Ding a
Ling Ling
The bronze bell
rang, atop the motel’s counter with birch carved up with fake
initials by lovers haunted by discretion .The chime beckoning
a dead reckoning from the hair of Pavlov's dog, in
linens lined with bloodthirsty bedbugs, when thoughts of his
lover’s nipple on the tip of a stranger’s tongue hijacked
his every thought with an offended eye towards the old testament’s fury as
written in the dog-eared pages of the Bible in room thirteen.
Hogtied
It’s the parts unknown
that weave lariats around the proponents of peace in mind, dragging them
through the dust of bone into dungeons dank and merciless, clouding vision and
altering perspective until rustlers herd our sensitive selves with numbing
concoctions of artificial relief. Catatonics led into corrals where bodies and
minds prepped for the slaughter, and the smug cowhands know damn well that if
you give the weak enough rope, they will certainly err, to the death, on the
side of abandoned caution.
Rubbed Wrong
Gladys sits in her usual
booth in the Eldorado
diner down a dingy block
from the YWCA dorms.
Eves as thin as her body
burning holes in her purse
as she drowns three packets
of Splenda in black java.
The short order cook,
Ramon, don’t flirt anymore
after he caught a wind of
one of her coughing fits.
A wretched howl
like some beast raging
in the darkness of a B
horror film from the fifties.
Leaving before the midnight
close, Gladys rubs keys
from a foreclosed home
against the black metal shine
of Ramon’s new Wrangler
as a pretty car can surely
handle a scar better than
a heart worn down to rust.
Small Dog in a Smaller Universe
Pecs aching from
posing
like an oak chest with a
bass
bark bellowing from
empty
drawers at the pearly
scales
of Pisces warning the
silvery
fish to flee to the
far off edge
of the celestial
sea, yet the shiny
spine of stars
holds fast, knowing
damn well the
buffalo balls
beneath fur and
reckless bluster,
the only big parts
of this cuddly,
only once in a blue moon
,cur.
This cat got no tongue
Some days, more than I care to
admit, I just laze about like an old fat cat with neither, the appetite or the
energy to pounce on any prey. A feline bloated with the blahs. With black
fur greying, not even badass enough to strike fear in the faintest of hearts on
Friday the thirteenth.
Too proud to purr for attention, I
just sit in front of the window, not to admire the savoury scenery, but to spy
my once spry reflection, in stunned silence of how long and white my whiskers
have grown overnight.
Tony Pena was formerly 2017-2018
Poet Laureate for the city of Beacon, New York.
The words have flowed intermittently over the years like a temperamental river with several poems rescued in the flood waters over time but most recently by Mono, The Erozine, and The Rye Whiskey Review with Best of the Net nominations in 2019.
A volume of poetry and flash fiction, "Blood and Beats and Rock n Roll," is available at Amazon.
A chapbook of poetry, "Opening night in Gehenna," is available from author.
Colourful compositions and caterwauling with a couple of chords can be seen at:
Www.youtube.com/tonypenapoetry Www.facebook.com/tonypenapoetry
Instagram. tonypenapoetry
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