After Electricity

 

It is dawn,

the lights have just gone out,

the cause yet unknown.

The roosters’ crow at distant stars,

their raucous contest continuing

as the sun begins its ascent into

a cloudless blue, tinted with pink and orange. 

The palms stand stiffly at attention. 

The Ko’olau peaks loom like ancient warriors, 

awaiting the first battle cry. But the Kahuna have long gone.

 

 

After electricity, 

we will run out of supplies.

We will need to hunt for sustenance, 

our way of life will fall prey to illness, and the elements. 

 

Eventually

You will kill all of them.

All the people who have done you wrong.

Real and imagined debts burned on your personal pyre.

The evidence of their so-called crimes is long forgotten.

Existing in an altered state of your drug-addled mind.

The ancients are

Holding open the door to your doom 

Taunting you into their final dimension.

 

You were one

I try to imagine how many more are out there.

Wandering adrift, free to plunder

And we are left here in the dark. 

Good Morning America

Aren’t we great?

 

Good Morning, Starbucks!

Venti Me!

I’m going for the bypass tomorrow.

I woke up today and

all my size tens turned into fourteens

and I can’t get the zipper up.

I need EMS to resuscitate me

from the god-dammed fake news

that’s polarizing the populace

and I’m asking Mr. President

what is it all for?

I want off the rollercoaster

I want Opie and Andy

to call I Love Lucy

and tell her that

Ricky is her soul mate

that Ethel is skinny and Fred eats liver pate.’

 

Good Morning America

I need a Zen moment

a place to exhale all the garbage

from my black lungs

coughed up in the trenches

of foreign wars

because my credit 

needs a banker to 

prevent my cash from being

blown up in the chopper

in a bombed-out country

that hires kids as mercenaries.

 

 

Good Morning America!

We need a plan.

We need Mr. Spock

to beam down

and give us the logical

answer, before the Alien High Council

sends us to a frozen prison planet.

because no one here is exempt.

 

Good Morning America!

Let’s toast our Statue of Liberty

one last time, before the brute

calls in his note.

Before the polar icecap melts,

the climate stops flustering and

before Voyager reaches its destination.

 

Good Morning America

Today is the day

we resurrect GOD

meet those ancient aliens

who designed the giant stone monoliths

that litter the planet

like a Burma Shave ad for space travel.

Magnetic

to foreign collectors

from a far-off galaxy

who will surely

calculate the odds

of contracting the human infection

and inoculate their crew

for a close encounter of a shitty kind.

 

 

Good Morning America

We are being consumed by rhetoric

and our time is running out.

Pardon me

Excuse my partisan ass

Mr. Speaker but

America is Great, but fresh out of tolerance

and we were wondering

when you people on Capitol Hill

will get up off your rich collective butts

and do what you were elected for

which is to speak for the people

because we are tired of swallowing

your sovereign agendas 

and we’re not going to be quiet anymore.

Moving With The Gouda

 

I am balancing on a tightrope 

on my right leg

without a net,

circumnavigating destiny’s fork,

and betrayal’s vacant stare.

Breaking free from and the 

terminal followers

in their petrified stance.

Alone and on my own, 

with my sneakers firmly laced. 

Heeding the signs

on this blue-green maze,

driven by a brute with cheese.

 

Hemorrhoid Hilda

She is not cancerous
just a bloody, gushing pain in the ass.

She shrieks for
fiber
should
eliminate the sugar,

fried whites and browns.

Hilda needs to add green
red, orange, yellow, and
perhaps a purple
to her day.
Allowing
her
to cool down,
have fewer flare-ups.

Soothed, now                                                            
by the unflappable 

Hazel

a witch who
comes
expertly
recommended.

Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!
Come on dearie
don’t be so Grimm

there’s nothing left to fear.

The big bad wolf
evil prick that he is 
is out fooling with some 
naïve Red Riding Hood on Facebook
and the wicked witch
has roared off on her broom
to Instagram a novel fashion color.

It’s okay to come out.

The bogey woman has left the building.
She got bored
went off to scare up a new Princess.
All the evil turds are gone
Rapunzel
Oh, by the way, you have netted a pink slip.

I’ll explain later.

Seriously, it’s time to escape
from your ivory tower
color those roots
get out of that frumpy dress
invest in a pedicure.

So join the group

get analyzed

and who knows

maybe in a few years

You too, can 

get a divorce

move in with Mom, and possibly
fit back into those skinny jeans.

  

I Am A Poet

Hello, my name is Cornelia

And I am a poet because

I need to condense this moment, now     the

who, what, where, when, why,  and how... of it.

I have a purpose, a tenacity, crystal clear.

Plus, I want to choose from an endless list of black and strong 

to go with my Einstein bagel and schmear.  Also, teach Kimmie how to say

Ursula (Err-sue-LA) 

 

TRULY, I am a poet 

Because it doesn’t mean a thing

If you haven’t got that zing

to people in the bayou

with alligators for neighbors

and mosquitoes as big as flying saucers

those who want to drink your blood

and leave welts the size of basketballs.

BIG...ORANGE...HARD...BALLS.

The balls that it takes

to stand UP and SHOUT 

about SENIORITY and AUTHORITY

and about the assonance and consequence

of our actions.

 

I am a poet

because of the reason and the rhyme, marking time 

Dripping off my tongue-- aged like fine wine.

Lyrical and magical 

Like ALICE

Chasing a rabbit into a hole, out of control

hanging on a cliff, with a NOTE 

high on hope, instead of dope.

Set adrift, on a sinking ship with a Fever

unrehearsed and cursed, to just be.

 

I am a poet 

because of sibilant S’s 

and because I want to weigh the wind 

on an impossible scale next to a fish tail that never pales, 

smells stale or          fishy.

I want to be shackled to a form and not mourn.

To show the flaming red dawn  like a phoenix rising from the ashes 

to give birth to the music of my faith 

Forever skewed, on strong WORDS,

RINGING in my ears, HIGH ABOVE THE HERD

until my LAST measured day, on Earth.

 

The Barber's Theater

 

He is magnificent.

Standing there in his white shirt and dark trousers, he takes slow, deliberate steps in a well-worn semi-circle.

His sharp scissors shape and clip, carefully clicking along to a favorite tune.

An eclectic mix of light and dark locks 

heap on the floor,

a bushy witness to his art.

A favored comb is well-positioned in his back pocket, ready for its cameo, then placed back as the razor continues to hum. He finishes with the Asian man before me: neck freshly shaven and brushed, cologne dabbed, and, too soon, the smock is removed and shaken.

The black and white checkered floor is swept. He pivots from the polished chrome and black leather chair to announce,

Next...

It is gripping like a one-act play,

and I am the only woman in the theater.

He smiles and looks towards me, repeating the invitation.

I amble towards him, no longer confident of the lucidity of my whim, then purposefully plop myself down in his chair to stare dolefully at my reflection. He swings the chair around so I can no longer see and proceeds to work. It doesn’t take long.

After he finishes, he hands me a mirror. My neck is quite pale above the old hairline, and I sense sunburn in my future.

I am not sure why, but I pay him.

I suppose that I am star-struck. He is Barnum, and I am not.

He nods curtly as I am dismissed, and the regulars continue to file in. 

The leather chair is still moist from my heat.