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

Split the sheets
Shuffle off your spousal coil
Strip that man right outta your hair
It’s lethal—
That feeling like the bottom of your soul’s on fire
Let it go
Let it roll

Before it turns to ash

Brenda Warren 2017

Ceramic domed home
From many moons past
A sacred space for faerie grace

Auger shells form a white spiked fence
Arcing its way round
A smooth stone patio
Jade to embrace
Jasper for courage
Petrified wood for strength

Fuchsia lanterns hang a magenta heaven
Across a carpet of stars
To the small pond
Reflecting fireflies
Where toads rasp hollow
And groundhogs drink
Deep in the new moon night

Near the pond,
A rusted wrench grants faerie wishes
Gifted detritus
From the dead man’s piles of
Everything
Serendipity surrounds this
Sacred space for faerie grace

Brenda Warren 2017

The man says that
This is just the most repulsive thing
This laptop
Everything electronic that he touches
Is destroyed
He hates this fucking thing
Thing thing thing
It’s out to get him
To eat his spirit
To turn it into spit

Fuck it
Toss it
Dropkick it
Into the gravel drive
Thing thing thing

It deserves death
Rev up Sydney
Put her in reverse
Then forward
Thing thing thing
Die die die

From the porch
His dog looks at him sideways

Something about a laptop, obliterated
Washes satisfaction through the man
He laughs
How dare that thing
Betray his sensibility
Of how it ought to be

The dog sniffs at the remains
Of the laptop, lying there dead
It lifts its leg and looks up at the man

Together they walk through the village
Relishing evening’s cool

Brenda Warren 2017