longing to be liquid
a restless wanderer
let loose the lines
unfurled the main
with severed heart
set solitary course
on an uncaring sea

adrift
the lonely sailor
preserved remains
from his lips
the final note
love's lost
refrain

They say 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.'
Had 'they' made lemonade before,
'they' would know just how much sugar is required to do so,
and life rarely throws that at us.
Even if it did, it would be hard to pick up, what with it being dissolved in residual lemon juice and all that.
But that's beside the point.

She stands there being
pummelled
with
lemons.
Not even sour-faced
although the acidity erodes her open wounds.

I ask 'does it not burn?'
She replies 'just tingles like a lemony sun'
and then smiles that crescent silver lining
which tames the acrimonious bite that makes me wince.

Little lemon pip tears drop from my eyes
and she collects them in her palms.
'Just a yellow lemon tree,' she sings in her zestful tone.

She may not be the type to catch, juggle and juice them,
but if she could,
she would be the sugar in her lemonade.

In predictive text
on my cellular device,
the word suggested after I type
'I'm'
is 'sorry.'

I guess that shows how often I say it.
And if it's me saying it then it shows how often I mean it.

I'm tired of saying it.
Mostly,
I'm tired of meaning it.

Your rage erodes
through your smiling teeth
and makes holes in
your throat,
spluttering
corrosive through your hearty laugh.
Your rage is like battery acid on your tongue
fueling your acerbic words.

My rage is rope making the ring in which
me, myself and I
battle it out in my head
cyclically.
My rage is a steely triad of me, myself and I
in my mind,
a metal mental instrumental
triangle tapping incessantly
ringing the ting ting ting of
soft subtle slurs.

Our rage is visceral.
Eternally internally infernal,
crackling embers dying within
leaving us shells of ourselves -
warm bodies with blackened ash souls
daring not to breathe should someone notice the smoke.

Focus On Me
I can tell your curious
Written on your lips
I here doing what I like
When  ur here
      Focus On me

Thin gold wraps her neck
She wears elegance today
Shining her jewels

At low of night she strokes
Familiar tastes exquisite,
And quietly invokes
The spirit of laureate --

An orphic instrument
Unfit to take for granted.
It’s profound atonement
Stirs in her heart despondent.

Her fragile shell’s embrace
Of wood and gut and metal
Point out her shallow race
And weakness fundamental.

Yet all the night she moils,
Mistrusting augmentation,
And secretly despoils
The overzealous beacon.

-- Kerry Herrmann

I am out of tune
It doesn't matter what you play
The monochrome sound will remain
Even with new keys
The beauty of that piece
Is mangled in my strings.
So please,
Just leave me here in the dust
To rot in this silent room because
I am beyond repair
I will never play again...

After dropping her child at school
the day was a dream only hers
when she could make her own rule
follow it for all those hours.

She would sit on some house terrace
see the busy steps passing by
trying to gauge from their pace
the errands written in their eyes.

She would watch the life of birds
amused how they labored for a nest
and when falling day drew homeward
folded sunned wings into rest.

Spread her eyes beyond the concrete
above the trees far into the haze
where young kites were taught flying feat
by mothers circling the summer blaze.

Everyday all things were renewed
seasons rolled a movie before her
all that even though already viewed
was never bereft of a sense of wonder.

How her hours flew was not known
days turned to years as a rule
her child in no time was grown
no more she needed to go to school.