Doubtful
Doubtful
Peal of clothes upon the back porch will
Help her
Feel the old exhilaration
Back when
No pangs of guilt
Anonymous males
Raked her leaves
In moonlight shows of secrecy
Their great dark eyes over the bare earth
Scandalous moves repeated
Never foreseeing
This night
Low rain clouds coming
Self pity
She shakes her head fighting it
Stepping down the stairs
Timid dance
Naked titillation
The years disappearing as the rain falls
Washing her
Down into the mud
She smears herself with chocolate soil
Something missing
So unconnected
She slumps in the shifting colors
Pink skin gleaming
Untouched
By those youth-drugged hands
Faceless smiles filling her
She pushes them away
On their backsides spread-eagled
She clutches a brick from the flower bed
Hurls it down
Breaking their teeth
Smashing their lolling tongues
Yard crawling with snakes
Escaping her
Doubtful
They’ll ever come back.
The Pits
You’ve always been what you are
No matter how hard trying to change
The days slip into familiar ruts
Safety in the mundane and occasional venture
Lift of an eye into the underworld glints
Crawling home at dawn without your pants
8 to 5 working and tolerating the gossip
Always hoping someone will charge your battery
Weekends too quick with too much of nothing
Forcing yourself to watch church on T.V.
Wanting to soak in the bathtub and fall asleep
Never waking except in the blurry waters of dreams
Coughing up your entire life over a plate of beans
Picking through the ruins for a Cracker-Jack prize.
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write in the middle of the night with a grin and a grimace and flame in his heart. He is the editor of Dead Snakes at deadsnakes.blogspot.com
These are fine poems, coming from an editor whose own work I have not see until recently. I think this is the third time in a week that I have seen his poems in print. Always knew he was a writer. Just thought that “Dead Snakes” had kept him too busy. As someone who once earned his living as an editor of other folks’ work, I know how taxing that can be.
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