Spray Paint and Yolene

It's not easy to keep the spacing: walls aren't 12 x 12
And I don't have stencils the way we did in high school,
Letters big enough to see from the back of the stands
Before they burst.
There were stencils for those square sheets, all the ways
To remember that Corpus vacation, the band concert
And my own college graduation, partying with Delia.
The kids have those.
It doesn't matter if these letters are straight, if there
Are...what are they? Sticks? Tags? Fat letters,
Nicknames. I just want to say, I've bought the paint;
I am Still Yolene.

So there was a big, somewhat bitter, stir-crazy discussion at home about references and the fact I'd picked the name "Yavinia"...and, yes, it's just stream of consciousness and no, not everyone was addicted to tempera paint at various points in their childhood, or scrapbooking (a standard page is 12 x 12) and I settled on Yolene because that's probably her name anyway and it probably looks better on the wall and I was watching videos of brittle stars and people walking through their neighborhoods and dead malls while composing this because that's how I get through the day (and reading outside and playing a version of tennis ball soccer with our border collie that usually involves someone getting their toes sliced because Arthur doesn't really like to let the ball go unless he believes you're really going to walk away) *deep breath* and this should have been the poem because this is what stream-of-consciousness actually is, thank you very much; but it's not. 

This is the additional material that you should've (and probably have) definitely skipped. 

Hope you're doing well, that your writer brain is not coated in gauze and panic, and that we can all just pretend the preceding never happened. 

-- Chrissa

Hundreds

Maybe the bill knows that the only way to keep going is to rise

Past the flame in as many pieces as there are memories

Let's just be honest...I can't read three lines in the books I was thinking I'd finally finish, lately. I keep my phone charged and read article after article...but no books. I watch movies and find myself saddened by all the ways people, once upon a time, could trust being together. Going to eat.  Finishing a semester. Going to a mall. We haven't left the house in days and with the contradictory, shifting information and I feel like I'm sailing past the wreckage of the year, waiting for one of the flaming chunks to finally set our boat on fire. And so...I'm taking this blog on hiatus. 

Thank you for your comments over the past years and I wish each and every one of you continued health and inspiration.

-- Chrissa

One Thing

Merlin's snores...mostly he sleeps at the foot of the bed
Or on the tile,
Somewhere his vvrrrumble makes an ambient texture
The way dust glitters a sunbeam
Or a distant lawnmower eases the emptiness.
This afternoon we're sharing a beanbag
The same one I shared a year ago with his sister
Who passed away last summer.
I am grateful for every sound he makes,
His insistent existence.


This is very off-the-cuff, but I'm sharing it to go with the Name One Thing That Makes You Grateful prompt shared by our Houston Poet Laureate, who suggested a prompt (at right) as she announced that she, too, might have COVID-19.  Sharing here because I'd rather concentrate, for now, on gratitude. And puppies. 

-- Chrissa

Apple in a Catsuit

She licks the licorice from her brush
An old powder brush, her grandmother's,
Sticky now, and spiky, sugar talons
Mimicking spilled oil.
Every apple starts out good--her words--
But we make them evil as we can.
Apple in a catsuit
Won't be a hero, every one a supervillain
Tempting everyone poisonous.
Every book and every philosophy
Begin here.
Night skies--lick---dirt---lick--deep water.
She produces the inevitable knife.
I think she's going to offer me a slice;
I twist my hands and forearms tight.
Could be a new fad, instead of caramel.
If you're going to joke about dark timelines
Might as well have your apples match.
But she never does.
Tells me I've already eaten it
Already written it
Already choked.

We watch the apple for a little while
And go back to our phones.

Supervillain apples...might add that to the ridiculous adventure story that I'm using to distract myself right now. Also researching snails because I need to differentiate mine from any other giant dangerous snails that might exist in other fantasy universes. Because the world needs more giant snails. Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Hope this finds you well. Can't tell everyone how thankful I am for The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United as we hunker down for the next few weeks. Thank you. 

-- Chrissa

Roses

Horripilation

It is evening; she wears red
Her lotion is all petal
Her nails dyed as if by sunset bonfire
       -- I imagine her fingers translucent against a sinking star--
They tap the edge of the doorway.

She is the specter of the garden

What did the first rose see
That shivered such thorns 
Upon her?

I hear a whisper from the vents
Dragons

I don't know how to take her
Talking to our tiny fire
Drumming her fingers
As she speaks to the flames.
It's a small living room
Grown stone and shadow.

They bite me as I pet them
As I feed them, as I trim them.
I believe it was dragons.

I can hear her envy
In the rustle of silk.

It's a small living room.

This is for our WordCrafters prompt, for the meeting I missed this past Wednesday. I'm still working on the one for "warmth" as well. Hope this finds everyone well. 

-- Chrissa

Museum of the Interior State

Watch you in the panopticon room, watch you being watched
Sit on the bench and straighten your spine and wait

Think about the first time you came to a museum.

Think about falling in love with concrete, benches and walls
Hard enough to etch with the entirety of humanity.

Watch you finding yourself awestruck.

We watch you; the paintings melt into screens
We become decades and centuries and kingdoms
And the humanity weeps from the walls.

You stand up,
Looking for a cookie to make you bigger
The key to let you escape
The boat to let you ride the flood--

But it's just a museum and everything remains
Concrete.

You'll have to swim through a beneficence of doorways
To the windows cladding the exterior.

Where the crowds who already knew what they were
Watch you grow gills in the stinging salt.

Not sure, really, where this came from or whether it has any meaning. I know that I'm thankful to have written it because lately, even the prompts that used to prod something loose aren't working. I'm in that stage of anxiety where you feel that you have to have all the bags packed and the attention forward, the residue of decades of seasonal hurricane awareness now constantly connected to a malfunctioning alarm bell in the back of my head. And so, this. 

Sharing with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United and hoping that others are having inspired and productive writing weeks. :) 

-- chrissa

Lullabies to Conjure By

He wrote the night, flickering alive on the bones.
Daylight; window-smear, elbow, knuckle, pressure
Like the gas lamps fed by the curving brass pipes;
Sigh of gas, pressure, smear of light behind the glass

I keep my head clasped at the neck, my back alive
To the room, to the cooling lights behind me. They
Spin on those brass couplings, muslin skirts aflame,
Fairy wings arching until they choke, fade in the a/c.

Play, they whisper. Play the night--we need the shade
Nothing burns visible without the darkness, here.
Let the cool remind you--and their fingers glissando
My spine--we play our music when we fail to burn.

Keep playing, pause; smolder of wings; twine my fingers
With the lamplight until  they ache in shadow,
Pulse, and breath. Wait. Tickle the shadows stretching
Across the wood, where a smear of music stains.

Hoping this finds everyone safe this week. Linking with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United.

--Chrissa