New poem….

Her Other Name

Thoughts of Cinderella are
conjured in solitude as a mind
screams at it’s owner in
the empty king-size bed.

Rust colored stains mark the mattress
as the scabs of broken blisters
are picked with the shards of
ill-fitting glass slippers.

The ceiling stares down with a
kind and familiar face,
and flourescent light scalds the retinas
of windows too tired to cry.

Once upon a time there was
a land where you were not sad
and if you close your eyes, you see it
through the scrim of dark and grief.

New poem…I’ve been lost in a sea of papers for school.  Was nice to take a few moments to write something besides fake grant proposals.  Working title is “Seamonster” but I am not sure I like it.  Please let me know if you think of anything.

Jan

Seamonster

It was a shiny, plastic cup,
red, the kind one finds at parties,
and it was filled with the ocean.

The sand in this cup was white and
cradled tiny shells which were lost
homesteads of miniscule creatures.

The dreams in the sand were a child’s
and she would hold it in her hands,
wishing for a life near blue sea.

She made for it an altar on
a beat-up cedar treasure chest
with mermaids taped to its facade.

In her sleep she swam with dolphins
and one day, lost in a daydream
she failed to hear her mother’s call.

Angry arms knocked down the altar
and a slap turned away fresh tears
as carpet swallowed up the beach.

As she tried to scoop the remnants
into her small and trembling hands,
her mother grabbed a long straw broom.