Poetry: Wright Williams

Little Opal
and…brunette….
Silken barmaid.
In an apple red dress carelessly
tossing and shivering her hair
into the windy gusts of a hand dryer,
hiding in the bathroom, feigning
a smile into the glance of a thousand
pissers pulling fastly by the
Rusted door. In your time of youth
did your nylons tear
As you exited the car door
Running
screaming
Into the haunting darkness and
Fog of an aching and hallowed
Cemetery, feeling the drunk of
A thousand
Novembers?
Be little next to
The paper and the sink,
Be aware there is nothing
Left to drink that
hasn’t burnt someones
Throat and nose before.
Cackle into the bright sunlight
creeping its perversion through
the cinderwalls at the bar,
Rub cigarette ash below your brow,
Be ungentle, un’womanly’, die outside
Yourself.

i made a bed of grass,
and i wet the blades in red
wine. i cut a fresh branch off
a liana vine. i dug in deep for the
moss mattress. i made it look
like i had a noose for a
small pillow.

little bandage, i miss you and your/yer/yr/
youre sticky tacky tickling.
the sides of her calves, your rope,
it is a rough one against my
ankles.       up her knees, aganst and against
leaving little splinters, slivers, slices,
giving me a home and a humble hum – coughing
calling and hanging up, culling the heads
off the younger flowers. can i have you come
sit with me on the baked oak of the
late-september front porch
and feel your ankles burn in the
residence of the sun?
can we call,
come over and
hang up and have a humble hum? i want to be
partially drunk and lying on the floor of
your sisters room as she sits
on the old oak dining-chair and plays
her cello. your dad barking off behind us,
the sun setting behind the windows, screened by branches and shadows
of the maple out in your parents front yard. I am here and i
am hearing and i am feeling the weight of
no one doing nothing.

they are aware
that i love you. does this upset you?
in the tree you are sleeping,
curled up with the small birds.
they are a blanket that you really should wash.
their wings are broken,
their feathers are falling off
like the bread flour of a cattail.