Hybrid Prose Poem: Getting unblocked — “I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps.” — Adrienne Rich, “Diving into the Wreck” Crumpled a hood, folded in on itself metal/rumpled/wrinkled wrecked. How To Climb Out of This Crenulated Car — an optimist might call this dead-end devastation braille and touch its lines tenderly, scan its ridges for lessons not…

A free verse poem — An empty bed a tarnished metal bowl a brush, still bristling with hair a defiant pack of dust bunnies A memory that cuts, that stings (you fell as though you no longer had bones, like laughter lay crumpled, like the dawn despaired) A toy, half-chewed scratches — written on the…

Wednesday Prompt: Fairytale erotica — day’s end bed beckons sleep teases but lithe thoughts slither incessant, intrusive, disorderly twist entwine and tantalize each vies for sensual space mind must be beguiled into relaxing releasing long, languid, lovely velvet whorl through knowing places past and present twining on thighs belly buttocks breasts rising heat gorgon skin begins to…

Wednesday Prose Poem: unruly lines — “Sometimes you silly woman need to be firmly directed to not murder your offspring. Here I am, as a man telling you the right thing to do w your body. It would be wise to listen” (sic)— Tweet from @TopLobsta it would be wise to listen to all the reasons…

A prose poem — & in the end, did you really disappear? or did I blink away my disorienting discoball tears & miss the moment of your metamorphosis delirium induced by your dashing gambler’s anima— — — for who could ever forget your full-lipped mischief-painted magician smile? you, transfigured into a radiant aerial tiger…

Things I wish I could say after yoga: a prose poem — walking out of yoga class the girls say WOW youre so flexible you can fold in half turn into a pretzel put your feet behind your head one day i want to be just like you say the girls with cherryred cheeks & doorknob knees & widesparklesmiles DONT i want…

A poem full of fury — is this what courage looks like Rorschach sheets washed in blood each time the fickle sickle moon arrives /// slicing across my ambitions /// while every.single.cell wants to roll in sushi-tight armed only with bitten-back moans compulsory melancholy a symphony of agony & an abdomen fecund with ferocity feelings plumbed yet numbed discharging…

A prose poem that bubbled out of the ‘body of language’ — “Every peak is a crater. This is the law of volcanoes, making them eternally and visibly female. No height without depth, without a burning core” — Adrienne Rich, Twenty-One Love Poems This is not a wellspring This is magma accumulating / molten rock brewing / incendiary alchemy / poetry percolating 27 leagues below the surface…

Wednesday Prose Poem: the first or last line — A casual glance at the snapshot reveals none of the truth— the riotous colours paint over the grim deep cuts, the Mardi Gras of milkweed conceal the furrows seeded thickly with violence — yet — observe how the Johnny-jump-ups are the exact shade of bruises left in hidden places? still…

A revisionist prose poem — Show me your many-splendored scars, your sensitive layers and susceptible skin — show me your branded heart and your blemishes — those scratches unhealed, those bruises still aching — your bone-deep cuts are sightlines to vulnerable subdermal rivers Show me your sutures and stitches, your wistful self-embroidery — gardens crafted…

A mythic prose poem — My body is a beguiling silk road, skin winding and wild Salt-tasting and tempting, flesh a cantaloupe succulent/sweet Ink-covered, my own myth rewriting with laugh lines and deepening dimples, unplumbed grottos of self-insight, grooves of discovery — record needles tracking unsung melodies outrageously warbled My skin sprinkled with sensitive whiskers…

A prose poem in which I answer the question, “What magic would you use?” — While it all depends on what you’re fishing for, I’ve had splendid success wooing with spinning wheels whetted for the succulent skin of your average & easy-to-mislead princess-in-hiding — there’s something irresistible about the spindle that leaves slender maidens’ fingers inevitably seeking its pinpointed pricks. To catch an innocent & unsuspecting child forlornly lost in a forbidden (foreboding?) …

Prose poem: Eros in the wild — with the frivolous foolishness of all artists, we conspired to transform the flesh through its indulgent delight brazen like Pygmalion painting penumbras inspired by. a sibilant ocean swelling & slumbering. along a sterling shore absurdly, in this scene, i imagined i was Selene enchanting Endymion pulse ~~~~ leaping dolphin-wise over desire ~ raw palms surfing skin. unslacked thirst. …

A mystery poem: When words and painting combine — And in that peculiar way dreams have of assuring us nonsense is normal like an android on the bottom of the ocean, I walked stiffly along an empty street through a city where all the citizens had disappeared — even the cats, who never obey such arbitrary edicts everywhere I…

Stuttering intimacies: bouncing back/around — if only we knew we were dreamers transmuted into signal flares — — — across the chasm of our distant & disembodied dialogues, I feel your mouth shutter open, cluttered with words clamouring for my ear — a schoolyard full of shrieking feelings, *footnoted (but never forgotten) sadness, joy, fear…

Hybrid poem: When words and painting combine — A picture is a moment is a symbol & a story we think we already know at a glance. Everyone knows all the best stories are already written in all the best books Look closer whisper the aspen beguilingly grey Alice sketched in charcoal & ink questioning? or questing? ~~~perhaps…

Wednesday Prose Poem: what we leave untouched — The soft tissues slicked sideways in the wind always blowing our apologies away — — a love long buried under strata — mistakes misunderstandings & misery — our callous & calcified tongues once catapults tossing cruelty — at least we’re no longer entombed side by side A curated exhibition containing fossils of unforgiveness: *remnants of words clattering…

Prose poem: soothing fires — Some days it’s like willfully climbing into a kiln At a balmy 104°, thoughts baking off quicker than moisture on an eager Arizona afternoon — cacti of irritation flourishing next to bleached bones & that ever-present vulture, self-doubt — pecking at eyes easily led to wander as comparison sidles up…