ve removed the pale covering and left nothing

Except a hole where my heart should go.

And like all nothings

I’m nothing too

Here in the mirror

The inside all like mist and rain and thunder

Peppered mornings with thistle and yew.

 

An early night

A cerise afterglow paints a pretty sky

faded into periwinkle blue and a lemony-yellow bloom punctuated by early stars

an ivory moon winking overhead, the taste of winter on one’s lips

breath in the air like a mist

frost forming on crunching grass

fingers chilled as we watch the sun go down

sucking in the cigarette of night to blossom in our hearts.

 

Blank white canvas

The midnight blue and black of winter’s eve sets in with a chill, like every summer’s been long forgotten—

snow twinkles under the moonlight, reminding me I’m a blank white canvas

like stars all crushed together and placed carefully on the ground

sparkling as if it were dew, or could be, at a different time when I wasn’t so empty.

But now it has made a delicate crust of ivory and faded brown dirt

dancing along the railings and amid dead gardens

too early to stay, but not too early to crisp and crunch the crimson and orange and lemon-colored leaves hanging from the branches

making the season change overnight from a multicolored palette

to a frozen playground of twirling flakes and whistling wind that sinks into my bones.


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Cornfield melody