It's Still Life

Breakfast at 2 Hours Past Noon Hash browns, white pepper, salt And ketchup, two bright-eyed eggs, Basted. Crispy bacon and Raisin toast with Blood red jam, and Cups of coffee, black and hot as Tallahassee nights. And there’s White noise From a wall-mounted TV That fills the middle ground with Conversation from a war-torn town.…

To Dream of Sleep I hear him yawning. It’s a long, sorrowful sound, like a moaning loss for whatever it is that we sleep for. AI Digital Art: created using Midjourney’s bot (v4b) Image and poem ©Misky 2022 Shared on Twitter #amwriting

The Piano The piano goes in the basement.Dad insisted. He said he couldn’thear the TV when I practised. Our piano was missing two back wheels.Lost them when the piano fell downthe basement stairs. It was a laid-back thing. Looked drunkup against the cement block wall.That wall, always wet during winter. Just opposite it was a…

Plummeting A bit of weather’s coming.Arctic air, sharp as a hawk’s beak, and snowcreeping down the map. Pale and shiny.White as an albatross. It melts our houses. AI Digital Art: created using Midjourney’s bot (v4b) Image and poem ©Misky 2022 Shared on Twitter #amwriting

Opening Windows The world is broken and glued,he says with a bone-grinding calm. We two are like cheques,nobody expects us to be balanced. He’s making a sandwich,bologna, or something that looks like it,and he asks if I want one. Thank you, no. I answer. And he recalls when he’d pop around the cornerfor a smoke,…

Box those scarred handssuggest age beyond numbers, oh, wondrous stories thosehands could tell, if just someone asked, but todaywith long-blade sheers in hand, he’s alonewith his thoughts and talent, silentlyclipping, snipping away strays, sculptingancient box hedges into surprising shapes. AI Digital Art: created using Midjourney’s bot (v4b) Image and poem ©Misky 2022 Shared on Twitter…

Snow Cries Out for a Crow I want to dreamsummer across the snow. Nosnow,or snowydirt. Nogrey anything. Noblue handsor quaking bones. There’s nofoothold, grip or tread. I want to drawheat across my skin. Snow cries out for a crow. Image: Digital Art in the style of L. Lowry ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter

Distractions Is it dreaming where he goes,or is it somewhere quietbetween those paragraphs.Quiet is no distraction for us. We’ve been quiet for hours.I’m reading Richard Osman,he’s reading the newspaper. He reads it from front to back, and sleeps between paragraphs.Wakes, resumes reading, anddoesn’t miss a step. And I look past him to the wall, from…