Purchased for pittance,

Pity me knot,

Glades aren’t bayou’s

Dreams in real time

Been dead for some kinds

For you were,

Purchased you ass,

The things fucking done

Kleptomania isn’t the illness that counts

Nor any you’ve said to have sprung

Imperial constancy

and the truth to yourself

things that you cant carry

nor bandy about

clicking up your heels

like

Clay made of trout.

No storm coming

It just spit and left

Clashing your teeth

Underfamiliar

Overbereft

It’s the core that we all are trying to get you to see

You don’t have one, nor seemingly the need.

I crave every morning

To see your face before I'll drown into the sea of people driven with chaos.

I long to feel your skin next to me

And be enveloped with your warmth.

I hoped to kiss your lips once more

Be lost in the ardent taste of it

But all I can do is to count the days once more

Waiting for the year to be over

So I can see you again

And while we're together,

the clock ticks like a timebomb

Too fast

Too short

We'll bid goodbye once more

And we'll start the math of waiting

And I'll start craving every morning,

To see your face before I'll drown into the sea of people driven with chaos.

#ldr #love #quickpoems #poems

I'm supposed to doze off.

Yet the dark skies sprinkled with stars told me not to.

The caffeinated bloodstream pumps with agitation.

Every tick of the clock

Is a vibrant recollection

Of memories strung while

waiting for the rest to hit the sheets

I came alive with pulsating thoughts

Enveloped with the cooling breeze

I recount the times that

I was able to see the rays

But then I knew

Ill always trade it

To stare at my grey walls

Chipping paint

Counting the hours before

The sun hits again

A vicious cycle

Of brewing audacity to

Stir my mug of cold coffee

While arguing with myself

That I'm supposed to doze off.

That love is like a stapler is an idea I cannot deny;

And Cupid must work in an office, wearing a dress-shirt and tie.

Love and a stapler both bring things together with a sharp, bright shock:

A stapler fastens leaves of paper, while love makes souls interlock.

Both bring their share of ease and trouble, both can make one feel bereft:

Regardless whether staple or love, when removed a hole is left.

But if all amorous relationships are merely metal bent,

Then Cupid's staples have made many a beautiful document.

Is like a bowl

of pho

Such a small word

to inspire

such G R E A T

devotion

You can tailor it

to your taste

Each sauce

more pungent

than the

last

True believers partake

morning

noon

and

all night long

to the break of dawn

But alas!

15% of us

can never fully

appreciate it

So if you can't find

L

O

V

E

Blame it on

that damned

cilantro

A farmer had two Volkswagen Beetles, both of them white with spreading rust trim and not a running board between them. He’d interchanged their parts so many times in his efforts to keep at least one of them running, now, neither one would start. Their driving days were over. Hoping to find some cheap replacement parts, the farmer clomped out to get the morning paper, but found only a pamphlet someone had left beneath a stone on his porch:

LIFE IS AN ECHO: YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

“Must be a good day to plant cars then,” he said. But long after his laughter died, the idea remained, tenacious as a spider in its web. If he could coax corn from a field full of rocks, why not?

That settled it.

The farmer hitched the cars to his tractor, dragged them to a pasture where only stones and witch grass grew, and sprinkled a little manure for luck.

The cars, who had traveled each other’s distances through their shared parts, did not understand why their owner had abandoned them. The wind howled through their broken windows and the long, dried grass hissed through their rusted floorboards. Huddled together, they comforted each other through the long winter with the music of long silences, the memories of engines stalled, the ghosts of radiators past.

When spring came, a hundred gray spiders landed on the old cars’ hoods.

The spiders weren’t car shoppers but refugees, tiny aeronauts borne on the wind. Whisked away after the walls of their little world erupted, the vastness of the new world frightened them. When they landed on the cars, the spiders liked what they saw. Solid ground! Safe at last! Halleluiah!

The cars, thrilled to be useful again, welcomed the spider family. The spiders, having hatched from the same egg sac, were blood relatives, but neither they nor the cars minded. No problem in this world has ever been able to cite “inbred arachnid DNA” as its root cause. At night, the old cars sheltered the spiders from the wind and rain. In the morning, dewdrops caught in the spiders’ webs sparkled like a million tiny circus lights. The spiders, exceptional aerialists, performed gravity-defying feats to the cars’ delight.

#

As I write this, the Children I Forgot to Have are looking over my shoulder.

