six short poems

 

1.

I promise this will barely even twist your nipple…
This is just saying things like a ringer…
Look, this is a couple of sentences that make some demands on the meat in your skull…
Don’t be entertained!

2.

This is time to get off the drinking…
And get some hi-shiny look in your eyes…

It’s time to get some good poetry on the cooker…
Like some fucking sparkling goddamn golden tinkling ----t that spins around…

3.

This is supposed to be an independent thought…
But it is just a strained leash…

This is a poem!
You should be able to figure it out alright…

The first theme of it is “old fashioned drinking”…

4.

This is like crying while trying on different outfits…
This is like crying because you can’t open a jar…
This is also like crying in a ditch…
This is when you need to stop crying.
You pick up a pillow but you don’t want it. You look around…And then you sit down…
This is when you cry unexpectedly and you have to slap yourself on the knee.
This is when you look at the dinner table and start crying…
This is crying while wearing a hat…
And you pull down the sides of the hat…
This is “ow, ow, ow, ow”

5.

Oh, I would walk in the red wool corset dress and I would carry the machete…
I would have the cigarette in my mouth as I walked down the hallway.
Poetry is my fondest stunt…like standing on my hands in a dress…
There are no reasons to hang from the beams!

6.

This is a chain for you babe…
Babe, it goes around your throat…

 

Now yield to me…
That little bit of love that you have…

 

Chelsey Minnis lives in Boulder, Colorado. Her books Zirconia and BAD BAD were published by Fence Press. Her third book Poemland will be published by Wave Books.