Tag Archives: journal

drop foot

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Drop Foot  

rising up from the lobby traffic
dark robes shadow her dimming eyes
petrified ash covering her skin flicked off the devil’s cigarette
I now believe in failure
sallow cheekbones sunken above anchored form
where careless pay fingers multiply and nest
prodigal daughter turns painted toenails into broken shine
wheelchairs made of witch-bone wait along the cinderblock
she is tethered to the weight of memories and moments
while tongues speak antiseptic Latin
I neglect the headlights coming at me in the dark
latent images floating like sour candy
all is never the same, driving no escape route
her drop foot like cement on the brake

unwarm

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new poem “unwarm” published in FREE LIT Magazine, please check out this creative online journal, many talented writers & artists

This piece is based on the night my father passed away. I can’t believe it will be a year this November since he left us. On the night of my dad’s death, all emergency responders were nothing short of amazing🌹

Unwarm 

was it your choice
choosing sleep to die in
I watched them
watched them dad
in your mint bedroom
trying to make your chest say something
while your mouth was bound with elastic
and a pump shoved down your throat
screaming in my head

PLEASE stop

he’s gone

leave him be

it goes on like this for an hour
or nearly so
not pronounced dead
until the white sheet
in the emergency room

was that for us
was that for you
maybe for them
still unsure

I kissed your cheek
not entirely unwarm
you look good dad

not dead
not cold
just quiet

Apathetic Wrinkling – poem published

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thrilled to have a poem published in MAN IN THE STREET, a very cool magazine with sumptuous imagery – thank you

Apathetic Wrinkling

There are parts that work well rolling on the floor. Leave me be. I will find my footing. Unlike her. Don’t you hear the screaming. The window, open like the door but less welcoming. Endless sobs hitting the birds outside. What is she crying about this time?

Wrinkles.

How she just can’t do it anymore.

Hell, who can?

 

There are no places to hide when you know all the rooms in your home. I wonder if she’s dying while standing on her feet. My ears are chained to this self-inflicted malaise. Perhaps the plasma screen will extend its curving armature and whisper encouragement as she continues moaning. Wrinkles. Too many.

 

Forgotten in the dryer, shirts crinkled like a baby’s ass.
Cotton shits wrinkles.

I should be the one crying.

I Will Die at the Right Time

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“I will die at the right time” new poem published on the fabulous Her Story Blog – I hope you check out this wonderful venue of expression

I Will Die at the Right Time

At this rate, there will be nothing left for my children. Too much
falling outside the body. A two-headed llama with no head
belonging to me.

all to them
unintentionally by them

Losing ability to see value by which aging matters. Watching
bone-slow deterioration. Using my frame to anchor relations.
Trying to deduce life’s meaning–endgame research.

Sowing seeds of pain in backward gardens planted with wrinkling flesh,
falling from porous skeletons.

suppleness
fire, grace, motion, lightning
gone

Stolen–

without remorse from each sunrise.
The silver-edge moon no longer sensual,
goading their last warm breaths.

Not doing this to my flesh and blood.
I will die at the right time.

acrylic painting done a few years ago

this creative world

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here’s to entering 2018 with eyes open

4:20 am

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My poem “4:20 am” published in the weekly Avocet – a magazine focusing on nature and all its breathtaking wonder.

Baby Elf

my poem “4:20 am” (attached below) is in the weekly Avocet – issue #262 –
 Avocet link if you’d like to submit writing to this important publication for Mother Earth

 

4:20AM

frost creeps into the holes of my old moccasins

the taffy-stretched shadow of a red sunset maple

reaches across the dark grass

as if she too

desires the moon’s infinite perfection

stars tuck away in their opaque shells

this is autumn’s whisper

 

I peek through my eyelashes

must commit to memory

must etch my soul with rehearsed minutes

before tomorrow’s living

rubs out this wonder

 

4:30AM

I remain frozen in my silent place

knowing the sun will wipe away

the beautiful moon

this pristine silent moment

don’t want to go back inside a walled house

 

wish I could honestly tell you

a love affair with nature

enticed me from my bed

 

at 4:15 AM

my Dachshund needed to pee

baby elf sketch created a few years back with pencil

Kinder Hours

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New flash “KINDER HOURS”  and one of my illustration’s “UNIVERSAL WIZARD” together
Words and art keep each other company during this magical holiday season
Published in an excellent zine, FREELIT

Kinder Hours

Across the bridge where snow meets the sea, I comb my hair while wishing I were a swan.
 His broad hands stroke my delicate neck, gentle and curving on the point of a star.

I wake. Those same comforting hands are strangling me in the emptiness of shadow. Moonlight gives him the power to see my neck breaking, my jugular turning deep violet like the purple bed sheets of his new lover.

There was a time I would have gladly fallen beyond salvation. I’d have welcomed the pain. A tailspin drop to his bed, his mouth, his body. He touched my flesh and treasure books lost their gilded words. Warm gold lines melted into my bones. His shield of dragon horn turned silk upon our pressed bodies. He was magnificent. Those beautiful lips once whispered, “I love you.” 

The simple act of survival taught me to fight back. How many times must I do battle. I’ve grown weary. One weakness bests another. Pain rouses conviction, but I no longer possess the courage to face morning upright.

If my wand held an ounce of magic, I’d demand my mind dismiss its owner of memories. Dreams collect in a thick midnight veil, and waking hours are cloaked in cold light, light we once practiced magic in. A barred owl screeches as it lowers for a kill on the dark flattened tracks. The silver train streaks across the sky, but I’m not in a rail car. Trapped in a place that’s damning me, I will not adjust to the light. The sun is much too bright. It scorches earth and steals water. Charred holes open up into blackness and I watch all the white rabbits disappear. 

