When my heart beats too fast it sets off an alarm. My watch keeps count to the tick, tick, talk of my grandmother clock. Imagine a woodpecker beating a ratta-tat-tat into the bark of a tree to harvest a grub. Maybe this is too graphic—let me say—it’s as if I’m up to the yin-yang in sugar-laced marzipan. When I write, each tick of my pen records a tock of … Continue reading Everything’s Tickity-Boo by Dale Champlin
Her head presents large as a cabbagewhen I pluck her from my garden—stony ground all but bare after harvest.She looks the way I want to remember her—a salad—tulle of lettuce leaves pale as the embrace of her pea-pod green eyes.She demurs with a wilting expression.I add three cups of arugula, julienned cucumber,a handful of basil leaves, slice an avocado in halfand prise out the pit to … Continue reading Green Goddess Dressing by Dale Champlin
“How frequently has melancholy and even misanthropy taken possession of me…“-Mary Wollstonecraft My life is the size of a Cheerio—brittle as oats,something missing in the center.Rooms cramped and dismal, dust mites lurk in every crevice.My life’s soul is the same as everyone else’s soulbut without the music—only a base trackhumming with the low vibrationof an electric fence. It grows moodyand remote the way dry winter aircracks … Continue reading I Hate the Whole World by Dale Champlin
the day is getting closerclimbing like a high notesoft as a whisperbetrayal Lord now it (the note I mean)swings back and forth on a current of airand you’re just a slip of a thingit’s all I can do to lie still beneath thebedcoversthe pale breath of youcatching in my throatI trynot to thinkor not to think too much or I might die of something or otheror spend … Continue reading Oh the feel of it by Dale Champlin
after “Love Letter” by Diane Seuss Dear X, I’ve learned you so well, like a dog-eared book read once too often. Repeated lines keep coming back to haunt me. But what can love be if it is a past tense event? I think the expression might be love’s lost or something of that nature. To my way of thinking, the affection you were after was … Continue reading Dear X by Dale Champlin
“and even you forgot those brilliant flashes seen from afar” —Ruth Stone I should have taken you up on that trip to Mexico—my only chance to swim in the gulf, to surfthe exotic and erotic; tequila, bizarro birds,burnished sunrise through slats in the shutters,instead of a turndown. My big mistake was to playthe fool—too cool for school. I should have held youin my strong arms, … Continue reading Regretfully Yours by Dale Champlin
The stars know everything—how we toiledover every piece of furniture we own—the mohair sofa with its button tufts,the dining room table sweat-polished smoothas glass, your dad’s easy-glide Barcalounger.We thought the bed too tame—mundaneas white-on-rice. That was before we did it on the lawnat four a.m., the boat dock when the tide was out, the army hammock and the diving board.We worked over the meadow, the hayloft,the … Continue reading Come, Lovers of Dark Corners by Dale Champlin
-for my husband I have climbed you like a flagpole and left you at half-mast.I have run roughshod over you then begged for more.I have cracked you like a safe and looted all that I could carryI have cried on your shoulder and hung you out to dry.You are Everest to my Mariana Trench, a matchstick to my bonfire. I duck when you deluge and squint when you shine.You mean the world … Continue reading Otherwise by Dale Champlin
I’m liking this thing called sex, the way my spineroots me to the bedclothes; my DNA tinglesinto my ecstatic shoulders, the branchesof my arms to my fingertips—thoughtdissolves—delicious oblivion. I float, a girl again,maybe a boy. Under my goosebump fleshall splayed ringlets—I elevate, scrumptious. Crucified between cloud-drift and gravity, I go the distance; a cry arcs full-bodied,unrhymed from the shivers at my foot, by wayof my hummingbird … Continue reading This Thing Called Sex by Dale Champlin
When our affair endedthe bed, the linens, the pillows witheredtaking our shrill moans with them.Even the dust on the carpet was still, so quietand threadbare—gray where vibrant plush used to be.I hated to see the wreckageand I hated to see the termination of our lust.I hated to see us go. At the beginningthe weather was good, I remember.We watched spring birds sing their hearts outcarnal … Continue reading The End by Dale Champlin
