Just one more pour
and she will finally taste
the dream-come-true renewal
the commercial promised.
Just a little more sleep
and the hope will return
to answer his questions
of where to go, who to trust,
and how to be.
Just a little less chatter
and this reunion might end early,
inviting the quicksand
to pull us back under our tattered rugs.
Just a little less temper
and this commute might reward us with
longer yellow lights and
gentler disappointments.
No justice? Then just-ness will have to do. – mh clay
Mother was blind.
I was mute.
A portly fly took a nosedive
into her pasta.
Her fork shoveled tomato lava over the swollen raisin.
Torn apart by acidity and convulsive, stabbing twists,
dark chocolate salt fertilized
the garlic, mushrooms, and basil.
Mother smiled at me, like a child
who will never know the truth.
When the secret in the sauce is better kept secret. – mh clay
Diagnosed with narcolepsy
at the age of a spinning ceiling fan.
Only a matter of time before
it wraps a wing around this defenseless coffee cup.
An ethereal mouth and winter-thimbled
tongue startling open mouths and bare shoulders.
editors note: Sweet somnambulist, slurp to incite shut-eye. – mh clay
To my dear,
My-Oh-My,
did you know that
Why-Oh-Why
has made you crawl
on the tips of every uncut nail?
made you shrink
into a desperate
Oh-God-Please-Don’t
To my dear,
Me-And-Me,
did you know that
fear loves fear?
Did you know that you have
placed yourself into a boiling pot
to avoid another year?
My dear,
hinges
are missing
from your
conviction
The bare
minimum
has mutated
into kidney stones
of various size
wedged in your gum line,
and no one is around to translate.
My-Oh-My, just keep smiling. – mh clay
Do you scream, my wide-eyed pet?
Is it really a yawn escaping from your mouth?
Because, bits of you are missing;
chewed, pulled, twisted, and ripped away.
Something foreign has grown on you,
milky and unclean,
and yet I will stare
in a way that does nothing for your benefit.
I am an owner, unfairly blamed with neglect,
but I reject such conviction with a guilty finger;
proven to push straight-spine buttons.
Middle finger, you fiddle so well with the air.
Neener, neener, n-e-e-e-e-ner! (We welcome Jada to our crazy confab of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of her madness on her new page – check it out.) – mh clay
Behind the choir of dial tones, live cotton rounds of provolone,
busy lines of thin-sliced swiss camouflage all that we miss.
Our sensitive ears are layered with but a veil of cheese,
transparencies for elegy…
An old record player scratching its way to life,
sculpted lyrics, falling through a jagged tunnel or cracked drain pipe.
Don’t strain your ears to listen, there’s no reward or commission,
to decipher an ill-received language is to reapply a wet, peeling bandage.
Are ears a better fit on the deaf or on the blind?
When no one listens, can they charge the harshest fine?
How did we allow the intolerant ear canal
to lead such a negligent life, such a waxy cover on the butter knife.
If only we’d give it a turn
to widen our eyes.
– Jada Yee
Bass tones through cheddar, treble through swiss, volume through thin provolone. – mh clay
Coffee tastes bitter,
metal tastes better
only when sliced, do I slip
into jaw breaking chewing gum,
law breaking stewing thumb,
which is floating in the soup
which, is eventually duped.
the toffee comes whittled
from the outside in,
carved and unsteady,
starved and unready
the toffee is brattled
from the inside out
as the mind stays rattled
with sharpened pencil tips,
sharpest window panes
cutting blood from blade
how should this matter
when the flavor is metal
and the taste feels warm
bitter like coffee,
but better like…
– Jada Yee
A double-shot, hot milk-foamed, frappa-macchiato, mocha, mocha, my, my, um… can I get that with a blueberry scone? Make that two! – mh clay
