Words
Alphabets
Soup
I said I love you
You sighed
Not now
My laundry is calling
I had call waiting
Forever
My plan expired
My love retired
I sent you a letter
In a painting
A Monet in time
Collage of flowers
Spring time in Paris
I poured the tears
I drank the wine
I yearned
For what else could one do?
No postal codes or postage due
My longing never ends
My heart is at its end
So I buy this postal card
From far away
I will never return
But will you stay?
Forwarding Address
by Odin Roark
Don’t forget to make out the postal card
‘Cause when you’re there
You’ll want all those
Parcels
Mail
Flyers
New phone books
And the precious junk mail
You’ll take your body
That burden you carry about
Of noticeable change
Avoiding mirrors
The one
Whose insides
Woven between brittle bones
Know muscle atrophy
Blood vessel collapse
Bowels contraction-in-waiting—again
Kidneys dreading more martinis
Heart and lungs wondering
WTF gimme some air
Some living blood
Et al
But still
You’ll drag your weary ass
Down the walk
Lick your lips
Open the lid
And voila
Postbox full of…yeah
Junk mail
Just like the good ol’ days
Back at the house
Before the damn retirement scam
Got your attention
C’mon
At least the complex has postboxes galore
What would it be like
With no daily stroll
To check for a card
A letter
A brown-wrapped gift?
It’d be like
The final reality
No need for
A forwarding address
Ever again
voices skating secrets across the rim of a wine glass,
breath advocating a glance. Plucking nerves like a guitar string
wind revealing the liars tongue,
never failing to encapsulate
the quiet tuck, serenades of existence
pouring solitude down a rusty rainspout
to particular seasons that shadow
a present future;
as corrupted stain glass contributes
a haunted soldered image.
We never fully realize the petals won’t wilt,
gardens remain constant
hope becoming a postal card;
parchments sealed with the adieu
real like hairline cracked sidewalks
sowed by constant sorrow.
Distribute me from your straight jacket of resents,
sanction me to feel the softness of
the salt water breeze;
a chance meeting with eyes unable to ascend
knowing that the plural form of time is indigo
you are violet.