Grey Sparrow Journal

Summer 2010, Issue 5

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Single-Cell

 

by Carol Lynn Grellas


 
One day, in a fidget of time
while limbs reached end to end
through a catacomb sky, a child
 
longed for the mother and father
as if the hierarchy could render
him back from whence he came.
 
Misplaced among the wooded forest
where boughs locked their tangled
limbs, diagramed against the rainy
 
canvas of unparalleled proportion,
his head pressed until bones barked
skinless; he grew through the outer layer
 
of a tree, as if the womb that birthed him─
no longer in search of spring’s raiment
nor tertiary wings, the boy wept
 
while the decay of humaneness
turned to mulch and a firefly
lit the night to a daunting, umber glow.
Mercy
 
by Carol Lynn Grellas
 
 
When the peonies
ask for forgiveness
 
they shed their petals
in the glorious sun
 
one at a time,
sweet as the cowbell
 
in the far-off field
that bows the head
 
from a weighty
clapper. You my dear
 
are the third
degree burn
 
that peels the skin
from a heated tongue
 
your voice unchaste
with a hint of chocolate-
 
and I have learned
the power of suffering
 
marooned without you
my nectar sucked dry.
 
 
Tainted Blend
 
by Carol Lynn Grellas 
 
 
May I have a dirty martini please?
I’d like to roll the olives back
between my tonsils, balanced there,
 
under the influence of brine juice
and gin while murmuring words that become
undecipherable through the hum
 
of dry vermouth, stir the ingredients
like a cocktail shaker, serve you chilled;
so icy-nice until you quiver and beg
 
for mercy, just enough time to spit
out the pit, say I love you, in three
different languages, a head cocked maven,
 
like Ava Gardner in her famous pose;
your very own Venus with a dash
of wicked and shocking thrown in.
 

 

 

 

© Three Poems, Carol Lynn Grellas 

©Microsoft Clip Art/Photography

 

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