New and Selected
Poems
Dawnell
Harrison
© MMXV Dawnell Harrison
ISBN: 978-1-927593-49-3
Published by Fowlpox Press
New and Selected
Poems
Dawnell
Harrison
Acknowledgements
1. The Maiden Sky – Conceit Magazine
2. Describing Life – Fowl Feathered Review
3. Crop Dusting and Other Atrocities –
Essence
4. A Party – Blue Pepper
5. Angie –Hazmat Literary Review
6. Dresses in a Hovel – The Puckerbrush
Review
7. Lady in Waiting – The Tower Journal
8. Tiger Lilies – Blue Pepper
9. Exhale – Ascent Aspirations Magazine
10. Heavy – Fowl Feathered Review
11. Eye – Black Magnolias
12. Happy – Midwest Poetry Review
13. Burnt Fish – Clark Street Review
14. Anywhere Town – Nerve Cowboy
15. Sad Moon – Allegro Poetry Magazine
16. Bury – The Screech Owl
17. The Unknown – Fowl Feathered Review
The Maiden Sky
I dine on sunshine
And chocolate
In the spring.
New colors, new days
Weigh lightly
As if on a cloud
That’s billowy, soft
And true
In the maiden sky.
The roses
With their thick, blood colors
Look like little virgins
All tucked into themselves
Before the quixotic bloom.
Their magnetism
Obviously apparent –
You can almost
Hear the colors breathing.
Describing Life
I am the lost verb,
The noun scurrying off
To some indefinite space,
A tsunami of love and
Indifference that is
Not solid or can be solid
Depending on the day,
The time, the endless
Blathering of my mind.
I have been given the body
Of a female but my thoughts
Are androgynous,
My physical address is
uncommon,
My days of wanting men are
over.
I want to be a stalactite and
A stalagmite at the same time.
I float lilies downstream.
I have never skinny-dipped.
Is there a warp in time
That I can visit or a place
Where time does not exist?
Crop Dusting and Other
Atrocities
Today a plane was flying so low
that
I thought it was going to crash –
Turns out it was spraying
pesticides
Over the hope and other crops in
the area.
Can’t wait to inhale the toxins.
We recently had a pack of ants
In our kitchen about 100 strong
In the gang.
It was all -out warfare with an
arsenal
Of 4 ant traps lined-up near the
kitchen sink.
They all died within 24 hours –
As if they had a chance.
Our septic system filled-up today
and
My Dad had to dig up the cover
In the front yard.
He was about six feet off when
he
Started digging so everything was
A dirty rotten whore.
It’s understandable.
A Party
The rocks in my front yard
Are gemmed with rain –
A mill of rain drops
Battle with the forecast
Bruising the sky purple
And black.
A party at my house –
The human beehive buzzes
In one at a time as they
Lay their needs on me.
My heart is too small
For such desires.
I smile as if I truly care
As the headlights
Of cars trail down the street.
Nothing but the Rain
Nothing but the rain,
No footsteps on the gravel path –
No crunch, crunch sounds
Of somebody trying to find me.
I’m hiding out in the open.
The rain becomes snow –
Nowhere to go,
But this long alley
Has a story that is
A century old.
I hear a noise in the distance
And I turn around,
My small footprints
Etched in the snow.
You are smiling,
Approaching me –
Your hair laden
With crisp white snow.
Potato Bug
A few days ago I saw a potato bug
in the bathroom.
I left it there.
Saw it again today and decide to
recue it,
Being a cute potato bug and all.
This potato bug wasn’t your
average bug though.
It put up quite a fight before I
managed to gently,
Or so I thought, flick it into a glass
before taking it outside.
Problem was the potato bug hit
the bottom of the glass
And was stunned or I accidentally
killed the little critter.
The potato bug was completely
motionless.
Hoping for some sort of miracle I
placed the potato bug
Outside on a ledge. Feet to the
sky, I thought the bug was a
goner.
Checked back ten minutes later,
my potato bug was nowhere to
be found.
Smarter than most, I think he was
just playing dead.
Angie
Angie is dancing
On the table.
Easy to say she’s had
One too many.
You know who your
Friends are on nights
Like this.
Angie likes pills.
Pink, green, white, orange
And the entire rainbow really.
She forgets what some of them
Are for and just “wings it,”
As she says.
