Unzipping Our Stapled Souls

If Pigs Can Fly, Why Not Sheep?

—Photo taken in Berkeley by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

UN-CAUGHT BY SURPRISE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

The wind came up, a wind as chilly as a
plaster bust of Keats. It blew into the mind
of sheep—our sheep, confined by labor
of stockwire fencing, but they found a gap
and out they slipped from misty field, in
search of who knows what green pastures
in the mind of sheep. Past the cattail pond,
onto grassy verge of two-lane—whoosh
of traffic and there goes the paramedic van
with a siren wail to startle even sheep along
the road of loss and finding. Who knows
what wind blows in the mind of sheep?

_____________________

AFTER THE ANESTHESIA WORE OFF
—Taylor Graham
 
Incredible to be cut free
from life, and sewn back as if whole;
my thoughts still scattered as they be—
how to unzip my stapled soul?

The sky so brighter, blue as sea
and blessing like a bough of tree
the old body inert as coal.
How I’d unzip my stapled soul

and let it loose, if it might see
what I’ve been blind to; a peep-hole
beyond my reach; now hopefully—
help me unzip my stapled soul!

 —Photo taken in Ashland, OR by Cynthia Linville

FICUS/FRIENDSHIP
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove
 
Was Bloomington Illinois,
Was the seventies,
Was a tiny house
But it didn’t matter:
Our first place, first
Home together.

We wanted plants, inside
And out
(Don’t we all?).  Was
At a service club yard sale.
Saw the weeping fig
I’d always dreamed of.

Huge, appropriately, even
Healthy.  The one I needed,
Wanted, had to have.  Five
Gallon pot, recently
Dampened.  Heavy, they
Said, need help?

Nah, I said, I’ll carry it;
Friends will see me,
Help me out.  Two miles,
Grunting, sweating later,
I realized, I didn’t
Have any.

 —Photo taken in Ashland by Cynthia Linville

TRUST ME
—Caschwa, Sacramento
 
Approval rating
Best choice
Boot gun
Broken promises
Buyer’s remorse
Can’t sink
Carnival game
Compromised data
Covered blemishes
Dark alley
Data pool
False advertising
Fear not
Fifth Amendment
Fool’s gold
Genuine article
Glass eye
Hot goods
“I know”
Instant replay
Just kidding
“Not guilty”
Optical illusion
Parole violator
Phony baloney
Photo finish
Printed word
Red herring
Solemn oath
Studio prop
Sure fire
Trap door
Trip wire
Wooden nickels
Yellow journalism

 —Photo taken at Joshua Tree, CA by Cynthia Linville

 

 OF NO SEASONS
—Lelania Arlene, Sacramento

The party laughter and the rasp of lighters, always lighters… from outside my window and from down the hallway.



Waking to the dusty soft pine floors.



I’d stick my free Brush Bus toothbrush into the box of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda and go huddle by the wall heater.


That heater bit if you weren’t cautious.


I always had tiny lines of scabbing, because I was always cold.



Everything was too real in those a.m.’s.



The smell of the coffee can of lard that lived on the stove. Sharp, rancid.



The pull of the community Goody Hair Brush.



Smack.



You have cotton candy hair.



Tips of my ears and eyes stinging. 



The walk of shame was my wheelhouse when I was a child.



Dirty cuffs and shoelaces.



Scurrying off with rings of dirt around my neck, to the steamy cafeteria for my free breakfast.



I always gave my milk to my brother.



Maybe today a sticker, a bit of praise from the librarian where I hid during recess.

______________________

SOLSTICE
—Lelania Arlene
 
Krony the Jackalope kicks the sphere of time while slack-eyed dreaming.
He drools from curled rictus lips past the two fer of his gap teeth.
The garden burns whilst Bernie Terrapin fiddles mad songs, butterflies singed and screaming.
He Johns the tricks with tricksy licks jigging amongst the heath.
The longest night of the year and the critters are beaming.
While the sandman and moon watch sloe-eyed and scheming.
Horus alone waits for Set and tales of eye and testicle funerary unwreath.

______________________

RANCHO SAN JULIAN
—Lelania Arlene
 
Diddle-dawdling with Kuno the love-lapper,

Crossing fields of new grass and ancient ploughs.

Found things, Mud Slide Slim located exotic,

Skirt the dresser drawers that line up like gravestones.

Hives where brother trespassed, paid in swell.

Turtle shell recently vacated, peering I feel trespass.

Don waist deep in crick, flogs his hairless head with stinging nettle.

Toads as witness, they jump off the bridge, mortified,

Alarmed by man’s aberrant scourge, nature's degradation.

Wild rhubarb blushes as if abashed, they have no word for blasphemy.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:
 
PRE-DAWN
—Lelania Arlene

A little bit gentle now,

a little bit drizzly and black.

I ride a becalmed horse,

with jujube hooves on licorice streets.

Street clouds follow in my wake,

Lighted snapshots the scenery.
 
____________________

Our thanks to today's diverse artists for this New Year's Eve champagne and caviar, and a note from the Bay Area's Jannie Dresser:  I would like to let you and your community know a couple of things that I'll be launching on New Year's Eve: 

—a new "California Poets" website to share and celebrate poems and poets of our state (californiapoets.net)
—a poem-of-day class for the month of January hosted through Nicenet (it is free)

If anyone wishes to be notified about either, feel free to contact me at janniedres@att.net or link up on Facebook's new California Poets page that I created. Thanks!

___________________

—Medusa

—Photo (with good advice) taken at 

the Berkeley Pier by Cynthia Linville