Winks and Blinks
The Wanting Soil
My neighbor has a garden full of filth. Tomatoes choose their shape for a reason. Vines, tendrils spread unsuspecting soil to gain entrance; I know how they throb (not personally, of course). Zucchini, eggplants swollen purple. Watermelon full of seeds. Husky corn poking into the air, looking for clouds to part. I know what's on his mind. "Eat" indeed. "Grow," yes. I've seen him out there; I know what he's up to, and I'll have none of it. No matter how much stink of sex his roses dump into the air. No matter how much of Father's sun his lascivious garden eats.
--CL Bledsoe
Popcorn Chicken Snack Boxes
Originally published at Flashfire 500
Of course I got the facelift I’d do anything for him our relationship was that special it was like he saw my soul through his melting caramel brown eyes so full of wild spirit I was smitten the first time I saw him in that tiny diaper clinging to my fingers like a baby bird on a branch my husband understood and I don’t care that people said we exploited him putting him in our TV commercials he wanted to work wanted to do for us we were happy and the money poured in everyone wanted to see him touch him take their picture with him he was probably seven when he had his first drink at a Valentine’s Day dinner it seemed wrong not giving him some champagne too and we ate filet mignon and lobster he loved chewing the tails and caviar sandwiches and popcorn chicken snack boxes day or night life was good the business grew and grew I was enchanted by our darling didn’t notice my husband’s feelings changing to green envy and later full blown jealousy when he had to leave our bed to make room for T----- such a natural progression from caregiver to colleague to best friend to pardon me who are you to judge people can’t help who they love it’s like the weather it simply descends upon you and then you’re deep in it until it blows away my husband was in the guest room then so when his heart problems started we thought it best he still loved T----- I used to push T----- high higher on the swing set until he hit 200 pounds my husband would watch from the upstairs window and laugh we were still happy and T----- was a charming co-host at the parties we threw so good for business and so was T----- walking around the room with mimosas at brunches or mixing martinis people couldn’t believe how clever he was but I knew from the first moment how important he would be so the facelift was nothing I wanted him satisfied and when that meant looking like the fourteen year-old he was so what and then my hair was chemically straightened that Japanese technique gave the best results he loved twirling my hair around his fingers then I dyed it jet-black grew it long and swung it around his laughing face while astride him yes oh yes after my husband died I swear I heard his heart explode just like an airborne cantaloupe hitting the driveway we buried him and sold the business T----- and I had even more time then when friendship turned the corner and we were suddenly looking at each other with dewy eyes flirting and the touching crackled with electricity and seventy-year-old me was reborn he made me feel like a girl so I wanted to look like one too for him it was all for him my beloved my own true wildheart.
--Holly Anderson
Abilify: A Warning Letter
Originally published at Flashfire 500
That once good doctor of years past
got something now to cure you fast.
Pharma rep gave him a pen,
free samples, buffet lunch, but when
he writes a script for your psychosis
it might not match your diagnosis.
It’s the drug Big Pharma’s selling;
that’s a fact doc won’t be telling.
A drug was made for schizophrenia--
it might not fix all that’s been eatin’ ya
if you’re in a bad depression.
But don’t you know it’s a recession?
Big Pharma’s got to make some money;
so what if the pill makes you feel funny?
They said those feelings go away,
but some effects are here to stay:
There’s that Tardive dyskinesia--
comes from meds for schizophrenia.
Then there’s the deadly NMS.
There’s even more they could confess:
Weight gain leads to funny things
like diabetic sugar swings.
You weren’t even hearing voices.
Were you given all the choices?
--Anne Rettenberg
Short Poetry by Blue
Telephone Lust
Put your cell phone on vibrate
Sit it on your lap…
And I’ll call you when I’m coming
A Sweet Sticky Thang
Spinning from your kiss
My lips have your name on them
You sweet, sticky thang
Lost
Her Locks had me twisted
And once I stopped spinning
I found myself, trying to find myself
Shakespeare, Updated
I.
Sonnet 18.5—Shakespeare’s Sonnet to Colin Farrell
Shall I compare you to a day in June?
