“Words Can Sting Like Anything”*
Cool clean cut lines
of cold hearted slashes
gashes of color
drawn blood
sweat beads of fear
you didn’t mean
you didn’t know
how far your words
would go
to hurt.
* Title from the poem by Phyllis McGinley on silence.
Cruel Beauty
The nature of paranoia
feels persecuted by nature
sees flowers gossiping
their pistols pissing/hissing
stamens wagging
with stories about
the outsider
who turns away in tears
malicious, vicious words
pollinating the silence
while venomous stamens
draw ovules of blood
as the razor sharp leaves
slit slender petals
The Wooly Bully
I ask you– do I look like a bully?
My winter’s growth will soon be shorn
and I will be the “bullied.”
MOONSIDE 