Shorts: Poetry - Flash - Essay-Ettes

By Joanne Huspek

Shorts is a compilation of poetry, flash fiction, and essay-ettes by author, Joanne Huspek

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781947507012

Book preview

enjoy.

wintersigh

1

winter is slowly peeling

her finest clothes off with a sigh

flowers bend their tender heads

to warm breezes by and by

a winter anniversary

i threw my heart off the high bridge

nearly three years ago

i laced it up in satin bows and when

the sun sank low

i took it from my pocket

i waved it at the town

i tossed that package overboard and

watched that baby drown

my heart is sailing smooth waters in heart heaven now

2

winter jumps to greet the spring

and breathes a gentle sigh

hyacinths will blossom soon

‘neath sunlight and blue sky

there’s nothing you can steel from me

i’ve no love left to fake

there’s no feelings left that you can stab

no heart left you can break

you send to me your letters

ones unopened in the hall

oh you’re a poet with no loss of words

yet you say nothing at all

there’s nothing you can steal from me i’ve no love left to hide

3

the earth turns over in her sleep and moans a wintersigh

Bed Full of Rain

it’s the last time ~

for the last time

i cancelled my subscription

to Words of Love

folded every crease

carefully

packed dishes and knick-knacks

in crumpled newspaper

divided closets and dresser drawers

into neatly labeled mine and yours

took the plants down

from their airy perches

for the absolute last time

baby it’s gonna be the last time ~

all the angry words

tearful scenes

open wounds

bittersweet moments

empty, hollow silences

all the useless shrieking

at 120 decibels

flying objects fracturing

the plaster on the walls

shattering into thousands

of razor-sharp shards

on yellow patterned linoleum

layers and layers of

misunderstanding

all the painful memories

are, as of now,

part of ancient history

for no more –

this is the last time

for the last time

take your hand

turn the key in the door

walk away

don’t look back

(never look back)

for the last time

for it’s the last time

sometimes i think

all you ever gave me was a bed full of rain

Fair Fields

In some silent morning

I will come to you unnoticed

and I’ll slip inside your daydreams

undisturbed.

And my song will fill your spirit

like the echo sounds of oceans

far away, now longing to be heard.

And the love that I hold here for you

shall surely come to find you.

Just as wildflowers kissed by morning’s dew

will forever here remind you

of those fair fields rolling in your mind.

When times are hard and troubled

sanctuary will appear within a word.

high expectations

hanging on a prayer,

she dandelions into town,

flirts expectations.

The Campbell’s Tomato Soup Tragedy

Mother immortalized Campbell’s soup

long before Warhol wore his first knickers –

the story already in her genes.

Not that she’s a vengeful woman

but it seems she takes a bite of life and

heads straight for the pit.

She’s resurrected that battered tale

so many times now, it hardly revives.

When she’s peeved at us,

or at work, or at the price of groceries,

she’ll point her accusations at me and shriek,

You look like your father!

I have to turn away and laugh.

My father was a rowdy and a rogue

before he realized he was a father –

he could have been a farmer poet.

The Campbell’s Tomato Soup Tragedy

began long ago when my father was dispatched

to purchase our dinner, the soup.

When he returned, hours late and soup-less,

high on cheap alcohol and mad at playing cards,

my mother bit that acrid seed

tenaciously, never letting go.

Some things are difficult to swallow

but I’ve never seen any wrong

that couldn’t be forgiven with tenderness.

Tragedies always lie in pools of stagnant love.

I’m a wasteful wanton womanchild,

a willful troublemaker –

yet still a lizard skinned survivor.

Debris remains of loves lost and unrequited,

pain is harbored in this port,

haunting hurts linger that should be forgotten.

When I look in the mirror to muse of

my father, through my own silvered reflection,

I see a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can,

the shrill voice nagging is now my own,

my mother’s face transposed above mine.

I look like my father, huh?

I have to turn away and laugh.

Black Star

his grandpa was a cowboy, he said.

you nod in silence –

your dreams are riding the range.

a little wine, a little smoke

helps ease the loneliness

shake off the chains –

lose those midnight blues.

you laugh and joke,

HA! your smiles are plastic

poses molded from the pain.

and still you choose

too much wine and smoke

and strawberry madness.

now you’re backed against the floor.

he leans toward you from another galaxy

and shouts in a foreign frequency

heyareyouallrightdownthere?crazybroad!

o-zoned again.

lonesome cowpoke, roll me in your