Peter Pan
with end rhymes borrowed from “Ozymandias”, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I was young, and am, and will be, and live in a Land
where always is Never. On the verge—a dropped stone
in flight unless I think happyhappy over the pirate sand.
Go away shadow! Come back! What makes me frown
I need, although I don’t know why. Command
is lonely business. Ask the Captain, he’s well-read
by Hook or by crook, ha! I do what I want, I do things
bravely and best. Lost Boys need to be fed,
need to be bed, need for a Mother to appear,
tsk tsk their nightmares away. All children are Kings,
and Warriors! Our swords slay the beasts of despair
before they ever chance to grow up. To decay.
I never see the seasons change or the trees go bare.
Time is a clock a croc will swallow…and swim away.
Yellow Speaks
Ancient, nomadic, ocherous: what do I know of happy?
My sun-smoke father did not trouble us with happy.
From humble I come, smears on city streets, boots awash
in urine, faded linen hung on branches, was that happy?
Jaundice, fever, rotting teeth, my mother going mad
on moonless nights. Many a beer-flavoured fist of happy
fought me around a tavern fire, my vagrant happy
a longship that sails whatever the weather. O happy
bananas, lemons in gardens, yellow dresses in yellow
taxis, do these things please you? Van Gogh, happy
to paint me, used me most of all. Fresh-baked, butter
-addled, saved for special, all the times I fed you happy,
fed you wretched, succoured your hunger-grief. If you live
what you call a long time, does that mean happy?
Bright among honey-scented petals, look! Goldfinch gather,
their cries so clear, so abundant, I could die now, happy.
Failure Goddess #4
Failure Goddess, unlucky charm,
green ruckus, how you string
me along, eat my questions one
by one, nail my heart into shoes
never worn or worn to ruin.
Do you want me
to end up alone? Leprechaun,
I’m the pot of gold
you still haven’t found.
Make it up to me with a bouquet
of all my favourites:
quandary, slipknot, fever, jaundice—
such pretty colours! Tell me I’m
the one & I will never ask again.
Marlene Dietrich Wakes Up
Devil sun, it’s you again
nosing your way into
my bedroom, like a dog
looking to lift its leg.
Don’t you know I’m Blonde Venus,
still wearing my tuxedo
of dreams? In my cinema
subtext is invitation:
I am a fedora—
dashing into shadows—
a corridor of moons,
flower that blooms
best at night. Diva sun,
you want me
in the boat of morning ready
to sail, but I’m the star here,
dah-ling! I will put you in jars
like cold cream on my vanity
to apply sparingly
throughout the day.
2049
Walmart exists but trees don't well a few here
& there.
Scattered soldiers on the battlefield.
Bit of quaintness
for a mergered world. Zoom books say oceans
are a lie only old fools like me believe
& we will all soon die.
History is what they used to call
the news. Young ones want nothing to do
with attics jars lavender the stink
of ancientness
a scourge. Factories are back hey
jobsjobsjobs.
No more poverty no more homelessness no more we
manufacture factsforall maaam factotums
in a diamond economy ooooh many faceted.
Smoke
rules the world & with our boots we go a stompin
loudly thruu the beeloud glade
making ash our king
& the price of a life
worth living.
Patricia Aya Williams grew up in San Jose, CA. She is a Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize recipient, Pushcart Prize nominee, and Steve Kowit Poetry Prize finalist. Her microchap Haiku for Parents was published in 2020 by Origami Poems Project. Her work has appeared in Santa Clara Review, The Good Life Review, Dunes Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Writers Resist, and elsewhere. She is also a visual artist, creating images using her iPhone and mobile art apps. She has been a member of North Country Photographic Society for several years and participated in several exhibits there and elsewhere, winning recognition for her work.
In addition to writing and photography, Patricia loves Soul Line Dancing—line dance choreographed to R&B, hip hop, soul, and contemporary hits—and Japanese Obon Festival dancing, and participates every chance she gets. She and her husband, Chris, live in San Diego with their French Bulldog, Binxy Elton Williams. http://beingpatricia.com
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