“This story is stupid,” says my daughter. Today her name is Eleanor. She was Lucinda yesterday, Octavia the day before that, and tomorrow, for all we know, she might rechristen herself Wheezie-Gidget or Burpelina. She says it’s only fair on account of her having never been born.

She’s never forgiven me for that.

“Is not,” says my son, Carl Louie David, who’s named after all the boys I loved who never loved me back. Sensing yet another round of unborn sibling rivalry, I hunker down at my computer and keep writing:

The rain dribbled into the dark crevasse between the cars, an alley littered with the husks of dead insects and dragonfly wings. The spiders scattered husks as busily as the farmer scattered seeds. Corn or dragonflies, all dreamed of bumper crops…

“You can’t grow dragonflies,” Eleanor says, stubbing an accusatory finger against the screen. “That’s a lie.”

“Not if it’s part of the story.” Carl Louie David pulls her pigtails. “You just don’t know how to believe.”

“This room reeks of intention,” she says, pulling away from him. “But it’s not real; neither are you.”

He shrugs. “I’m as real as I want to be.”

Carl Louie David is my favorite. If I tell Eleanor, maybe she’ll think twice before ruining another of her Un-Mother’s dragonfly gardens.

#

The spiders with bodies like fat, dark tears hang in their webs and are lulled to sleep by the summer breeze. They walk in the spider dreamlands and leave no footprints.

When it rains, the spiders crawl inside the cars and warm themselves in the gasoline-scented shadows of neglect.

A family of wasps tried building a nest in one of the car seats once.

Just. Once.

#

“Hey, Mom?” Carl Louie David puts his chin on my shoulder and does that thing with his jaw that sends a jolt down my arm. “Do spiders dream of driving?” He makes racecar sounds: engines revving, tires squealing. Around and around and around the spiders go, left turning into infinity, racing to win a cup from which none of them will ever drink. Helmetless, unbelted, they hit the wall at warp speed. Their gray bodies shatter and scatter, mingling with the track’s dust and discarded debris.

Still muttering, Eleanor rechristens herself Master Lucy and exacts disdain upon a circle of nameless dolls. Nameless, because nothing good ever lasts: Barbie head, meet Smaug body—the distance between Malibu and Middle Earth a short, sharp snap. Inquisitorial ghosts marvel at Master Lucy’s outrageous alchemy, while the disembodied heads of the unfortunate, trapped in her purgatory of injustice, proffer mute, shocked stares.

“Maybe the spiders dream of eating the drivers.” Carl Louie David makes deeply disturbing slurping sounds.

“One of your stupid spiders just barged into my laboratory—and now it’s all over my shoe!”

“So call the janitor.”

“That’s you,” says Master Lucy, her voice a bony finger jabbing between my ribs.

I throw a box of tissues at her head. Bye-bye, baby teeth!

In the field, a crow flies through the web town, the strands strung with carnival dew. The spiders mend their shattered skeins without complaint.

“Howcum you nehwer writta grocewy wist?” Not-so-Masterful Lucy says through the wad of bloody Kleenex. “Weer outta shlokat miilk.”

I wait for Carl Louie David to chime in, but he’s upstairs. I can hear him rummaging around the room I can’t use for sleep. Too many boxes haunt it. I hope he’ll find something worth keeping.

“Only real children drink chocolate milk.”

Eleanor storms off. “You’re the worst mother I never had!”

#

One day, a woman found the web town in the field where only stones and witch grass grew. She took a jar out of her backpack, trapped one of the spiders, and screwed the lid down tight. “My students will love you,” she said.

The spider tried to free itself, but the sides of that jar were as slippery as ice.

The woman, who taught earth science, took the spider to school and set it on a window ledge. Next to its jar was one that housed a single bumblebee. “This spider is going to feature prominently in our experiment next week,” she told her class.

For days, the spider stared through the jar and the window. This was not its home; the children who pressed their dirty faces against the glass were not its family. The spider refused to eat, refused to weave a web.

“This spider’s broken,” one student said.

The teacher put the bumblebee in the spider’s jar.

Until then, spider and bee, mortal enemies, had lived in adjacent jars on the same shelf. Through the curved walls of their identical prisons, the spider that would not spin and bee that would not buzz reached out to one another with their minds, until a single idea sparked on the invisible tether of their shared loneliness.

Survivor: Earth Science ended in murder-suicide.

#

“Sweetheart, what’s for dinner?” asks the Husband I Forgot to Marry, a man who doesn’t look like my father, my ex-boyfriends, or any man I’ve ever met: he looks like what having a husband feels like.

