Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty, lying fair
upon your bed, atop your stair
did you really want a kiss?
did you long for wedded bliss?

or did you wish that you could say
“Beat it prince, scram, go away”
and climbing on your marriage bed
sleep for eternity instead.


(This, on the other hand, I definitely remember writing. I was in college, taking a full load of classes, working three jobs, and I was SO TIRED.)

Reader and the Pea

It’s piled up

A thousand mattresses high

If you remove them all and find the pea

It’s hardly worth it

I, personally, would rather bounce

Higher and higher still

Off of the mattress pile

 (it’s only refuse and frosting)

and land rejoicing in a bin of peas

(I have absolutely no recollection of writing this. None at all.)

Enigma

enigma you are

your hair like a blossom

your face like a star

walking in a queer

apologetic

way as if you begged

of other passersby

the right to breathe

5/14/00

Electricity--

Electricity

Energy

Water

box them up.

 Who will sell light?

Low costs!

Low prices!

A moon in a jar

A sun in a basket.

 How can you sell energy?

Box it,

Crate it,

living, pulsing rays.

Open the Store

Show your wares

 Who will buy?

Rainbows! Going cheap.

8/14/01

Rain falls--

rain falls

pouring

drenching

green creeps slowly into the water-starved plants

the pounding water cleanses

dust

and death

from the wilting leaves

sickly

drooping

silently they lift and reach towards the clouded skies

and among the deadened leaves and sodden ground

in ugliness a small plant slowly reaches up and out

and raindrops glisten on a blossom

a spark of beauty in a place of abject filth

a little bud of carmine

perfectly shaped

and hesitantly opening

a glimmer of pearly water drops

on its beauty

a rose

(My dad made me plant my roses at the extreme end of the yard, next to the compost heap. Yep, elephants are nowhere in it when it comes to remembering stuff that made me mad.)