1.
no consolation
from the ocean today.
it curls and throws kisses
before it turns under itself,
slaps at gulls then runs away.
i try desperately to find comfort here.
the golden lopes toward me, smiling.
her body shake dries her in 4 seconds.
it can also release fear and tension.
we don’t see the wind, you know,
when it comes trampling and leaves
behind tattered sails, toppled trees,
a kite akimbo in a broken branch.
sun blisters. i shiver, remember
someone ensconced in luxury
presses a button for a brown butler
in a white house,
a child in a playroom
pushing around toy soldiers.
2.
FB seduction in godawful times
The animal you see in the picture equals essence of your soul,
the game declares.
I cry wolf
scoop up dead brain cells
killed by mindless activity,
trip over distractions, glad
I read 1984 back then when
it was filed in the fiction section.
how soon we forget o-say-can-you-see
what so proudly we sang heroes
crouched with ak 40-somethings lifted
on point, eyes rimmed in black because?
I forget
but I remember helicopters in grey hovering
above rice fields, thunk/thunk/thunking
blades, the sound of beating hearts walled up
and I remember the dream, hear again
his wish for his 2 little children,
and I see his 2 little children, too,
how they sparkled like tiny blue buttons
in November’s sun.
I remember a storm in the desert sand
and another—easy to lose count
and I remember how I once locked doors,
turned off lights, loved the warmth of you,
then fell gently away from the evening.
now I stuff the scam of the day
into a couch cushion, slip-cover over,
remember to sleep with eyes wide open.
Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, Virginia. Her work has been featured at NewVerseNews, Rat’s Ass Review, thewildword, Feminine Collective, and in the anthology Nine Lives.