“You promised to take the kids out for pizza.”

He sighs, stale cigarettes and whiskey. “But I wanted to watch the game tonight.”

“I’m sure you’ll find the time,” I say, noting a smudge of something red on his collar. “For children, pizza… everything.”

After he’s gone, I miss the kiss he didn’t give me.

#

In the field, the spiders have mended their webs again. They swing in the wind, singing their spider songs.

A man and a woman are walking through the field. Summer’s gone; the grass is long and dry. As the woman walks, its withered blades scratch a love poem across her bare thighs. “Look at all those spiders. We should take a picture.” She pulls out her cell phone.

She’s always calling them “We” and it makes him uncomfortable.

She loves photography and tells herself that one day, she’ll just take pictures for a living. Once she’s famous, she’ll dump this loser whose car smells like stale pizza and date a rock star.

“Kneel down and shoot up the gap between them,” he says.

“Cool! They’re in silhouette.” She hands him her cell phone.

The spiders hang in the wind, saying nothing. The man and woman are too big for them to eat. They’ve never had their pictures taken before. They don’t know how to be celebrities.

“I bet I could sell it to a magazine,” she says.

“I just posted it on Facebook.” He waggles the phone at her. “I bet we’ll get a thousand hits!”

“We? What’s this We shit?” She glares at him. “That was my picture!”

Thunder rumbles, echoing in the space between them. Rain falls. The spiders scurry inside the cars. The man and woman run.

Everyone runs for cover but the man on the porch and the young women in the bright red VW. They’ve come to the farmhouse bearing good news: the world should be ending any minute now! No time to dawdle, get drunk, or screw, the Creator’s about to manifest his Great Plan! A handful of lucky winners will grab immortality’s brass ring, while all those other sorry buggers will crash and burn. The harvest is at hand: it’s a great day for schadenfreude!

The farmer reaches behind his rocking chair, recalling the words on their last pamphlet:

LIFE IS AN ECHO…

Truly. The prophet Remington agrees. Namaste, bitches, ramma-lamma-ding-dong—KA-BLAM!—Papa’s reaped a brand new Bug!

Blood and rain collect in shallow pools on the lawn.

The farmer fires up his tractor.

Beneath the eaves, another egg sac bursts.

The wind moans…

I was told...

I was sold...

I was pulled

At the plug...

...'til the eye

Of the Newt

Held me down

On the rug...

No one new at the

Counter of

Life,

I've been told...

...Then in walks

A girl

With a fleece of

Hot gold!

...Glitter gun,

Glitter glory...

I am nearly

Dissolved

In a glass of

Warm milk

While the puzzle

I've solved

Keeps on coming

Apart

At the corners

Once fixed.

Is it time to make

Good?...

...Barely count

The third six

In the sale I

Just made

'fore the

Taxman

Comes down

With his

Hammer

Of fire

That's intent on

The sound

Of my shattering

Skull...

...Fond bone

Shrapnel I know!...

...I've become quite

Acquainted

In these broken

Down hours

With the cat and

Mouse lovers

Who devote all

Their powers

To refusal of

Death,

And denial of

Fate...

...There are shades of

This theft

That we must lastly

Face...

...Such as,

"Who's this well wisher

Who now

Comes on command?..."

...There are

Not enough curtains

From Conservative

Land

To disguise this

Warped humor...

...One can barely

Stand clear

When the weight of

Our Monarchy

Cracks the raw

Mirror

That had stood between

You, and

A thousand

A-holes...

In these broken down

Hours,

With a long stemmed

White Rose

Just to bring me

Enjoyment

When my tread has

Worn thin...

...There are shades of

This theft that

We'll press

To our skin.

©

2017

Bunny Villaire

We are all dying, I think to myself as I step outside into the sunlight. It's going to rain tomorrow and everyone knows it. It's going to rain tomorrow and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

There's some sort of buzzing silence surrounding me as I step forward onto the grass, each step making a small rustle. Everyone is so mortal, so painfully mortal, that it makes me smile. In two hundred years this grass will be long gone and so will I. Maybe the sapling in our front yard will live or maybe it will be blown away by the winds of uncertainty. It's sunny now but it won't be sunny forever.

If it rains, it rains. Scientists predict that tomorrow the world will still be spinning. Maybe if I run fast enough I can jump off this flat Earth and thrust my lifeless body into the freezing sun once and for all.

~