Avatars Dissolve on the Wind
mountains of them,
breathless idolaters
linked under an umbrella-blue-sky,
hundreds like underwear crammed in a suitcase
helter skelter compost piles of them,
caterwaul encouragement,
medal bearers lavish them with gold,
silver-capers drape them,
spring’s leaden warm air lulls them.
festivities buried beneath
an ear-splitting smog
breath whisked away in a screaming chariot
calm adrift on a madding sea,
reduced to pulpy street dross,
limbs afloat in a wind of howls
cordite-choking cloud
a shroud.
vermilion walk of fame stars mark their being.
avatars dissolve on a wind of desiccated truths
under the blue umbrella
before piles of limbs
and streets to be washed
dressed in a soft-down of teddy bears.
Amalek, Feared No God
The tired ones hung back
walk-weary lines of them
snaking the rear
shuffling gait
young ones their crutches.
Youthful steps moved the others forward
heads mounted to their goal
inattentive to the rear.
Amalek swore to his soldiers
he would preserve them,
desiccate the healthy,
consume the old and bent.
Godless ones licked their lips,
for the laggards were a tempting lot
easily consumed
swept away before so
the others could mourn.
They ate the rear with
cannibalistic gusto.
Youth buried beneath their weak,
laved in their blood.
A storm of tears unglued the skies.
Men razed their dreams,
the meek,
the weak,
the inform,
the young
lost in a morass of ego.
Amalek feared no god,
only himself.
Nail Emporium
Friday’s nail day at the nail emporium.
Korean girls sit prettily at their stations
grinders, files, cuticle cutters, potions and penchants
neatly arrayed. It’s slow today.
Lone male, nail aficionado greets a woman
who has come to have her toes smeared iridescent green,
moves her gracefully to the high-backed seats at the rear of the store,
Us magazines and a bucket of warm water ready to soak her feet.
Nail girl, sits at a front table blinkless.
Outside, rain splashes against the glass,
she focuses on the weeping window.
Vacuity renders her a statue,
Korean words and phrases dance in her head,
Elaine’s world of Korean curses and gibes,
ennui wrapped in utter silence.
Brains cells drown in a tornado of fingernail dust,
hands rest like dead fish on her lap
thumb and pointer fingers without a whisper of movement,
bopless head anchored, ignores the hip-hop beat,
that tears at the walls from the shop next door.
Nails idly refuse to tap a sonata of recognition.
Immobile Stepford Wife, dreams of the growing nails of the dead,
when the bell-chime announces her eleven o’clock’s
perfectly-wrapped-nails race.
Her head snaps in that direction,
nail God activated the switch for her eyes.
Her mouth gasps open and tongue flaps a greeting at the same time.
Life-blood courses now like a raft afloat on rapids,
rain water mixes with the ghastly image of
prickled up fingers of a hoary forgotten hand.
She ignores the woman with cotton balls between each toe
readied for an application of cherry –red toe nail polish.
She focuses on the nails in front of her
and the how’s-the-weather discourse for the next hour
until her clock runs down.
Sy Roth comes riding in and then canters out. Oftentimes, the head is bowed by reality; other times, he is proud to have said something noteworthy. Retired after forty-two years as teacher/school administrator, he now resides in Mount Sinai , far from Moses and the tablets. This has led him to find words for solace. He spends his time writing and playing his guitar. He has published in many online publications such as Pif Magazine, The Circle Review, Poetry Super Highway, Millers Pond Review, Earthborne, Nostrovia, Cyclamens and Swords, The Germ, Rockhurst Review, Toucan, Wilderness Interface Zone, Red Ochre, Bong is Bard, Danse Macabre, Mel BraKe Press, Larks Fiction Magazine, Exercise Bowler, Otoliths, BlogNostics, Every Day Poets, brief, The Weekenders, The Squawk Back, Bareback Magazine, Dead Snakes, Bitchin’ Kitsch, Peripheral Surveys, Scapegoat Review, The Artistic Muse, Inclement, Napalm and Novocain, Euphemism, Humanimalz Literary Journal, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review, Vayavya, Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Em Dash, Subliminal Interiors, South Townsville Micropoetry Journal, The Penwood Review, The Rampallian, Vox Poetica, Clutching at Straws, Downer Magazine, Full of Crow, Abisinth Literary Review, Every Day Poems, Avalon Literary Review, Napalm and Novocaine, Wilderness House Literary Review, St. Somewhere Journal, Carcinogenic Poetry, The Neglected Ratio, Windmills Magazine and Kerouac’s Dog. One of his poems, Forsaken Man, was selected for Best of 2012 poems in Storm Cycle. Twice selected Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway . His work was also read at Palimpsest Poetry Festival in December 2012. He was named Poet of the Month for the month of February in BlogNostics. Included in Poised in Flight anthology published by Kind of Hurricane Press, March 2013. A Murder of Crows named Poem of the Week in Toucan.
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