MsCellanea

Seeing Believing Falling for Something that's Nothing yet Everything and Wondering for Reasoning and Sensing the Spinning away from Controlling while Fearing yet Running along with the Beating of Drumming that's Echoing through the Progressing of Living and Dying I'm Trying to be Holding back Rushing and Crying and Living and Doing whatever I'm Wanting and Panting for breath and Striving to dream Blooming amidst all the Glaring and Staring I thrive          I survive.

Rain fell. In plump, heavy drops, it poured out of the gaping, dark sky above.  It shattered into spray as it smacked the pockmarked cobbles and dry, hard earth.  Perhaps if one could listen closely enough, they might hear their faint, watery screams as they flew helplessly to their end.  Perhaps.  It seeped through the loose weave of his cloak as he plodded down the empty streets, boots dragging through puddles.  He shivered and urged his old bones to hurry.  Drops slid down his nose in a steady, patient line to fall upon his lips, then to chin and finally to melt into his clothes to join a thousand of their brothers.  He arrived at the ent

We sit down at a large table, and I decide that I will never wear nylons again. The things are riding up most uncomfortably, bagging around my heels and chafing my hips. I adjust my skirt self-consciously, thinking remorsefully of the pair of jeans lying broken on my bedroom floor, ordered to be replaced by this hated skirt and awful nylons. It was just a little awards banquet. But at least I hadn't overdressed. I watch as the rest of the young writers file in, boys in nice shirts and ties and girls in blouses and skirts. Of course, the girls don't look uncomfortable in the least with their nylons. They glide like swans over the cool white ma

We seem the same.  One day, you may know this. In all the classes we converge within Through the same paths we walk down the similar halls And in that we buy the same brand of mechanical pencil We have lived in the same neighborhood Watched the same plays unfold on the stage of the world For the same fifteen years How when you walk, you swing your arms just as I do Your mother drives a blue van, just like mine I've seen you tie your shoes and you still do bunny-ears, like me And you friends point this out with laughter in their voices, as did mine We've done the same assignments for the same teachers Had problems with the very sam

Girl sits. Watching the glass boil and bubble With clenched hands. Where women speak with nervous shivers Discussing things great and darkish Speaking truths and lies from behind windowpanes. And what is there to gain? What is there to gain? Girl sighs. Great claws pluck her gently up And drop her into the chaos that still boils in death throes. I cannot speak for knowing That a wind is ever blowing. For this is what I have been taught In my plastic desk that gasps and grasps a plastic chair tight to its side With a thin metal arm like a sapling in a storm This is the norm. Girl screams. Skin searing as claws open mercifully

               I was always one to take the lucky things.  I pluck four-leaved clovers from their brothers by the juicy stems, I pick pennies off the street and scrape the tips of my fingers on the sooty gravel, I wish on feathers and eyelashes and dandelions.  There are five rabbit feet strewn in corners and crannies about my house, seven outnumbering the lipstick cases in my purse, and a large green one that dangles morbidly from my rearview mirror.  There is a bamboo plant in every room of my house except for the closets, because they died when I put them there.  There is a horseshoe on my front door.                My husband left me fo

Where I can stand to speak, I speak to stand And count the red leaves fallen from the trees When life moves on in heaving, retching steps Men are gifted without saying please With heads bowed, trundle tundra 'neath your toes And listen to the rushing roar of air As nothing moves in dying, nor in life But we find eerie comfort hidden there There is a love within the blinking eyes That darkly monitor from blackened holes For something out there wanly watches me Wading wetly through this desperate life I stole Crinkled papers tend to sell the lies That all the stand-ups do perpetuate What's in the sky?  They whisper of a hero But

This is the delicate point Where this chunk of earth standing solo on a salty precipice Blinks down at rocks and neon lights (The water’s frozen, jump right in- shatter splatter) This is the moment where the child in bright overalls shakes the cage Rusted bars And every point of existence is airborne in grand regalia (Trumpets blare, confetti- listen carefully) Glory of entropy Blind men wear blind folds And why? (Don’t look down, up, back- tunnel vision) We pause to juggle plates To analyze these glances that we stole From behind curtains and moons (There is none to be found- we search) We are one of a kind, six b

Our toes can kiss the scarred and pitted ground As, skimming, we put shame to eagles high, For our wings aren’t as feathered, nor as sound But- on the toes- we step the steps to fly. The sounds recall such little of the air While strings sing sloping lines of lust and love. And yet! We fly with fervor dark though there Accepting these as bird cries from above. At flight, one finds a sacred, frozen still That silence and a cool wind do impart. Yet here- ‘round sweat and snaps and thrill A just as precious course we find we chart. We slow, we bow, we leave- as was the deal, But feathers in our feet stay just as real.

Animals had always possessed a peculiar aversion to Ms. Harding.   It was one of those great mysteries, like the chicken and the egg, the existence of extraterrestrial life, or whether old Mrs. Mordecai’s hair was more blue or purple.  These things were hard to tell.  No amount of combing the past would ever turn up the origin of such an everlasting terror.  And even if it would, who would honestly take the time to explore the machinations of a woman like Ms. Harding? I would. Let me explain something about Ms. Harding before I go any further.  She was a young woman, not married, fresh