In darkness, I might remember the moon in kinder hours. Gentle arms cross my body where we lay together. Gold melts into my skin. His hands caress my neck. I scratch at his eyes then fly away.

Universal Wizard illustration

created with prisma pencil

Sharpies and Coconut Macaroons

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honored and thrilled to have a new flash fiction piece, Sharpies and Coconut Macaroons, published in this terrifically absurd magazine
“The Absurdist is a small monthly periodical of absurdist flash fiction and illustrations, printed and distributed in Portland, Oregon and shared digitally around the world.”

Sharpies and Coconut Macaroons

AM Roselli

Nella wants to tie people down. Not everyone. Just those with hair like piles of snow. Their old translucent skin resplendent in odd brown patches and mottled crimson swatches. Nella believes wrinkled skin is cosmically linked. She must bind old people together and connect their age spots with Sharpies to make star maps to God. Old bodies are closer to heaven each day. She has visions.

The giant Moai heads of Easter Island are not empty. No one is empty. Nella feels empty. Her head hurts all the time. She sees invisible stars on wrinkled skin.

The other night while she was walking home from the Quik Mart with a coconut macaroon stuffed in each pocket, an elderly couple strolled by her. They were so close, Nella could smell the accumulated years on their skin. The gentleman held, not his wife’s bony elbow, but a tiny Pomeranian. The hobbling couple were glowing more than the bitty dog’s sequined collar. Twinkling glass shards embedded in the grimy sidewalk dulled to dirt near their worn shuffling shoes.

Nella thought about using her green belt to tie them together but feared her pants would fall down. Besides that, the Pomeranian would likely bite her in the ass. And anyway, she wasn’t armed with a stalwart Sharpie. The Quik Mart worker said they expected a Sharpie shipment sometime tomorrow. Nella was dubious. The young man behind the counter had done nothing but stare at her breasts. She’d forgotten to wear her only bra, blue and decorated with black Sharpie stars.

Not defeated, just delayed, Nella climbed the seven flights to her apartment. She ate her coconut macaroons and danced by herself. She used her long brown hair to dust the floor while dreaming about star maps.

Her head is not empty. It is full of ropes and lights and hammers. Endless headaches reminded her to work when she feels lazy. She needs God’s help.

She swallowed the last bits of coconut then leaned out her apartment window.

Down below, so many old people to tie together. So many chances to find salvation. ♦

the buck moon

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I’m so very thrilled that a new poem of mine, the buck moon, was included in this wonderful magazine!
Into the Void, is available in both print and digital form.

“Included in ‘Nine New Lit Mags You Need to Read’ as one of “nine new journals that appeared on the scene within the past couple of years and have already made their mark on the literary landscape” in the November/December 2016 Issue of Poets & Writers.”

the buck moon

there is a moon where newness emerges
from above the forward brow line
 placid black almond eyes
antlers and smooth skin twist
against harder things
strip away velvet underpinnings 

wrap the chilled arms of night air
forest canopy dulling shadow
 dancing silhouettes vague 
 and 
 slippery
vulnerable newness pressed to pounding chests
no light
 forecasting the future
suckle the dark together
escape 

 alone

The Dipping Bread, new flash published in Chicago Literati!

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just in time for Halloween
I’m honored to be included in Chicago Literati, with my flash piece, The Dipping Bread
I hope you enjoy reading, as much as I enjoy writing about vampires and their victims 😘

THE DIPPING BREAD

It happens at the Fondue Palace. Near the cheese fountain. Two lovers twirling their fondue forks suggestively. He’s been ignoring his inner voice all evening. “Something is very wrong with your date, John.” The very same voice that hours before implored him to make an escape out the backdoor. Get out before it’s too late. Too late.
Suri’s sultry eyes are vacant things. John can’t gaze into those shining black planets orbiting his date’s face. He turns away from the closeness of her flawless skin. She giggles and flicks her tongue into John’s exposed ear. He laughs nervously. He senses a curious warm spot on his cheek. 

Crimson droplets appear on the dipping bread.

His hand touches his face and traces the warmth down to his neck. The wetness tints his fingertips. He slides his thumb and middle finger together. Then apart. His eyes focus on what he sees. He’s unable to wrestle out the weak cry pinned behind his gum-line. Other unwitting customers continue gleefully stabbing at bread cubes. Drowning baked dough in pots of hot liquified cheese.

No words will leave John’s chained voice. Suri’s fondue fork finds her date’s palm. She guides the two-pronged metal, like a serpent’s fangs, along the meat of John’s hand then sweetly plunges the sharp points into his flesh. She guides his limp fist up to her wine-colored mouth. Her satin skin smells like ancient ice. A burning sensation shoots from John’s brain to his groin. An explosion unlike any erotica he’s ever experienced.

Suri’s slim, powerful hand slides beneath John’s shirt. His sweating back is buckling. She holds him up effortlessly with a polished finger. John clenches his jaw. His uninjured hand reaches around his date’s cool neck. Forceful and swift–he pulls her face to his. He kisses this “woman” in a manner unfamiliar to his own lips. Their mouths sucking like uncontrolled siphons. Lightning between his legs. Shockwaves ripple inside his thigh muscles. Metallic saliva flows back and forth between their twisting tongues. Cold bliss blankets John’s dying instincts.

It’s blood, John. 

It’s blood.