Button It

Button It

Shut it. Cut it. Zip it.
Snip it. Nip it, buds
and titbits. Squash
it. Split it. Kill it, don’t

spill it. New gossip’s throat:
slit it. Lips bitten to bleeding.
No more leading sly questions.
Inviting in lies
for tea and tangling.
Sweet-limbed spangles
of undercooked wrangling.
Crude-hung lewd
suggestions spewed up
on my sofa
like dog’s vomit.

Keep your mouth closed.
Swallow it back:
this acid’s your own.
Choke.
We don’t want to know.

Now fuck off
with your stuck-pig
squiddling mewls.
Rules change. But
you don’t. Do you.

 

 

This was written for tonight’s “Buttons” prompt at DVerse…  http://dversepoets.com/2012/06/30/poetics-button-button/

Smirk Or Smile?

This is for anyone who has ever felt tongue-tied in front of someone they really, really like…

 

Smirk Or Smile?

You’re pithering about, your pride cupped close
over your balls: to hide, to protect, to give up, to
keep out. You’re dithering, dreaming: carving up
each craving. Your blabbermouth wittering cuts

your tongue dead. You feel her looks withering
those careful-constructed witty asides, the ones
that sounded so good in the bathroom’s echo
and splash, addressed to the loofah. She is not

a loofah. Or a sponge. She’s not soaking you up
or soothing your spine. She’s got two ears and
a brain, two legs to walk away. Shoulders to turn
cold to your blithering. Wide mouth to smirk and

eyes to roll in exasperation. And, oh god, your
pits start to squidge with perspiration and you’ve
a sly inkling your breath stinks You need a drink.
Delete this whole conversation. Abort! Abort!

But actually, is she not smirking… but smiling…?

Ways To Say…

Ways To Say…

Could dispatch
a carrier pigeon,
or twit a Tweet,
or S.W.A.L.K.
a snail mail.

Could puff a smoke signal,
or click a Facebook “poke”.
Could tag a photo.
Could flick a virtual

kiss. Could say
something with flowers
or a Gorilla-gram.
Or just thumb

a text.
Short.
Succinct.
Smiling.
To say….

Yes? In the old days
(y’know, Pre-Millennium?)
we used to just
pick up the phone…

(…pulse pounding,
handset slippy in hot palm,
twirling the cord
round nervous fingers,
quick breath echoing
back on the dial tone…)

… just pick up the phone
and call.
If we wanted.

It’s still an option…