To a Mouse, Inside her House

Wee sticky, sleek and stubborn beastie

Ye canna’ point

Na north, na eastie

Nae matter how I push 

And slide you on

Your odious little pad 

Your cursor, curse it,

Stays put or dawdles, 

Meanders where it wants.

Has someone cut your cord?

Witless, e’en wireless?

Are ye on your own, lass?

Na far, you’ll get

Beyond this gray electron patch,

Your gray dominion.

Since you’re sae sticky

I think I’ll have a look inside thee

Off with your cover 

Ah, there for ilke man to see

Wrapped ‘round your tiny shafts

The stuff of mousepads,

Detritus of dead skin cells 

From unsuspecting users 

Who left tracks of their DNA

Inside your house

When they were making 

Witting marks on screens.

Dupes of  “user-friendly” ads.

Fie on them all!

Teach them to fiddle 

With a mouse trap.

The best laid plans o’ men

Often go awry.

What you’ve hoarded 

Inside your gummed up works

May some day solve a crime

A doltish beastie like yourself

Can afford to gloat.

You’ve nae cause to fret:

The present only toucheth thee.

But those who’ve wrapped 

Their hands around thee--

Stealers of identity

May come to grieve their past 

And dread the days ahead.

As much mousetrap as mouse

A dual identity

Quiet as an electron’s song,

Still ye may be,

In annals of the FBI,

A mouse that roared. 

© Bill Sypher, 2014

Trust wheel-mouse MI-1200 PS2
Photo by Mart Rootamm
from Wikimedia Commons

Image

She screams out, “You're Not Worth It!”

and I call back “I know.”

For that's all she's ever told me.

I see her looking at me through the streaked glass,

and I wonder what makes me carry all her burdens,

better yet what makes me hate her so?

Yes, yes, I know, hate is a strong word,

but there is no other way to describe this relationship.

We go back as far as scented markers and play dough.

Elementary times, when hurtful words were spoken,

and she never once took up for me.

Instead she made me believe I was all those things.

The abuse only became worse with each passing year,

as she continued to beat me down.

I reached ages of physical yet not emotional maturity,

and my mind started to wander and wonder about the opposite sex,

and she had me tell her over and over I was wasting my time.

"Just look at yourself, no one wants you."

Her “I told you so's” stung with each rejection.

I cried myself into dark slumbers night after night,

hoping one day we might part,

but she had taken claim on my soul

so many years ago.

 I tried to escape her grasp, even changed my name,

but she remained,

and as I said I do, I could hear her laughter echoing.

She started all the arguments with me and him,

creating panic, attacking with screams

and items flung through the air.

Making me believe that he and his love were untrue.

Locked behind doors, scissors pressed to wrists,

I heard her say “Cut deep,

for it's the first one that counts.”

I struggled to hear the cry of another

saying “Let me in,

let me in,”

and for that brief moment,

I felt I had reason to live.

My battle struggled on, though,

leading me astray,

and I searched for ways to keep her at bay,

causing loved ones pain. 

I grasped the shame in the palm of my hand.

Holding tight that crimson letter.

My life unraveled,

breaking windows to the truth.

Exposed and vulnerable,

cowering beneath her once again,

I took the blows.

Wished I had strength to battle back.

By then I should have become immune,

but she created cancerous cells,

that I knew so well,

seeping through walls I had built.

Imprisoned,

I reflect a moment,

and reach for my pen.

© Suzanne Saxon, 2014

"La Parisienne Japonaise,: by Alfred Stevens
from Wikimedia Commons

Song of the Wood Thrush, Call of the Raven

Which music sits better with me today? 

Which surrender is safer,

one that pulls my heart to the treetops

or one that sinks me down and rolls me? 

Which part of me needs to be moved today?

What's still and waits to be shaken?

Which pain am I denying

if grittiness rubs me only raw,

or softness numbs me or stings like a lie?

Which magic serves me fairly now: the golden touch? The golem's Shem?

Red fairy shoes to dance me blind, red poppies to send me dreaming? 

Music holds the alchemy and the hoodoo,

and I whirl between them, feeding 

on sounds as on honey and locusts. 

Being the smooth fluid river.

Being the flood, risen and raging. 

Being the gravelly riverbed, grinding myself back to earth. 

All this to balance tame and wild. 

All this to find my body again.

All this to remember to lose my mind. 

© Laura Seale, 2014

Folk dancers in Budapest
Photo by Wilfredor, from Wikimedia Commons

My Third Eye Is Blurry

Maybe it's a speck

of galactic dust

partially lodged

in the corner of my eye

or a seasonal allergy

from recurrent 

metaphysical storms

Possibly eye strain

from poor illumination

of a fading distant star

or damage to my hallowed retina

from gazing too long

at powerful suns afar

Can I blame diminished vision

on “End of Days”

foreseen long ago

by prescient Mayan priests

or is it just macular degeneration

from advancing old age

All seem rather likely

but if truth be told

a cosmic cataract

is blinding more each day

as golden Earth moments

inevitably slip away 

© Bill Vollrath, 2014

Mural num muro de tijolo em Aveiro

"Watching tv is like taking black spray paint to your third eye" ~ Bill Hicks

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Fugue for An Aging Grandmother

I’ve been meaning to paint you for years,

pictures stored on my phone from visits

at Christmas and weekends when the Texas

cousins visit. Your hair is more wisp than

fall now, and pixel’s impressionism can’t catch

the aura I haven’t mastered with a brush

yet either. Or how the skin of your hands

grew softer; 15 years ago you were taking

mine to cross streets. Now you don’t

remember my name but I still love the

weight of them. A body holds on too long,

but the mind in fugue is the loss. Where

do you remain in there? Musical interludes.

The burst of grapes eaten one. After another.

After the other. You haven’t known me in years

But I’ve known your smell from the beginning.

The remain of which, the refrain of which,

pulls me away from the slip of linseed and oil.

Maybe I’ll just grasp your fingers a little longer.

Put the brush away until I’ve memorized you.

Take one more picture. One more December.

One more canvas holding only the curve of a face.

Though, it wasn’t your body I was trying

to capture in the first place.  

© Sarah Fletcher, 2014

Grandmother of migratory family with sick baby
on Arizona Highway 87, south of Chandler
Photo from National Archives and Records Administration
via Wikimedia Commons