Month: March 2020

Day 0: Just Past Dawn

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Image by falconp4 from Pixabay 

Just Past Dawn

I’m roused by a crimson red sun
streaking across reddish-brown skin
nude, save for pale thigh, tinted rose,
draped midriff, ignited by dawn.
What on earth was in that merlot?
Cherry-red lips mark morning kiss;
my red-eyed world turns to meet them.
Disturbed, pale-pink thigh shrinks from blush.
What on earth was in that merlot?
Scarlet kiss, ruddy thigh, opposed?
What on earth was in that merlot?
And I, red sun, caught between worlds?
Trapped between dawn-reddened kisses
my neck and spine tattooed in wine
bracketed by lavish pink pours
confusion yields to crimson want
the cock crows rise with day aflame;
I drown in cups of red again.
“You touch me nice,” said your pink grin.
“Me too,” said your cherry-blushed friend.
But was it really the merlot?
***

NaPoWriMo Day 0: Early-Bird Prompt

Orphaned Chick Requiem

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Photo by Udayan Patil on Unsplash

Orphaned Chick Requiem

Who will sooth her nerves, earning fleeting trust,
as ruffled feathers make for flavor-spoil?

Who will preen her feathers through broken wings,
mending her tender meat before the broil?

Who will have steady, firm, gentle, calm hands
that know their way around a butcher’s block?

Who will feed her rich seeds sowed in kindness
hiding his axe as it strikes without shock?

Who will weep for the guileless young birdie,
who, through no fault of her own grew alone?

Who now wanders our woods, an unmoored ghost
haunted by a love she has never known?

Who will weep for this girl, led far astray
who strays from divine feminine to prey?
***

Consider this my NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo tune-up.

Four Ways of Commiserating with Indifference

/ Just Barry / 7 Comments
Photo by v2osk on Unsplash

Four Ways of Commiserating with Indifference

1.
She confessed,
I’m just really lonely now,
you know?

I know, I replied,
having been lonely for
as long as I could recall.

I’m afraid, she said.

I know, I replied,
adding with certainty,
but you’ll survive this.

I know, she said,
it’s just scary with
all this uncertainty.

I didn’t reply, knowing
uncertainty is the
only certainty.

2.
How are you holding up?
is what he asked.

As well as can be expected,
was my reply, adding,
And you?

I feel the desire to go
do something, he said.

I’m not quite there yet,
I replied,
but I get it.

Just don’t like being told
what to do, he said.

I didn’t reply,
having spent much of my life
doing what I was told.

After a moment, he said,
I feel like you’ve been
preparing for this moment
your entire life.

Not this specific moment,
I said, but yeah,
I’m good, for now.

3.
How are you holding up?
I asked her.

I’m ready for all this
to be over, she replied.

Me too, I lied.

I know we have it
better than most, she added,
so I try not to complain.

I know what you mean,
I agreed with her
sincerely this time.

4.
She asked me,
how can anyone
observe the death, suffering,

the financial and emotional
hardships of our
brothers and sisters,
and feel nothing for them?

How can anyone
continue their selfish ways
in the face of this calamity?

I don’t know,
I replied with a shrug,
and I didn’t.
***

greeting card

/ Just Barry / 4 Comments

dawid-zawila-zb2vBaHYB2I-unsplash

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

greeting card

“thinking of you”
written neatly, carefully
in black ink followed by ellipsis…

enclosed in insert
on sensible stock
of reasonable price

the card cover
gilded, framed, centered

a woman in repose
lounging in secret garden
drunk from moon beams
arm draped dramatically
over forehead,

informing of intimacy
concealed within her fold
open to my eyes

arriving, postmarked for
a random Tuesday, observing
of no one’s birthday

nor season’s greetings
not even candied-red hearts
with “be mine” carved
in sugar and bone meal

only an internal reveal
on a random day
after a weekend filled
with intimate truths

homemade mac-n-cheese
unremarkable, but meticulously
made to impress her

and gentle breath
on porcelain skin

contrasting in moonlight
with the rise and fall
of my mahogany drawn taut

gripping the night with her
with vigorous release

our spiritual surface long pierced,
our raw matter, now entwined
arriving at urgent merge

followed by teardrops

falling, pouring, mingling with grins
our brim overflowing with
graceless embraces

knowing how long we waited
pleading with fated winds

to stir currents leading
to this moment no longer obscured
by shadow of what should be

for one fleeting cherry bloom
we breathed our flesh into dream

birthing a brief reality
every bit as pure as gold
our priceless loot

the gilded frame, folded paper
and measured ink of sensible fee,

a remnant of a time
when we unfolded ourselves
opening to new gilded treasures

remembered, commemorated by her
in a postage-stamped envelope
addressed to this lonely man, piercing
my blue veneer yet again, knowing,

intuitively, without a doubt
I was thinking of her too…
***

interlocked

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments

darren-halstead-B_vXFdzvw3g-unsplash

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

interlocked

this is who we’ve always been

since the very first link
interlocked with the first shackle

since the first othering
stillbirthed dehumanization
clinical rationalizing
reducing lives to fractions

since the first dividing for dividends
simplifying sturdy ones kept
from weakened, diseased stock

since the first grim reapings
of distant kin, then called savages
fearful souls denied empathy
by economy of the soulless

since the first casual cruelties
live bodies tossed overboard
to certain death, preserving assets

since then, we’re now civilized
rulers of the photon, electron
and enlightened electoral process

since then, we’ve shackled technology
harnessed the atom, the fossil,
the solar, and the wind

since then, we’re repeatedly shocked
by recordings of otherings
state-sanctioned slayings of our kin
in our own neighborhoods
as if the chain can’t be seen
winding back through relics
of collective suffering

since then, we’re now stunned into
soul-searching and handwringing
after electing the toxin from our past
to lead us back into the dark dystopia
from which we had never escaped

having never acknowledged
the forging of the first link

none of this is surprising
this is who we’ve always been
***