What's Left Of me

 —Poetry by Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy
of Nolcha Fox

 

 

Mirror in the fun house

makes me busty,
makes me thin.
If only it would
make me rich,
I’d take that mirror home.

 

 

 

 

Cloud Gazing

Some lie in grass
to watch the clouds pass,
they name the shapes
clouds make
as winds change the sky.
I lie on my stomach
and watch the clouds
ripple in river and sun.
I poke at the water
with finger or stick,
to change what I see
before winds change the sky.

 

 

 

 

Drunk

A deep merlot dusk,
I drink til I’m drunk.
I stagger through
dark memories
unlit by stars
that stick between
my toes.

 

 

 

 

What’s left of me

is body in denial,
each wrinkle, each hair,
a record of my Nows.
Nows don’t get old.
Nows don’t believe funerals
will happen to them.
Nows don’t go out of business.
Nows have permanent fire sales
on dissicated Pasts
and forgotten Futures.
Nows don’t prepare
for the Apocalypse.
Nows remind me of the child
trapped inside this body
in denial. 

 

 

 

 

Feathers

My words are little eggs inside my mouth.
My mouth is a wet nest of garbled greetings.
Garbled greetings turn to feathers floating out
my nose.
My nose begins to itch when all the birds fly.
Birds fly out my mouth before I say goodbye.
Say goodbye and birds lay eggs inside my mouth.

 

 

 

 

Motion

My lungs scream Stop!
I can’t keep up!
Why do I run
to catch my mind
that flits and flies?
All this running
takes me nowhere.
I’m only on a treadmill.
and my only trophy
swollen, blistered feet.

 

 

 

 

Do butterflies

and bees wear watches,
schedule meetings,
worry about being late?
Or do they just
enjoy the moment,
not a thought of running
out of time?

 

 

 

 

Trees grasp

the roadway
with fingers
of shadow
to keep cars
from flying
away.

 

 

 

 
 

Love Songs

The first I heard of love
was whispered by a ceiling fan
that whisked away the sheen of sweat
from playing in the sun.

I heard of love again
when wind refused to let me fall,
it painted giggles on my teeth
while I was wrapped in its embrace.

Love sang to me in crinkling
when I found valentines
you stuffed inside my lunch bag
with a promise you’d be mine.

You thought you were the first
to murmur love songs in my ear.
I heard them all around me
long before I kissed your smile.

 

 

 

 
 

Love, Unleashed

Goodbye, restraint, goodbye, self-doubt.
You’re coins unrolled that spin and spread across
the floor.
You’re a bird set free from gilded cage.
And when you leap,
you fly.

 

 

 

Ode to a Campbell’s Soup Mug

You left it behind,
a chubby-faced smile,
a present I gave you
that you never used.

I thought it might help me
remember your smile,
but I saw a stranger
that I never knew.

It stayed in the cabinet,
waiting to warm hands.
I never used it.
I gave it away.

 

 

 

 

One Last Check Before the Move

Kitchen cupboards
moan for dishes,
long for canned goods
past expired.

Bookshelves groan
from emptiness
and sorrow.

Closets spill secrets
and bent wire hangers,
trapeze swings abandoned
and rattling in ghost-wind.

Boxes and bags full of
nothing important
are loaded on vans,
leaving nothing behind.

 

 

 

 

God Disorganizes Again

God is bored with Heaven. He slaps paint on the walls. We hear thunder. God drags the sofa to the other side of the room. Sparks fly. We see lightning. God decides the couch is too far from the TV, and it’s too hard to watch football. God moves the sofa back. We feel earthquakes that tumble buildings, we see lava erupt from extinct volcanoes. The world is in shambles, and God is still not satisfied. God decides to remodel the kitchen during halftime. Halftime is a half-galaxy away. Stars explode. We hide in the cellar. God’s team wins. He likes his renovation. God is happy. All is good. Everything is in its proper place. For now.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Our fingers

intertwine, ropes
that weave our lives
together into time.

—Nolcha Fox

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Nolcha Fox for today’s fine poetry and photos!

 

 

 

 

Spring will be here before you know it...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that there will be a reading

of Ekphrastic poems from last week's

workshop at Switchboard Gallery

in Placerville, 6pm. And 

Poetry Unplugged has returned

to Sacramento at the new 

Silver Lining Cocktail Bar, 8pm.

For info about these and other

upcoming poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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