Pink Tongues

Pink tongues cruel gossip
swallows spoiled dreams, ideas watch
victim gag at curb.

Barku Campaign-Etheree

New
pithy
moving verse
reserve your space
talented poets
for Barku Fever reigns
on Planet Blueline this month.
Witness the brave innovative
observations, rants and muses from
this sharp worldwide writing community.

Etheree

The poetry form, Etheree, consists of 10 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 syllables. Etheree can
also be reversed and written 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Barku--
 10 words in six lines, usually written on a bar napkin.

Jail Time

The heavy iron door slid shut
made a loud clang, ringing in our ears
as their footfalls echoed
down the corridor
locking the four of us
safely away from the November, chill.
The interior gloom
enhanced only by them allowing us
to remain for the moment together.
Each girl watched the other for signs
of weakness. Would our resolve
hold up or drip like warm yellow Jell-O and discharge
into a sticky puddle on the cold, cement floor.
We had made up fake names and addresses.

For a brief moment, we actually thought
we would be rescued, the twins, Marty, her skinny
sister, Mary, Dawn, and I had run away
from nothingness into the adventure
of anywhere else.
Let’s go to Florida!
It had been a wild ride all right
meeting up with my Italian
friend in Passaic, her family
had a summer house across the street and
ending just outside of D.C. on a restricted
highway. Picked up for hitchhiking.

The fuzz gave us some new bracelets
to wear, took us to the county lock-up
on the way, chained together with a black
boy telling me “Don’t cry now
”it’ll be alright
in the morning” his smooth
southern drawl reminding us
that we had almost made it to freedom.
The police commanded us to heed their invitation
thaw out while they called
Marty’s brother in Florida
to come pick us up.
Only Marty’s bro
never showed
I guess he had
other plans.
Stirring my resolve into mush
So, I told them who I was, the others soon followed.
Dawn’s mother, our girl scout troop leader
showed up after we spent four days on the girls side
of the youth detention center.
It only took a week
before I hit the streets again.
This time I had a ride.

Pumping out a Poem

Shades of colored icing
carefully mixed and
inserted into a
flexible plastic bag.
Special couplers chosen and
brass tips attached.
Burped, angled and
gently pressed like clockwork
forming hundreds of
leaves, roses and basket weaves
swirled down and
hardening over time
into full fledged morsels of sweet verse
prized by perceptive eyes
devoured in rapid measure.

Hard Lessons

One day, carefree
testing boundaries
the next, mutilated
splattered on the side of the road.
Two friends killed instantly
Ziffel 18.
and Gary 19.

Out driving and partying
the four of them
in the back seat, Ed
escaped with a broken arm
and Woody
with hardly a scratch.

I was 15
it was May
still signing my own excuses
when I got the phone call.
They’re dead!
Hit Head On
their VW bug
squashed
by a drunken black caddy.

Time blurred
spiraled and
in due course
crystallized while
hitchhiking on the interstate
600 miles away from home.
It will be alright
in the morning
whispered
in my ear and
became my mantra
on the eve

of my detention.

Rendition-acrostic

Rough shocking film
Elaborating on the torture of immigrants
Names misspelled
Demand confessions from
Innocent engineers snatched off flights
Threatened-- forced to confess to heinous crimes they did not commit
Ignored as collateral damage--another
Offering heaped on the sacrificial altar
Negotiating an evil trend.

Maneuvering Steep Ledges

Shh!!
Yesterday’s verse
is fast asleep
tucked under the cover
of Vista’s keep.
Windows 7 could not comprehend
the niggling
night
of a poet on the mend.

Secrets pop out
demand details shared
scary snapshots
a youth caught scared.
Wading through
past lives
in galoshes stand
trudging through
the muck, of skeletons damned.

Murmuring
passages
sticky
snake
through rocky
corridors
demand
decisions make.

Shh!! Asleep
for the moment
in another lair
vexing this writer
as I judge the crosshairs.
Dare we enter
into this divisive pact
or let it die
in the past
with its victims intact?