That one lady
That nut
She
Simmered color
In waves

When She laughed
It burst
Like rain from high white clouds

In her mind
Nothing mattered
But the angle of her throat
When her head tipped back
Babbling brooks
like sunshine spilled
If She could bottle it and label it She would

Waves of Babbling Sunshine
Sure to shiver your timbers
Shimmering diamonds mixed with
Your eyes
Spread your thighs
Be wise

That one lady
That nut
Fruit punch
Drinks too much
Down below the surface
She knew She’d won
‘Nothing’s at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box’
Everything She never needed
She received for free

Empty chains evaded her privilege
She laughed
Until she cried
Lifting
Her disguise

That one lady
That nut

Did you see her over there?
Breathing color,
Eating popcorn from a box.

-bwarren 17

Nothing’s at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box is a line from Meatloaf’s song, ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.’

A storm of words
Creams the poet

Her solipsistic need for walls
Collapses as
Everything she flees
She faces
She skins bare her soul
Ripping labels from life’s undoing
Brutally unmasking the corrugated
Landscapes that box her in

Her peculiar scorn exposed
She spirals round its eye
Singing

see? See?

It’s not so bad

She digs at her scabs
to watch herself bleed.

bw / 17

Drunk and rooted, our
words billow like tattered sails

scattering meaning across
red vinyl booths that

curve us into this circle of faces,
where we snatch

single moments like
specks in eyes

let loose by lashes in the
blink of time–

sly, like dust
with its sheer spun sugary shine,

all glittery and shit.
We forget about that sometimes.

Brenda Warren 2017

Visit The Sunday Whirl

Threads stitch
Lines through our hearts
Broken by the space
Between apart and now

We falter

Spinning our wheels
Yearning touch
Hand prints on wet windows
Where echoes ring rivulets
That seep beneath our skin
Gnawing air
Like butterfly wings we blow
Until the sugar falls off
And all that’s left is gasps

Words, pierced mid-syllable
By needles
Filled with ink
So it sticks
Like a whistle through our lips

So many stitched-tight lines
It’s easy to forget how things spin

Brenda Warren 2017

Visit The Sunday Whirl

There was no groove for me
No gifted island of misfit toys
That salved mercy through my puberty
I cowered beneath the piercing eyes
Of peers
Calling me Spaz
Jeering
Leering
Profiteering
On their meteoric rise to
“I’m so cool
You insignificant
Maggot
Watch me squash you”

It cost me
My serenity

It powdered me empty
A spare
Bound by malevolence
I clung to hissed taunts
Echoed in faces
With voices that glared

Years passed
Before I learned
To breathe my way free

A gift of letting go

Brenda Warren 2017

Visit the Sunday Whirl