True, Bitterly by Ayla Rogers

True, Bitterly by Ayla Rogers

I took a shuttle to my dearest friend.

The speeding cars like bullets shot me down

Town before I was close to getting there,

To a room where I had a while to rest,

To settle into space so unsettling.

Fine upholst’ry mocked our preparations—

Satin, lace, and things that itch unspoken.

So eager to wake from hibernation,

To swoon beneath spring’s clammy fingertips.

The balance of booking out the window,

Leaving me broke and boozy with remorse,

Not foreseeing the inevitable—

For not anticipating the absurd.

No matter how hard I sucked the bottle,

The genie remained inert at the bottom,

Mocking my preparations of Poprocks

And perfuming, now musked with cheap white wine,

In the grandest king bed I’ll not sleep in

Until the genie shuts his flapping trap--

Consents to swallow me in dreams a while,

Forgetting my thirst for some realism.

To drain away such nonsense from my eyes,

To cry out every draught of hope he gave--

Like his excitement at my photograph,

The good times he finally remembered,

To share the burden of the weight coming

Down on me like an anvil, going down

On me like before isn’t worth the thought.

Robbed blind and cheated deaf, I kept quiet

The long drive home from my waking nightmare

When he broke into my navel, he paced,

Working quickly, all the while I faded.

Kicking to get out, though he held the knob,

While I held my knobby knees from shaking

Too far apart to close at his leaving.

So I opened the door for him once more,

Though he never even took off his shoes.

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Poem of the Day: I Flew into Denver April

by Adrian C. Louis

I flew into Denver April.

Rock salt and sand peppered the asphalt

reflecting myself on a downtown street

where I’d paused on my route to smell lilacs.

The wanton winds chortled wickedly

over remnant snows in gray clumps of doom

and my heart soared gladly at winter’s death

but an hour later I had whiskey breath

at a dead end bar full of Indians.

A Winnebago woman waltzed with me

and told me how handsome I truly was

so I bought her drinks and felt her hips

and somewhere between the grinds

and dips she lifted my wallet and split.