You are more beautiful by far, and hotter.
Your dark eyes’ gaze incites the fans to swoon.
Each cries at night you love someone not her.
The summer days make men perspire and groan,
from stifling heat and humid air so thick.
Whereas your form makes women sweat and moan,
from dreams of parts of you they’d like to lick.
The days of June--they pass and blur, in time,
while movies digitized can last for ages.
Your storied beauty lasts in pics and rhymes
on fansites, with their endless forum pages.
Our worship we’ll continue lovingly
as long as still lasts electricity.
-Anne Rettenberg
II.
Sonnet 130.5--My Master’s Eyes
My Master’s eyes, they mirror the full moon;
His lips they bare a snare of yellow teeth;
His jowls give way to howls – his midnight croon;
If hairs be barbs, his garb’s a bristling sheath.
I’ve slaked my thirst with kisses honey-sweet,
But from his lips, there trip no sugared songs;
I’ve basked in gasps of nectar (passion’s treat)
Aware should I compare his breath – it pongs.
I love to hear him sing; yet surely know
His rasping bark’s the baying of a hound.
I grant I never saw Adonis go;
My Master, when he walks, stalks on the ground.
And yet, by night, I guard my love so rare –
His heart, from silver bullets would I spare.
--Susan Jarvis
Blogger Romance
An electric charge across a thousand miles
jolted my heart.
Words more powerful than a glance,
a wink, or the gentle stroke of a hand.
You asked my intellect to dance,
and tussled with my ego.
The tango of our arguments was
a structured courtship. Push and pull, give
and resist. You lassoed me
and drew me close with your lines of communication.
Then the lines went slack.
Essays ebbed to epigrams, flirtations
fizzled to salutations, conversations
condensed to quips.
Our verbal love wasn’t enough for you.
Someone tempted you with tangibility.
I’ll cut and paste my words
And save them for someone else.
--Anne Rettenberg
About the poets:
CL Bledsoe is the author of two poetry collections, ____(Want/Need) and Anthem. A chapbook, Goodbye to Noise, is available online at www.righthandpointing.com/bledsoe. A mini-chapbook, Texas, was recently published by Mud Luscious Press. His story, "Leaving the Garden," was selected as a Notable Story of 2008 for Story South's Million Writer's Award. He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine http://www.ghotimag.com. He blogs at http://clbledsoe.blogspot.com and writes a flash fiction serial called "The Idealists" which appears every two weeks at http://www.troubadour21.com/category/series/idealists/ Bledsoe has written reviews for The Hollins Critic, The Arkansas Review, American Book Review and elsewhere.
Holly Anderson’s poetry and prose has been anthologized in Up is Up, But So Is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992 (NYU Press), The Unbearables (Autonomedia), and First Person Intense (Mudborn Press). Her limited edition books Lily Lou (Purgatory Pie Press) and Sheherezade (Pyramid Atlantic) are in library collections including MOMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Anderson’s lyrics can be heard on Consonant (s/t) + Love and Affliction (Fenwayrecordings) Mission of Burma’s VS + OnoffOn + The Sound, the Speed, the Light (Matador), Jonathan Kane’s Jet Ear Party (Table of the Elements/Radium), and forthcoming on Peg Simone's Secrets From the Storm (Radium) www.smokemusic.tv/content/mission-burma-holly-anderson
Anne Rettenberg is Editor of Eat a Peach: A Poetry Journal. She is a psychotherapist in New York City.
“Blue” recites his poetry and sells his poetry collections on the New York City subway system. He has published two volumes of poetry, “Corner Stories in the Middle of the Block” and “Don’t Beat Your Children Or They’ll Turn Out Like Me” and the novel “Pretty Ugly: A Harlem Situation” (as Brad Bathgate).
Susan Jarvis lives in Bexleyheath, Kent, UK. Having studied recently for a
BA in English Literature through the Open University she is a member of the
OU Poets’ Society with her poems appearing in their quarterly magazines as
well as in the Daily Mail.