Critical Secret
Here is a secret:
Eat every criticism.
Bite into the outer layers
with your bared teeth, feast
on its soft vulnerable insides.
If the center is hard then suck it
awhile. Let unwanted pith dissolve
away in your strong acid. It’ll all soon
leave your body. Thank the ironic gods for
giving challenging nourishment. And go about
your work. Comments will keep til you’re hungry.
November 19, 2021 to December 4, 2021
from the full moon in Scorpio to the new moon in Sagittarius
Jake choked off his last shred of objectivity with piercing confidence and rode off into some kind of loner sunset, with only the curtains to hold his hand. Our shared wonder dismissed as magical thinking, wheeled away for correction, argued away as naive—just to argue.
stuck
Kill or be killed, child.
180 shots per intended minute.
Unregistered plastic bag.
Probable conclusion without a scratch.
Presumed protection with intent
to mutilate. Murdered property.
Insurrection.
Hip-hop cowboy, good gang, posse.
Annie, Get Your Gun and a permit.
Marissa, the wall has rights.
Stand your ground unless stuck
interpreting the lunatic
interpreting the reason
interpreting the law
The wandering albatross bow,
widen their wings and scream
at the sky; they circle, preen
and snap at their spouse
in a mating dance for life.
Three million miles
of soaring the skies,
ever to return
to the island
of their love
and birth.
Vulnerable, the reliant pilot hides in a pride of clouds/
seen, the sun comes out/ the complex speaks to the complex/
lowers a bridge open to valuation, closed to faulted criticism/
subject and object scatter, hide in the mirroring sky/
light faces the page, not the eyes
Thanks giving:
Let the worry fall away
from your clear eyes,
For the world turns
and we are in it;
Should joy escape your mind,
allow release to recommit
compliments of reprieve
from lifelessness.
I am your cherisher
thankful for each
delicate moment.
Wake and tell us what’s good, love, as the daylight
reaches your mind. Promise to snuggle in deeper,
cross the heart on your chest and hope to die.
Code your secrets in my journal
where I can read between the lines.
“I had conversations, but the upper hand of the masher, phlegm, and baffled stranger would not salute. And the agro. Everything I said was ammo. So I gave him ammo. All of it.”
Cere opened the lid to find furry teal blotches moldering the tops of the apricots.
“Worry eats at your thoughts. I needed to be done with it.”
“Recognize crisis mode. Deflection is a way to cope, but it’s pretext. We eventually have to move past it to understand the dissatisfaction that leads to a major life change.”
“Huh. I’ll think about that,” Greg said. “You’re not mad?”
“I’m working on a new perspective,” she said, taping up the last box. The movers would be arriving any time now. “Ultimately, I’m on your side and hope we get to share a better future. Call me after you’ve answered your own call.”
You are shiny,
like teeth bared
through organic
murmuration.
Is it the love shown
or the love deserved
that makes us worthy?
Two lorn brood
recuperate
in innate pattern,
flockwise;
their calls imitate
a wildish belonging.
ribbon
If I were a ribbon,
I’d curl around your finger
to remind you
that I am always
there. In spills of ink,
siftings of sand, traces,
and twisted strands of hair
Snug between the wanton
hand of death steepling in prayer.
If I were your ribbon.
oracle
She placed her hand on the young king’s chest and closed her eyes: He floated in a river of blood, tethered to a casketful filled with paper money.
Fire cremated the land into black ghosts pillowing the lusty blaze. Through the roar, he heard his name as a boy dipped a toe in from the shore.
The oracle opened her eyes and locked gaze with the young king. “You have enough for now. Do not invade. Take a vacation with your son.”
In returning warmth
that refuses to leave
the season,
mistle breaks,
disturbs a winter silence.
Leave your contortions
where misery can find its
mirthless tune. I’m here
in life’s harmoniacal quietus,
a rival of the snow, parched
as the ground, threshing
its mortal boon.
November 4, 2021 to November 18, 2021
from the new moon to the full moon in Scorpio
sugarcoat
The sugarcoat fairy has a white wand that sprays a sweet powder onto desserts, glass rims, and hard truths.
