This was another writing prompt from the Young Adults Writing Group (updated from Teen Writers Workshop as we have both teens and early twenties) that I hosted tonight. One of the prompts I pitched was to describe hands and I gave them 7 words to incorporate: Insidious, Petulant, Rebarbative, Denouement, Efflorescence, Bucolic, and Dalliance. We wrote for 25 minutes. Here's what I came up with:


Red Handed

They were small and so, so thin
Just bone, damaged tissue and skin
Such raw rebarbative combatant things
Used to flick, pick, pull, flip-off
And self-assault
Yellowing at the nails with breakage
From that violent inhale habit
Her hands were often petulant
In traffic
And always in her dalliance with Thomas,
Dick, John, Beau, or Shawn
At their bucolic rendezvous chalet
Her fingers found themselves molded
With insidious coding
Meant at once to fluster
And heat up her efflorescent
Lust investment
Like a secret salesman
Selling stock
But once the mountain man
Was conquered, climbed and shot
All love and hurt acquiesced
With no more to long for or seek out
A tidal wave of empty thought
Lampooned her headspace
Lead-ing down her usually tick-ish hands
And in those eclipses of the heart
On sands of unsatisfying contentment
She found her hands grabbing hard on pink, pink throats
With grips so strong and uncompromising
Such refusal to let go
That Death came himself to
Deal the final blow
And when at last she was stopped
Some years later
Mid-lust-struggle
Fighting to bring back her hunger
Wanting to throw away the sated feeling in her belly
That made her full and dull and wrong
The detectives asked her why she’d done it
And she knew
The denouement would never bring them satisfaction
Lucky Bastards, she thought then,
To always have such unattainable answers
To live for 

Well, for September I could go around in timber hats and tailored shoes
With mustard seeds bemused and stuck to the trunk of my mouth
I could holler and yell and makes messes in masses
Just to clean them up good before October bore
Hoods of winter
I could gather a stricken cotton viper to sting the pit
Of my inner enemies and rise hellion rise up to St. Symphony
I could go clean in my dirt and fester in hurt of all the ways
I lost days wondering in sleep and vomiting my feet
Losing all for a greater rebellion of life in the
Dark of the night that I created as a falsehood for my days
As my head pounded like balls on the court
My neck swimming in tension and shoulders floating above ears
My forehead a hurricane of cement falling downward
Ever ever ever falling downward like it just can’t get enough
Of pillows of down
Even when inside, little voice, wants to get up
Even when inside, little voice, wants to get up
Even when inside, little voice, wants to get up
Just falls down down downward and goes
Does what it will, has will of its own
Will stronger than little voice, little voice it drowns out
Little voice peaks a sneak through a window and frowns
Displeased little voice disowns itself
Little voice quietens and says “hell with it”
Says “fine, enjoy it”
BELIEVES eventually cement will crack, break and crumble
Or maybe, just may be FOUND dust-bitten and fumbled

In pause, in respite, I can see where the faults lie
I can slick my tongue into the gaps in my teeth
With skin boney fingers can dip in and pull out
With blood and gapping holes find tumors to extract
Its not an exact science, all trial and error, but with faith
And fighting spirit- if I can find fighting spirit, if I can get fed up enough
To fight back against the dust of ground and down, down, down
I can start looking up, spotting holes in the coffin
Can lift up and look out, can dig up and blow out
Can start a fire that ignites a new name and new words
That you can exhale your air into and find your spirit
Newly enflamed
Little voice, little voice don’t lose hope yet
For in September rocks may crumble, cement stick you to your pillow
Know that the spirit grows frustrated in this state and will fight back
Blow up outwards, maybe by November, to find a renewal of energies strengthened
And upwards and outwards, not so hidden inside, little BIG voice will get up
And rise and learn to grow flowers again

Everything was old

Each morning
The fresh dew
Made it glisten
Like it was new again
And my memory
Being foggy from
Just waking
Could believe
That life was fresh
To me
But by noon
The high sun
Had sucked up
All the droplets
And moist
Became mold
Became old
Familiar territory
Memories remembered
Unpleasant things
Stuck to me like the
Blades of grass
That stained me
Green
And sky and earth
Were as far apart
As I remembered them
My dreams untouchable
The earth grounding me
I asked it
What I’d done so wrong
To be stuck in mud
Unmovable
While my eyes could feast
On lofty blues
Freedom in sight
But arms too short
To pull me up

Dirt
The brown appearance
Offensive smell
With bugs that slim and crawl
You don’t want anything
To do with it
At all
Yet, there you are
Married with
The force of gravity
Kept down

Sky
The free expanse
Of blue and white
And purple
With flight of birds
And warmth of sun
It seems almost
An obscene wealth
Of goodness
Yet people in skies
Who fly in machines
Never seem lost
In the wonder
Of it

I wonder if the machines
Having been built
On dirt
Have clouded them
Or have they
Who have been built
Up from dirt
Been tarnished so
From the start
To never be able
To appreciate the
Wonders of the sky

I think about these things
And get down
During the passing days
Each one quicker than the last
Each sky coming and going
And never in my
grasp

my eyes are burning and i can’t sleep, even though i’m so, so tired
i just lay awake, thinking 
and what am i thinking about?
the ocean pouring over the rocks
skin irregularities
chest, love, life, mates, dog bites

i want to call you and say
take me away from here
make me bleed something real and strong and passionate
make me feel
make this moment more than it is
than it can be alone

i want to
but i don’t

my eyes are burning and i need to sleep
been too long a stretch without it now
gonna need some reserve tomorrow

you go on
and i hope you’ll think of me 
someday, sometime
and with a smile

ONE THING

There is one thing
Wanted
You
With listening eyes
And arms shaped round
A witty repartee
Two fools
Spending a day

--------------

SPRING

I often reflect on the soft sweetness of spring
the smell of fresh grass
and bulge of the bloom
how round and full the season is
with turbulent storms and hungry pollination
the people lightly browned with sun kiss
and as horny for love as the bees
Yes, the spring is a great joy for me

life swims
do you know what i mean?
the current is strong
and every second
flows on
the river of life
doesn’t stop for anyone
and it can feel like racing sometimes
like a surge
like a tsunamic force
pushing us beyond what
we feel we can stand
so we grab for stray branches
to slow us down
and sometimes cut limbs
get a pierce in the gut
when you fight it
you will struggle
and you still will not win
the force is too strong
and you are too small
other times the going is slow
and you flail your arms and legs
trying to pick up the pace
but there is no sprinting
in wild waters
you must go at the speed of the flow
you are given
that’s life

-silence-

the necessary thing
that sifts our beings
out of fog
and
into clarity

i’m reaching today
from inside
for something undefined

i feel it as an anger
that tenses up my face

i groan and flail
my butt in seat
my contempt as loud
and large as whales

i do not know what
saddens me
or from what seed
this anger grows

-silence-

i’m listening for answers
waiting for peace to come
the anger quiets in the absence of others
leaving only careful, lonely pause

the desire to hold on 
to keep this silent moment going
uninterrupted
and pure
not ad any more confusion to it

i’m stuck in a place of 
homesickness
but i’m not homesick for 
any home
nor any place
i’ve ever been
not even any one

i’m aching for the things 
i’ve never done
the places i’ve never been
the homes not yet lived in

i'm filled 
to the beast
in anger
sadness
sickness
longing
and
-silence-
for what’s to come

the bittersweet
hanging
uncertainty
of dreams
that may come true or 
simply come undone