Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heat. Show all posts

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Drip

Every day you Mama flirts with Constantine in this goddamn market, maybe he you daddy. But you lick you ice cream, little pink tongue like a cat’s, flick, flick. Lick fast, girl, the heat’s gonna melt it. Like summer’s melting me. I ‘member when I ate ice cream with my mama. Ten years? Twenty? Dunno how old I am, but I ‘member how the cold creamy freeze my brain. What? You holding that cone out for me? Spit rushes, my fingers twitch close, and you jump, drop the damn thing, laughing at me scooping the mess off the sidewalk, all greedy.

***

A retread from last summer, but certainly I feel the heat pulsing back up at the pavement at me a year later. Originally Published in Dog Days of Summer, an anthology of 100 word stories pulled together by Michael Solender. Read on for more summer heat. Peace...

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

It's so hot

the city might explode,
a single stare or slight
and whoosh! the hucksters
lining Howard street
with their china girl
and boosted dvds will
tumble into a catalytic
clysm, an end all and be all
heat rising from sunparched
asphalt and peanut shells
and the sultry ammonia
of morning piss
i feel the tension
in the airless air
the vacuum of the subway
tunnel the covey of youth
wise-talking at the bus
stop slouching towards
night and cool and
the bullhorn of jesus
from the sinnerless
man passing out tracts
on the corner.


***

Inspiration: It hit 100 degrees today in downtown Baltimore, and edginess palpated the air. This, a collection of images and smells and thoughts walking the blocks to my office.

This poem is my small contribution to the continuing LANGUAGE > PLACE Blog Carnival. The current all-poetry issue POETRY IN PLACE is hosted by the effervescent Walter Bjorkman, an amazing wordsmither, at his digs QUIK-BAKE SYNTHETICS. Please, take a gander and wander across the globe for poetry which will make you giddy.

In the good news department, two of my poems made the Robert Brewer's Top 50 Poems from the April Poem-A-Day Challenge -- Greetings from Motel 6 (Lucky #13) and The Kissing Tree (#32). This is the fourth year I've participated in the April PAD, and I enjoy the comraderie with exceptional poets, as well as the chance to play with words for the sheer fun of it.

Write hard, live harder, love hardest, and stay cool. Peace...