She’s been pushed
Too far today.
She’ll forget it all tomorrow
And I’ll recall everything.
Long taxi ride.
Dresses in a Hovel
I make dresses
Out of drapes.
We are poor
You know –
Who else would do
Such a thing?
I make dresses out
Of old blankets.
We eat bread
For breakfast, lunch
And dinner.
Who else would do
Such a thing?
When the dresses
Are worn out
I still use them
For rags to clean
Our hovel.
Who else would do
Such a thing?
I make dresses
In our hovel –
I makes dresses
Out of drapes.
Lady in Waiting
The lady in waiting
Cries hushed tears
At night after she’s
Waited on the royalty
As if they were gods.
She’d like to uproot them –
Corsets, teacakes,
And all.
The sky’s done for
As she gazes out
Of her small window
Into the night of her
Own undoing.
Another night where
Nobody will serenade her,
Another night indeed.
Poverty begins to weigh
Itself as an option.
Too many days of
Yes madam and yes sir,
No madam and no sir.
Although she would be
Penniless, she could
Unhook the stars
As if the
Were her own.
Tiger lilies
The moon frowns on me –
I disappoint her.
Six tiger lilies
Sit in a tubular vase
On the kitchen counter.
They are too wild for me –
Their spots throw me
Off balance.
They seem to lean on me
As their open mouths
Say feed me.
I have nothing to feed them –
These beasts in habiting
My house, my eyes,
My lukewarm assurances
From the world.
Ghost town
The pain under my ribs –
The ghost town in my soul.
The gnawing in my stomach
For something to fill it –
Bits of red glass fragments
Tear at my side relentlessly
And without mercy.
The sound of thunder rumbles
In my heart.
Life. Regret. Doubt.
If you lay your troubles
And insecurities at my feet
I will simply walk away.
My heart is too small –
A shriveled organ that once
Beat endlessly with sympathy
Intact.
Look behind my eyes and
You will find a blank stare filled
With flailing black crows.
Exhale
We are all
Waiting for
That next
Great moment
In time where
The sparrows
Stop momentarily,
Leaving their mark
On your life.
You exhale
Knowing that
The moment is
Embedded forever
In your soul
Like an embossed
Stamp that you
Place
On the back
Of an envelope
For decoration.
Bare
The sky was as bare
As a skull withered
To the bone and
The clouds were a wisp
Like a dream
Not remembered.
I lay still.
Wretched cartilage
Shifts around the joints
Of my bare bones.
I can almost hear
Them rattling like
A box full of sea shells.
So much ocean to hear
In just one small place.
I think of my emotions –
Bare and raw and unkempt.
I hope my skeleton will follow
Me on my journey to cast
Away from you like forgotten
hopes
And forgotten hands.
Heavy
Your soul is heavy
A bag full of steel girders.
The weight of it presses
Into my bones, my flesh,
Any tender parts I own.
I do not cry.
My soul is light and golden –
It cannot take on your
Soul’s infinite mass,
The untouchable red.
Eye
The days tumble
Over each other
The way a huge
Snowstorm can catch your eye
With its center, swirling.
I heard your voice
Burn into the night
Through the leaves,
Bustling in the trees
And making me recall
That night because
It was laden
With senses roaring
Into the next morning
When you woke
To coffee brewing
Hot and strong
In the kitchen
Where the light presses
Its voice into your eye.
Happy
I thought moving
To a new house
Would make me happy.
I had temporarily forgotten
That I’d be bringing myself along.
Burnt fish
Ivar’s. I must have been about
17.
Me and this cute guy named
Jaime use to burn fish
So we could eat it.
That was the rule anyway.
If it is burnt, don’t serve it to the
customer
And you can eat it.
I also would go in the deep freeze
and
Eat sunflower seeds used in the
salad bar.
One time I got caught but there
was no response
From Pete the manager. What’s
he going to say?
Spit those seeds out. No. So I
just swallowed
Hard. Big wad of seeds going
slowly down my throat.
Beverages were also fair game. A
very pretty girl
Named Beth and I used to make
cherry 7-up
With the juice from the
maraschino cherry jars.
Those cherries were used for the
ice cream toppings.
That was the best cherry 7-up
In the world because of that
maraschino juice. Heaven.
A fat girl named Sue used to call
out “courtesy check please”