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Monday, August 3, 2015

Shannon P. Laws ----- three poems

Death’s Dip
of Confession of a Mattress
            by Shannon P. Laws

FREE mattress. A queen size pillow top
Took it home, laid it in the frame
First night—I rolled into a dip
a body shaped dip
on the left side

A person taller than me, wider than me
created a dip that I roll into
a bedridden, sickly person
left a death dip

No problem, I think, I’ll just sleep on the right
every night to even things out
Yet, every morning I wake in the dip

My bed, now a metaphorical display
divides my psyche down the middle
The dip is comfortable, soft, form fitting
It feels like a hug in my lonely bed.

It is as comfortable as my father’s depression,
a heavy-known feeling of failure,
like a person reluctant to leave their bed
Successful people are not children
Few people achieve success
Those that do are vain and far from God
My familiar spins tires, set on park.

This I confess to you:
            I sleep with death


                        —and I like it



Skin Suit Sewn Too Tightly
          By Shannon Laws

As a doctor sucks poison from a bite
the red rock of Bisbee calls out ghosts
The dead come back to walk again
Reincarnation of secondhand spirits
as secondhand furniture

The dresser is painted now
The couch new cloth
The set of chairs split apart
The headboard used for vines

In your years of living
the painting under the painting
a past covered over and over
with false stories of forgotten moments
Moments made to fill the gap of time
the hungry use between reading
the menuordering the meal

Fat of the present melts off
dead blood returns moisture
to the air, dries your muscles tight
Tight as new couch fabric
White as the dresser
Your sets of ribs pull apart
Your head a plot of vines




 Leaf Tattoo
          by Shannon P. Laws


You can you feel it
in my city
the change of air
as wind folds in
fall’s weather.

Orange leaves appear on
the sidewalks of Holly Street.
No worms to dance them back to soil.

Cement laden, laid on
the roadside in random patterns
leave a tattoo, imprinted on the stone.
Five pointed stars tree hand
pressed by feet and rain
bleed orange ink for all to see.

By winter the marks wash away
By spring, bright green babies wave
at us from their mother’s arm

born back into our memory.



1 comment:

  1. Thank you Koon for this opportunity. I enjoy your publication.

    ReplyDelete