The gray smoke diction
of a fired gun.
A lifetime’s sentences
end in spattered points
of blood
then trailing exclamations
and question marks.
A single bullet
contains countless vagaries
of deflection, distortion
and fragmentation.
It thunders once from its cloud
and writes a soul
in shorthand on a stone
for readers to interpret
as best they will
the words of any god.
===
Posted for dVerse Poets Pub’s Open Link Night #45.
The sun was too bright,
the clouds too puffy.
A susurrant breeze
strummed the grass
with too soothing
a melody.
A sharp struck blow
and groan,
blood fans out
in a mist,
runs in rivulets,
settles in pools.
An hour till sunset
and the sun hangs low,
longing to disappear.
It was too lovely,
its arc across the sky
demanded a response.
My tongue creased
by a paper arrow,
I lick
the envelope flap.
The iron taste of blood
seals my words.
===
I saw the turn
of her ankle
and made any excuse
to say hello.
Now we sign
the document,
the happiest
we’ve ever been
to sign away our lives.
===
I spin the globe
upon my desk
and land a finger
on Kathmandu.
Beneath distant mountains
the buzz of humanity,
a foreign tongue,
tiered and domed pagodas,
curious spices, the sprawl
of a city so vast.
I fall headlong in their midst
No one notices
another Western tourist.
Dusting myself off
I begin a new life.
===
A gray business suit,
he sits
at a translucent desk.
a top and four legs.
He spreads papers
to hide behind.
He thinks of fig leaves,
then the apple.
Always hiding
even when fully clothed.
