From “Poems for Bad Days”

today I stood on a man,
felt my feet pressing into the musculature of his back,
the knobby bones of his spine
traipsed over him like a grassy knoll
till I heard the pop,
forced a realignment

i only feel skin on skin;
the nerve endings  in my feet  tingle, relax against his back
familiar curves like familiar footfalls

pungent with the smell of touch, the

sweaty mundane, the ecstasis of my day to day
is
the back on which i walk

Guest writer.

This is a recent poem written by my lovely friend Kathy.  Her poems are lovely, too.

i stop at the corner convenience store

where bread and milk are too high

but lines are short

an atm sits by the door like a short squat soldier

the afternoon clerk always looks

as if he’s had one too many beers the night before

got up too late to shave and shower

like he’s brushed his hands through his thick brown hair

trying to tame it

he’s eternally unsuccessful

his eyes are unpolished sapphire stones

i feel the fine grain sandpaper scrape of

the hands that he clasps mine between

to give me change

holding just seconds too long

i want to slap his face

wipe away the grin that says he knows

what i want

and it’s not milk or bread

or five miniature mint candies bought on impulse

because they are in a box by the register

and i want it from a man who makes

little more than minimum wage

leering at me and god knows how  many others

from behind a dirty counter

that he could at least take the time to wipe down now and then

on occasion i get an urge

to buy a lottery ticket or two

so far i have not

if i did would i

snatch them before he has a chance

for his hot hands to linger for his slow smile to spread

remembering how many times i’ve gambled and lost

on things that glitter

only for fools

Dependency : A poem

Dependency:  A poem.

Words. Aren’t they the truest thing on the planet?

All I had, for years:  your words.  I was
dependent on those words, my substitute for your
actual presence.

Words I could return to endlessly, let them wash
over me.  I read them for comfort, and to cure my
boredom.

To cure my longing for you.

Words:  my proxy for you.  A stand-in.

Another you made up of sweet nothings in a
form I could understand.

My medium:  my best-known works

shaped filled constructed

all with words, letters, punctuation

that directed me to laughter, tears, meanings.

The perfunctory connectors– the ifs, ands, buts– of our
relationship

turned out to be weak,

the flow interrupted.