All in the crystal ball (Big Tent Poetry prompt #1)

can I read your fortune?

I’ll tell of things come to pass and things that will occur

pay me five dollars I am worth every cent

give me your hand darling

while I gaze into my crystal ball

you want to hear the good?

how about the bad?

never mind that darling

you have such beautiful eyes

they speak to me of sincerity and serenity

and all that you have endured

give me your heart and speak to me of

past times when things were once good

I think you were a queen in a past life

because you look like one now

stunning and majestic

you’ll make a fortune and find love in this life

I promise …

just make sure you leave the five dollars on the table

Where you lay POW

Locks that broke my heart

I wish that I was there

Birds in the somber sky

I remember when I could fly


Above these blood-drenched walls

I met you in a dream

There was candy and you held an ice-cream cone

Which melted on your cheek


A distant voice, a murmur

Escapes your lifeless lips

A bottled coke, a whiskey glass

A fetish in the dirt


I wrote words upon my sleeves

Any part of clothing available to me

You sat and stared as if mesmerized

I longed for days like before


When locks broke my heart …

enigmas ... one single impression

She asked me what I was talking about

I knew what she was saying

The doubts had always been there

She was scary in her upholstered

chair



When things were right we

used to walk

We used to laugh

We used to talk

That’s over now



I wonder if she’ll ever get

up

from the down she knew

it was never in doubt



Sixteen times I’ve told this

tale

And sixteen times I’ve

always failed

My accordion sits beside me

It doesn’t say a thing



And me, well, I’m just

sitting here

Just like always

Always in fear

If I asked her if she’d rise

I know she wouldn’t



When time has ceased to be a

snare

And rabbits dance in

underwear

And kings and goblins are

everywhere

Would that be an enigma?



And still I’m just sitting

and waiting here

Remembering her short black

hair

And wondering if she was

even there

As flies infest my mouth



Enigmas fly as high as her

Enigmas cannot wander south

Enigmas of the kind that are

not mentioned



Just sitting in my nasty

room

A faint reflection

a taste of the womb

a word I never like and

hardly mention



and if you read this and

come away

with a prescient feeling of

some dismay

a vulture’s beak, well, what

I would give to see that



me and my cat

we don’t care

about dancing rabbits in

underwear

they’re pretty but they can’t

abandon madness

Quince años Sunday Scribblings has asked us to write about an event. So I have chosen the very traditional fifteenth birthday party here in Mexico.

It is a big event

A happy fifteenth birthday party

Without money in the family

The children go out panhandling

“Give us money for our party, please”

“Our sister is turning fifteen”

They need to buy Coca Cola and tortillas

A campesino provides a goat

BBQ for everyone and arroz with tomatoes

The dance for the young lady begins …

The boys are dressed in tuxedos

Handsome, dark and lean

A pretty girl stands in the center with a doll

From childhood dreams

The music begins … Whitney Houston sings

A mixture of Mexican tradition and new American dreams

Things that were and now are not (my husband wrote this for me for RWP)

Bleeding … relentlessy

Those days are gone…

Squandered by relentless competition … and some love

Remembering an uneasy feeling when I started

How would they look at my poor attempt

And yet



I used to go to bed at night, content that things were right

I still do … when I write



Blues, yellows, greens, all those colors, I was so proud of

them

They were mine

And they still are



Still, somehow, contented by it all

I rest inside this lonely hall

Of poems that I could not write

Of poems that I might



And finally, after all of that

I still sit here with Back the cat

He’s shiny and healthy

Just like me

As I sit here smiling



Let this be my final thought of things that were and

now are not

Is there a message? Writer's Island #1

Gritty sand between my toes

Salt has formed creases in my skin

I have kept the bottle in my drawer

Vowing to never open it



Sometimes I think about it

And other times I try to disregard

The air smells fresh today

Serenity blows through my mind



I wonder is there something I have missed

It’s the bottle in my drawer

I should move it to a more suitable position

Where it can amass dust with the years



Just like my life …

How to Join the Circus

How to Join the Circus