CPOPP WORKSHOP

Yellow Mornings

We bathe in yellow mornings

While their toes swim in moss and clover

The poppyseed muffin crumbling on the counter

Ignores the cries of the leaky sink

Who’s moans are nothing but incomprehensible slurs

Meanwhile, Boxcutter does an irish jig

Twitching, shivering

The dry, flakes of skin that waive about the corners of your lips

Stretch, stretch, stretch, they stretch their arms towards the godless sky

How the honey

Supple and sweet

Burns the tip of the tongue

Recycled vomit or holy water?

Either way, they worship the cluster of undigested spew

But not I,

I praise the carefree jackass

He who mumbles

He who mocks the benevolent follower

He whose laugh is a piercing smirk

He whose speech kindles a flame in the ears

Between swigs of syrup and gin

The ice cubes jostling about the glass, shrivel into weary old men

Who hide behind unwashed bed sheets, stained carpets, smudged mirrors

Whose closets retain the stench of suffocated cigarettes and cat piss

But nevermind the recluse

For the dialogue between dustpan and house-moth

Dissolves the chains of ivy

Coiled around your ankles

Tablets of melatonin put baby to sleep

Who dreams not in color, but dark grey

And whose bed frame resembles that of a laundry basket

Whipped in an Eames chair

We crack our necks

And gargle spoonfed nectar

Duplex 1101

Xanthous wallpaper

Peels 

While the orange

Shrivels 

The tape measure is meticulous 

But it cannot climb such great heights

So it cries to fridge,

Fridge says;

“Delicacy, decency, detail”

Tape measure nods

Expired milk cartons fall from fridge

Flooding the floor

The dairy ocean consumes the house

Xanthous wallpaper 

Drips

Orange 

Sits patiently 

Tape Measure 

Swims 

Through the cloudy, opaque stream 

Ode to pencils

Guided by stern, rugged fingertips

You absorb my thoughts 

And gently trickle them on the page hovering below 

My fingers impatiently tap and quiver, 

Eager to see thought as words, words as sentences

Their tapping pauses– a finger glides underneath the dash of words scribbled above

Inspecting your work 

You do not worry 

For with the light etch of your eraser, the words no longer wanted

Fade away 

Slowly disappear 

Into small, pink, rubbery clumps

Which my fingers brisk away

Off the page 

And 

Into the vast, unknown world 

Of lost thought

Ode to a Ring 

Your cold, hollow metal

Embraces my finger

And keeps it company

For fingers often get lonely

And need a glove, sleeve cuff, nail polish,

Or ring to make it feel more unique

Less alone

Moderately ornate

Your entrancing shine and sparkle

Flashes a quick smile at me

And my fingers dance with joy