I.

Prologue: the poet’s thoughts

All saintly people
help me know I am a pebble in their shoe.
Sheesh,
even my angel backs off for a few days.

II.

Possible Part One:

Science calls bullshit
on righteous theories that trot spite
around godless traditions.

Poetic cue:

Self-awareness wrestles with a crack that opens
as tons of water pull roots away from memory
and me-me-me’s heartbeat accelerates
into shimmering droplets of yesteryears
that fade into tracks
held deep within
empty.

Bereft of me,
light opens.

Brenda Warren 2015

Visit The Sunday Whirl

The teeth of self-pity had gnawed away her essential self.

The rest of us were left with her self-pitying self,
her seeking recognition self,
her feeling beat down self,
her high-chinned, red-faced
dead to anything but hallelujahs self.

So we turned away.

Brenda Warren 2014

Process: A search for quotes on self-pity brought the first line of this piece, and the rest escaped quickly.

The teeth of self-pity had gnawed away her essential self.
—Willa Gibbs

Magpie those diamonds
glint in dark eyes
silent, like strangers
stroking my thighs.

Smooth secret steel
sheds feathers like martyrs,
crazy black crispy
childhood lies.

Sharpening shivers,
Trickster wisps by,
prisoner of laughter,
mimics my cry.

Beneath the tree
upon my back
into the sky
I stare.

Your feathers shine
iridescent circles,
shadows that fan
the biting flames I hide.

Brenda Warren 2014

Notes:  I started this piece yesterday, and was not satisfied.  Three times, while walking the dogs, a magpie yelled at me.  The magpie worked its way into this piece.  The piece started with “you” rather than “I” but confusion between the narrator and magpie ensued.  Thus, the narrator is an “I.”

Visit The Sunday Whirl

my name falls broken from your lips
dis-
connected
hidden beneath sheets of speech
decoding my existence

is it me you hate?
or is it the reflection of yourself
you sense in my life
like unwritten poems
vital but stripped bare
where gnats
swim circles in goblets
and red wine sighs its ripples
down your throat

turning away you mutter about
irony, signs, and metaphors
while I tread wine
with the gnats
in your glass

Brenda Warren 2014

Visit The Sunday Whirl

James Garner ate potatoes and apples.
He’s dead now.

Connections shatter and form,
as Rockford’s files
flutter through television’s memoried past.

Model tobacco scratches my back.
Oranges are not the only fruit.

The smell of potatoes frying
lights me on fire,
as apples delicious
drip juices suspicious
across Jim Rockford’s smile.

Brenda Warren 2014

Visit The Mag

1
six fortune seekers
drilled holes in eternity
so much chimney smoke

2
bottom of the well
the remnants of spent wishes
glint like winking coins

3
this unruly night
tosses limbs across windows
shifting dream’s deep pit

4
splits in consciousness
de ja vu like worry stones
polished sheets of sleep

5
dawn drinks mist’s sweetness
dissipating its wet cloak
cliffs begin to sing

6
flapping breast and wing
mourning dove whistles a beat
exhaling daybreak

7
grackles like habits
assemble in seed-strewn grass
breakfast at first light

8
puppy stretches breath
across porcelain mornings
padding through the dew

9
puppy teeth rip flesh
unintended injuries
little welts of love

Brenda Warren 2014

Berkeley P. Beagle

Visit The Sunday Whirl