Often followed by the elusive tooth fairy who sneaks in to collect your teeth and the occasional sock.
fingerprint
fingerprint
o your voice
unlocks
cliche
ridges, whorls
veins, shape
disturbs the air
in a lover’s mouth
vowels
of
admission
quicken, thicken
the formant
folds deep
in throat
open and close
tremerous
sympathetic
bones and body
lash and tongue
How fast you move, swift Mercury
how slowly your myth wanes
Appearing to regress backward
as you pass in retrograde
Venus relaxes on cowslip wine
made from the primrose
of youth, when a paused
message of love was new
saga
“Sorry about that! It’s a monthly saga. She sought help but her insurance might as well be a coupon for 10% off Midol.
Her support group changed locations without telling her and, oh no.., I can’t find my wallet—“
“GO!” The clerk said, standing in the rubble. “LEAVE!”
dormant
“The term ghosting is an insult to ghosts.”
Cere cut deep into the burning bush, removing dead weight from the dormant plant to stimulate growth in the spring.
“All you can do is treat yourself better than that—care well for yourself—and love comes back. New love.”
hypothetical implores
It hurts. The expectation.
But it was a lipless hypothetical notion.
A narrative unspoken neither guides nor implores action to reach that forever ending, where pride belongs to everyone.
plumes resolve
plumes of lament
$2k in car repairs
filigreed wreathy elegy
time = money + interest
shearing scytheless stylist
resolve mends or ends
in determination
thoughts
like a fresh
haircut
normalize
“Not everything has to be normalized. You don’t comb the beach looking for the least exceptional rock.” I looked at Ash. “Sorry, the graveyard, seeking unremarkable stones.”
Something like a smile broke through Ash’s stolid face. “Or the bones of sane people.”
shame
I’m a firestarter
A ram bored with shame
Blood cut off from tight reins
Cold hand fumbles matchstick
A shrug-off warms up
this sympathy dance
Great romance cues
the strings, notes
like tears drop
Douse a flame
Relax the grip
gentled baton
Many lyrics to post. Here are some published song lyrics.
classical style from the poetry book, the waywith sun
rose
any of a genus (Rosa, family Rosaceae, the rose family) of usually prickly shrubs w/ pinnate leaves and showy flowers having five petals in the wild state but being often double or partly double under cultivation
Rosa Gallica
O rose, o rosa rose, thou art the same
tho’ rueful romance oft’ has touched thy name;
a passing bitter simmer and a trace
of the sweet scent that simile did taste.
What in your properties do awaken,
from the stem, the thorns, the leaves, or the scents,
analogies of transient emblem?
O perfect love, but likened to be kept.
The cut keeps the fragrance everlasting,
the thorns defend the attempt;
trail flower
I follow the bloomed blaze of vast retreat;
thy path of five petals, count thy wild beat
Fast in the wilder; Gallica scent for me
What lovely name? O rose, thou art the same.
writing published August 22, 2021
The muse left me for a polyamorous cad who grew tired almost immediately. Now our visits are plain-spoken, almost sad. Take place on the ground without wing or abstraction. It is as if we are at a holiday party catching up with a run-down of our accomplishments: How was your year? Well, I’ve been fine. Ron has faced some changes. They rounded up the men and put them in a pecker house where they were trained to work as peckers. He took right to it; world’s oldest profession.
One very lucid day, the muse was going on about Venus being a disco ball. And “Kiss me with the radio on. The waves they bend my favorite song.” It was a complete creative cop-out. I think the muse was trying to look unaffected by the actions of the cad so broadcast this big happy-happy-joy-joy routine. It was hollow.
Here’s hoping the muse will become tender again without needing a twelve-step program or a priest. I will wait and meanwhile try to provide a motivating soundtrack.
A good friend will hold you by your feet and dangle you over the abyss to show you the footholds in the walls. A good friend will suggest a twist or kick for momentum or that you use bat technology to scream yourself off the walls. They’ll send you training tools like books or quotes or brushes; suggest new mediums: bristles dipped in tears, malleable dreams where sleep is a long luxurious blink. How it all works together to flush the sight of shards of memories worked around the nerves in sympathy. The body forgets its process while a good friend refuses your censorship, rides the shame to shamanic exodus. Holds the flashlight while you climb out of the abyss.
