So many places for me

these days

so many faces…

So many close-ups

and sketchy sketches of

character…
 
 

but nowhere to say I’m scared

lonely unsure sad and oh so

disillusioned

how I really feel

Not enough emoticons or something

Can I post it here?

framed as rhetoric

as essay

or poem

with Lifesaver wrapper

and lemon drop moves

with peppermint bark boats

impugning puns

and double-dipped candy coat..?

…

Better not. Don’t want to set a tone, you know

“see the tone—be the tone”

and nerve-hitting inflection is invariably monotone

its over sweetened bitterness

like day old coffee with too much sweet-n-low

What about facebook?

Twitter?

can I Post it to every network there is…?

a meme miming maim

a leper leaning lame

(different but the same)

clever slogans, all…

dontcha think?

What do you think?

Comment, please

Reply.

Tell me where it’s safe to say

I’m drowning.

Should I add it to a recipe

take pictures of waterfalling guts

and heart beating high-speed?

a cup of this

a pint of that

a bit of temporally modified allowance, please

since RDA doesn’t cut it.

It can’t fortify a

soul trapped in limbo

‘can’t even scrape the top

’cause facades—like meringue–depend

on toothpick scaffolding

on timing

on cellophane

and the right camera angle, besides.

Where do you suppose I

scream, then?

(in color, of course)

Pinterest?

(but of course in color)

in purple and yellow headlines?

not Laker purple

but People Eater Purple

and thoughtful Yellow…

projectile spew

that’s beyond  bloodless verse

silencers

reverse

and team colors

since there is—in fact nowhere

nowhere age appropriate

to scream virtually

(the roller coaster is silent)

no armor sufficient to withstand the depths

of human depravity

and it is deep

so deep I need to pluck out every eye there is

and I still can’t Un-see it.

Can’t Un-know it.

Honesty hides

and Truth cowers,

mainstream as soul-robbing

as Special Interest.

Well, so much for fiery clipart

and to hell with ALL CAPS, too.

I’ll take the round-trip bridge

I’ll circle back in dog-wagging tales

there’s no toll at’all that way

No palpable toll, at least…

In genres and versions,

editions and takes,

Rebussed fortunes

of

incremental

DIY

potboiler,

missing

dogear.

©Karen Robiscoe

 
a fallen pen

is worth a bend

it changes what’s created,

a verse rehearsed

not best, nor worst,

but found will permeate it,
 
 
 
you’ll write afresh

and see anew

two quick collaborators,

a view now meshed

and quest unbound,

through script will be dictated,

so next time chance

a glancing scan,

from path you wend past grated

—guttered curbs

in towns and burbs,

since blurb might be awaiting,

in form of pen

misplaced by men,

or women as they gaited

where you now tread

unwrit, unread

and consequently fated

to blend and flow

from melded souls,

if only designated

passer-by

would bend & try

to channel lost translators…

 ©Karen Robiscoe

(Inspired by a pen found in passing as I finished up a run 🙂 )

 
He wore blue on Mondays
baby blue
and so regularly, too
you could set your clock by it
and maybe the sun did
since it was always sunny when you were with Baby Blue
 
 
On Wednesdays, he wore grey
baby blue outfit in need of laundering, now,
laundering that somehow fell behind
depleting water unremarked
and extra scoops of
poppy-scented detergent added mid-wash
detergent so strong it near washed Baby Blue away along with it
and maybe it did
since the sky was suddenly grey that day at Baby Blue’s

By Friday, Baby Blue wore Black
* for the first time *
horribly slimming it was, too
(for the last time)
but stylish teak hampers brimmed
with charred bits of Baby Blue by then
sealed with hella strong Krazy Glue
and nary a handful of ashes scattered to the wind
since six feet is a long way to dig for freedom
and shouting
though helpful
won’t get that grass stain out
I’m sure that it won’t
Not when nightfall eclipses afternoon sky
and arrives
without twilight.

©Karen Robiscoe

 
 
Reverse centaur,

my horse gallops inside.

Careening into ribs

—circling cerebral stalls

—pawing emotional tundra

—digging through dirt for wild sage.

A spooked rush to aim Maltov Cocktails toward the dark…

Defective pyrotechnic shows

that confound lassos

and burn petrified barns.

Stippling withers of

Freudian chimera with ember.

Uncarved, exploding

not-wholes

that brand as they illuminate—

8.
 
 
8 unfenced paths by the Sea,

8.

Interwoven as wire without barb

or sticking point.

©Karen Robiscoe

 
Her name meant pure

that dirty little girl

shunned when it mattered

and included when it didn’t

cancer despairing at maternal comparison

but still.

she was pure.

In the Bible you could find her

evenly decoded

in equi-spaced lettering

in Moses 7:53

357 backward and the same number of gun

Diane used to kill herself

portentously enough

—enabling rewind.

Her monogram spelled

Nana’s love

perfectly

a defining Kismet

a defiant and relentless legacy

greyed and purposefully murky

>on the outside<

not esoteric

not multi syllabic

depressing, but not for the sake of pretense…

For her.

©Karen Robiscoe