SLAM!

15 lines of Free Verse - Death personified

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Mr. Yellow twittered,
flitted about, bobbed his budgie
head happily, nonchalantly,
as his cagemate's feathers fell out,
exposing the raw bumpy pink of bird skin.

Mr. Yellow did not shove his shivery
companion when she clutched
the bar with every lick of life left.
He just watched and waited.

Mr. Yellow did not mark the hour
or manner of the other parakeet's demise.
He simply stretched his ominous wings
over the corpse and opened his beak,
couching a yawn with a squawk,
a shriek that seemed to say, “It is done.”



Pantoum - Seduction

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Anxiously he asks, “Are you happy now?”
Dizzy, drunk, I dig beach divots with my toes.
Unfettered, free from marriage vows,
I want to feel the caress of new hands.

Dizzy, drunk, I dig beach divots with my toes.
His voice whispers like the white noise of the waves.
I want to feel the caress of his hands,
to roll in the whirl of lusty humidity between us.

His voice whispers like the white noise of the waves,
“All that money spent on drinks and no kiss?”
Rolling into the whirl of lusty humidity between us,
I giggle and squint to find his face in the night.

All that money spent on drinks...so we kiss,
descending, grinding, getting gritty in the sand.
I giggle and squint to find his face in the night,
but he is the night – the one-night stand.

Descending, grinding, getting gritty in the sand,
I escape into this anonymous moment.
He is the night, the one-night stand,
the caring stranger who let me cry on his shoulder.

I escape into this anonymous moment,
unfettered, free from marriage vows.
The caring stranger who let me cry on his shoulder,
anxiously he asks, “Are you happy now?”