October 20, 2021 to November 1, 2021
from the full moon to the new moon in Libra / Scorpio
trust
Back to the wilder
from collapse
under stacks
of undecayed
inorganic
matter—
It’s all temporary
Underground digs
in sentiment trapped
Prone to lucid dreaming’s
involuntary maw
Steps into the yawn
of your own pitfall
Take to the trees
like Tarzan—climb
your agile mind—
swing from trust-
worthy vines
signifies
In his ghast and livid beam, no colors absorb; absence signifies his subject in virous torrents of rayed devastation.
I am spared—my eyes cauterized at first sight. Mere ash beside a vacuum, patient for the Spring. Cremains in the kindness of a friend.
cafe
I’m a tourist in their cafe
where they talk over a good song;
Collectors of the medium/ who trade
the pain of kids who don’t belong.
It bounces off the reclaimed beams—
factoids, brag, gimcrackery;
lathers popularity
without a sole
analogy/ of us
on the island of loneliness
innocence
Innocence is a gift—mingled in commitment—of passage.
It has been slain on the altar of infant helplessness sulked in vengeance.
It has been saved by the certainty of power relinquished in permanence.
One day you won’t give your heart to bargainers.
intimacy
At the corners of their bed sate epic tales of wind, fire, earth, and sky loving the anthropomorphized form of their senses, conjured from the aromatic pyre; a tinder nest, intimacy the tender.
Not even the fires of hell refined worked so well to warm the dead.
She was an accidentalist in one great big song about obedience.
More deistic than contrarian, because those small-town panderers just couldn’t be the gatekeepers of divinity.
They sounded more like creations of comedy.
hurt
“You’re being emotional and kinda paranoid,” Maena said. “Read the situation like a book.”
“Like look at a few words, jump to conclusions, and cry into my pillow?” Cere asked.
Maena smiled. “No, we don’t read books like the words are going to hurt us.”
foreshadow
In the afterglow
of a gamma-ray
burst/ in her hard
bright light
His silhouette whistles—
harsh foreshadow,
blocking the lumen;
inkling black hole,
a cold hero’s trope
sleepwalk
I sleepwalk & talk
expose the bare truth
that fear & pain
hang from the pall
that covers the life of day
Mantle worn by soothsayer
who blankets infantile babe
There, in low waves
while the mind hides
memories, ring words
of the dissembler:
vestments
unpicked to rags
©2021 LAFogle / Lesley Ann Fogle
for Lois
With you I don’t kill time till time kills me
And I would miss you because you’d never leave
That is the highest value, consigned like family;
my sibling I was not instructed to love
It’s so easy, this vulnerable intimacy;
no cling to agro youth as we take our seat
Ours is a permanent love seldom on display
in growing observation that does not take
away the benefit of the doubt; we benefactors
heal together plotting the wondrous day
And don’t insult the witch:
This is not naivete;
It is a pact with heaven through hell
We question unafraid
The sickle moon, with ice chip tips
clears away the day
In amber tunes of the low sun
retiring to its unseen bed;
The knowledge that it never sleeps
unnecessary for dreams
as we rest soundly in dependable return
The sickle moon rests in waxed shade
partly phased inpathic privacy
We too allow the mind its mysteries;
That lunary healer of all things sensory
works in wordless timeless sympathy,
within sleep’s reactive silence,
its filtry ministry
~ LAFogle
first posted on Twitter September 2021
for Nikola
Shh, don’t say a word
on the harvest of the Great Confirmation Bias
All moves, construed, take cover
Links to the center of a silver chain frame
Dark brocade hair lays layered and wound
The Sister Knots fit pretty
at the temple, wrist, or throat
Their mother wore it first
A hand-me-down; heirloom
in dignified terms
The girls learned to fight
over it: tears, fists, appearances
Its victimized cut-off
reenacted on damaged friends
