a literary magazine.
Five Poems...
Moth Days
I waited for days for the moth
To Surface, to come up
To get frantic about a way out
Of my small room.
Finally, he appeared
Stumbling, Confused.
I opened a huge box,
He flew in.
I stuck the box through the window,
Releasing him where
He would be happier.
And as I danced in the kitchen
Singing "I saved a moth!"
"I saved a moth!"
He casually flies out
From under the flap of the box
Calmly.
Looking for nothing.
Harvesting
It’s not like Grandma Smitty would mash the potatoes with her feet. Grandpa was a great one for rigging’ up gadgets and such. He took an old Singer® sewing machine and made it so as you could put Grandma’s biggest metal bowl
in this cradle and move the pedal to stir things, or make mash potatoes - the machine had a whole lot of uses.
All the ladies do like to try it
On a Sunday after church,
For cake fixin’s,
Or mashing potatoes
during Thrashing time
… When the men of the Northern Nebraska Farming Cooperative moved through the fields with the combine, like ghosts harvesting clothing to wear in the next life.
CW - Violence
Candidate
The candidate moved his right hand,
even though he might need it to gesture,
he moved his right hand
along the geography of his speech ...
"When I am Governor,"
he said with an air of confidence,
certainty,
and an unyielding
sense of focus.
Squirrels were playing
in the acorn trees
above him ...
they rolled their eyes,
but not so that anyone could see them ...
The candidate continued:
"promise, promise, promise,"
he said.
and then he said "A New Day is Born,
for our children and grandchildren,
for a better tomorrow."
By the time he came around that last curve,
Tommy, the second in command
of all the squirrels,
had placed bets on whether
the candidate would
say God Bless America once
or twice.
... thunderclouds were forming in such a way
as to enhance
the candidate's speechifying
climax.
"And so ladies and gentleman
I say to you all."
Jack the squirrel
was already reaching in his pocket
to pay Tommy.
Thunder was clapping, Lightning
burst at the exact correct moment.
the pouring rain,
the thunderclap,
lightning crushing a young oak
all these helped, of course,
to wash away
any memory of the
assassin,
or the single rifle shot
or the assassin's
footprints, or fingerprints,
not that he would have left any,
it washed the shell casing
down the gutter the quick rain
came down so hard.
The lightning hit another tree
75 feet away,
everyone turned to look
when they turned back,
the candidate was already
bleeding profusely ...
slipping away from this world
The ambulance driver
as if to add insult to injury
was a bad joke,
ill-prepared ...
in shock.
Jack the Squirrel's
wallet fell out of his hand,
falling, falling,
in full view
to the ground below...
.
Acrobat
... this acrobat,
is indeed the blue mountains,
crawling along the floor
of the universe.
what did your face look like
before your parents were born?
... let's pretend that we know something about the life, motivation, and skill level of an acrobat ...
... the blue mountains crawl across the floor of the universe, not trying to avoid their newfound fame ...
... since they recur forever ...
the blue mountains are stunning and recur forever
... the image, known as the blue mountains,
is minuscule ...
... at nine years old,
little Fredericks is a pudgy
shy little one ... but
somehow by age 14 and a half ...
he becomes tall and lanky
...well on his way to being an acrobat ...
... what is important is that he formed an opinion
that he himself created
this dramatic and wonderful change in his life ...
... now let's be clear on the quirkiness and the inexplicable nature of psychology and society and what's wrong with the whole damn place and why people who pontificate about it generally don't know cornbread from blackberry cobbler...
... because Fredericks was operating from a mistaken notion that he himself created the transformation of his body from pudgy to tall and lanky -
because he believed that he himself had created this ... he empowered himself to become a person who believed that he could do anything...
Hobo's Homily circa 1959
… He refers to himself as a hobo,
not only because he is a
homeless person,
a transient,
but also
because he looks like that
comedian on TV who used
to do skits of hobos
back in the 1950s or so
...
he has no cadence,
I suppose he does not need one.
he just walks aimlessly in a jagged circle
for entertainment.
Today he has
asked himself the question:
"What would it be like to have a new
pair of pants?"
Bio: Marc Isaac Potter (they/them) … is a differently-abled writer living in the SF Bay Area. Marc’s interests include blogging by email and Zen. They have been published in Fiery Scribe Review, Feral A Journal of Poetry and Art, Poetic Sun Poetry, and Provenance Journal. Twitter is @marcisaacpotter.