Lick Us, We Melt Like Peppermint and Other Poems

Five poems

This is a small grouping of five poems I’ve written over the past year. Some are funny, some are eclectic. I’ve never shared them publicly before, so go easy. They’re not necessarily my best, but I like them because they’re all a bit different. Take that as you will…

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Sounds of Silence

Never thought the eight of us 
would sing the Paul Simon classic,
lyrics lit up on our cell phones,
an impromptu church choir,
companions after a long day.

Strangers welcoming others
to join us, everyone combining
into a wild blend of dialects -
giving this sad meditation 
a worldly interpretation.

Each of us arrived here alone,
having walked through morning
and afternoon rains, moths 
drawn to the light of this hostel.
Singing the verses like vespers.

Three weeks in and still walking. 
Hard country for an ancient shrine. 
Weary, foot sore, aching back.   
A song I, too, sing.
Unpacking my companion.

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Garage Band

We hated our group sessions in therapy, 
believing ourselves immune as a fearsome, rock band foursome–
together mocking our twit of a counselor and his psychoanalytic babble. 
Singing lead, I preened into my pocket comb, my voice steeped in benzodiazepine. 
Tommy, humping to his own jizz, thumped slick rhythms on flipped waste can bins,
while Joey, in his comatose grace, mop in tow, mumbled low like an up-tight bass, 
but you–our trice-tried suicidal leader who succumbed to the lies that summer– 
You careened around the commons room with a stolen, supply-closet broom,
scatting out a loud guitar riff for all the twitching bathrobe bleeders. 
You cursed us as a bunch of southern fried, piss-ant boozers,
letting the institutional eyes of swish-sly Tsetse flies
trick us into self-loathing losers.

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Lick Us, We Melt Like Peppermint

Bedraggled and exhausted, we chime in Hosanna
and, presto! - as the deadline approached,
we spy the sparkling silhouette of our cult leader 
in a lotus pose hover above the bent lamp post.

A gadfly in a pink leotard and red bandana, 
she murmurs an intoxicating mantra we learned
in studios of her Paris home and London’s Denmark 
Street loft before her aluminum tycoon returned.

We find it hard to absorb her yoga positions 
while she submerges her lower state for upper-case fare, 
swooning off blue waters of the Mediterranean coast, 
spiritual broadcasts on a yacht owned by her billionaire. 

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Snow in Quatrains

Birds

Daylight flurries at the feeder.
More cardinals than he’s seen before.
They scatter close to the ground.
Red streaks slash across snow.

Morning

He walks through a falling sky.
The dog shakes a wet, white coating.
Boots crunch on hidden needles.
Footsteps lost in driving snow.

Drifting

Pines rise like ghosts in the forest.
Silent shadows deep and buried.
His dog leads him to the quarry.
Swans swim in slush of snow.

Lunch

He sips hot soup at the table.
His wife stirs a pot on the stove.
She, too, looks like a wild swan.
Head tucked, she doesn’t see snow.

Ann

He knocks with homemade soup.
They know, she’s dying. 
He hears her coughing from inside.
Her son suffocating in snow.

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The Door Between Worlds

opens, I step through
with you into the field
of alfalfa and clover. 
Though we stumble 
under the brilliant moon,
we walk hand-in-hand
sharing an unsettled
sense we are alone. 
This happens so rarely -
people always waiting 
to encroach on our time-
we bask in the joy 
of this new-found
freedom: a moon-
bathed path leading
to a rushing brook.
The sound of it
washes over us.  
I believe you and I
are the only ones.
If we lock the door,
this could become
our very own
garden.

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Which of these five is your favorite — I’d truly love to know. Do you have any stories from your own life that relate? Please do share in the comments.