and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

Zzzzz
Zzzzz

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

Zz...
(???)
Zoe?

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

Zoe??

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

ZOE!!!

               -Zz...!
               Zane?

'Za,
Zucchini,
Zinfandel?

               -Zzzzz

Zoe!

               -Zz...
               Zane?!

'Za,
Zucchini,
Zinfandel?

               -Zaxby's
               Zalad

Zaxby's
Zalad?

               -Zzzzz
               Zzzzz

ZOE!

               -Zz...!
               Zane?!

Zaxby's
Zalad???

               (???)

Zoe,
Zaxby's
Zalad?

               -'Za,
               Zucchini,
               Zinfandel

Zzzzz
Zzzzz

               -Zane?


© 2020 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.

Pinot this and pinot that
This young Grenache is a trifle flat
Better to try and get along
With a slightly older Sauvignon

I sometimes get a trifle low
When dabbling in a cheap Merlot
And so to scare the blues away
Will sip a spendy Chardonnay

But to avoid real ennui
Drink super Oregon Pinot Gris
And let’s be quite awfully frank
That’s much better than Chenin Blanc

But while you sort out your Pinot
Give a break to Grignolino
It’s good, but not the same as
A bold and cheeky Oz Shiraz

And if you want to go very far
Don’t ignore local Pinot Noir
It always sells well on the block
And I wonder who likes Marechal Foch

As I was supping a cute Barbera
At a certain State affaira
Things got quickly very highbrow
When someone mentioned Muller Thurgau

It is no lack of vinous respect
That makes us scorn the best Malbec
And can you find me a single fan
Of that very odd vine, Carignan?

If one must go to a grapey hell
There’s good company in Zinfandel
But if we really must go
Could we have some Nebbiolo?

In the end we all agree
Any wine is better free
But if not free we’ll surely call
Any wine beats none at all!

I slipped into the walk-in cooler
to escape the kitchen heat for a few
minutes. I sat beneath a wine rack
holding up a chardonnay chandelier
with zinfandel bulbs. I'd swear
I was at the Ritz if it weren't for
a lemon box slowly collapsing
beneath my weight. The motor
to my right churned out frigid air
like a 43rd floor air conditioner
in a luxury suite with fresh fruit rolled
in on cardboard carts. Everything
was buffet style and there were no lines,
just the painful thought that I'd have
to leave paradise soon.

I will make a fangle of mechanisms,
a creature with iron snouts
and concrete aortas.

Its fevered howl will wake the duplexes
perched on sloped land,
built from collected tins and bottle caps.

Boys sooted in grief will balk like ravens,
chew sweet dip, and spit,
but never reach the foreman’s gate.

They’ll crave a tavern with antlers as chandeliers
where a black flame burns
on the brim of a zinfandel.

But tonight they’ll gristle through streets
to a stale room
where fluorescent lights blanch a young widow’s skin.

Basic cable ministries will flick and dim
in the homes of the wigged ladies who wait for them—
the howl keeps them

breathless, each of them fearing
the slow swallow from a snake’s mouth
to its furnace.

Dinner is Served*

Continuous hunger
unsatisfied
and faltered
Feed the weak
and eat them young
Makes a simplicity
of having to
house them
or to let them run*


Baby calf, born to be
brazen with a side of pilaf

Seared over open flame
tenderly exquisite

Make no matter
of an empty life

Just too satisfying
to a tempered pallet

To think of where and how
this dish came to be

Ending a wee
youngling's life

Served best with
a chilled blush zinfandel
or an aged red chianti

White and/or red
make up life of blood
and life in continuation

He left
A mark the color of red wine
Zinfandel
Placed high on cheek bone
Directly under her left eye
Such tears only bruising
It further

I didn't mean to
He simply stated

She left
A note the color of resentment
Charcoal
Placed atop bedroom dresser
Directly over her exiled contents
Such emptiness only reinforcing
It further

Once was more than enough
She simply stated

My preteen years were
filled with white zinfandel
dreams and a collage
of wood panelling.

Broken thoughts become
ninety proof lies; drink-
don't think.

Diet Coke cans filled
with wine, hiding from
myself but mostly from
my grandmother

I wanted to conceal my
role as the family ****-up
for as long as possible
but then
I hit a wall.

Drinking is a constant love affair,
I keep coming back like a battered wife
because I can't get a grip on my
battered life.

Living for the burn
that spread its legs all
the way down my throat.

You're going to die, they say.
Maybe one day,
I'll believe them.

a waking so timeless,
where we lose our fingernails
as we claw each other
and rain; the rain glittering
along it's fundament, glittering
along our... let's just say
that there is a universe of
silver linings in the eaves and a
scent of leaves in this silence,
this dust is ours only
we dig deep
into golden phrases,
while finding screaming skin
breaking slowly into air,
an electrocution
focused on our loves;
we dig deep
into pits of our
broken hearts
surprised
we are so apart somehow
there is an electricity
that pulls the dust back,
together.
the static,
the floor was a blanket
your smile, a fire escape
the static in the air
the wine glasses neglected,

we drank from the bottle

We dapple our kiss
hot white Zinfandel

and like the blind groping for
doors, you open me

longingly for warmth,
one hearth we coalesce.

Is there a ghost inside my soul?
Or two or three all black as coal?
The devil's play things exist so well!
Example one: white zinfandel.
Intoxication confrontation!
Demon spell molestation.
Inside my cranium's example two.
Swollen membrane with evil hue.
Why spurt these words on this page
while I'm trapped inside the Devil's cage?
I'll look back and all I'll see
Is a broken sort of sympathy.
Exit my thoughts through a blank pupil
and my sight will flicker as I try to sit still.
**** the forefront of my mind.
Its just a mask for those who won't find
the truth behind the words I say.
Passive agressive flux of cabernet.

Spring is here? It’s hard to tell
No changing seasons where I live
Just hot and humid, a living hell
Spring is here? It’s hard to tell
Endless summer leaves my joy felled
Drowning my sorrows with Zinfandel
(lamenting)
Spring is here? It’s hard to tell
No changing seasons where I live*

Kelly Rose
© March 23, 2017

Edit
Either/Or
by Daniel Coleman on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 4:38pm
You may call this your heaven,
But I call it my hell.
We’re of differing opinions
(In case you couldn’t tell)
You say I’m the whiskey
And you’re the zinfandel.
That I’m going sixty,
And you’re stuck at twelve.
Well, you be north
And I’ll be south.
You be first
And I’ll be last.
You can’t have one without the other,
You can’t have the son without the mother.

We dapple our kiss
Hot white Zinfandel

And like the blind groping
For doors, you open me,

Longingly / our warmth
One hearth we coelesce.

Today you are going to pick up your only winter jacket from Hers. On the train you are shaking. You pick up a large bottle of Zinfandel at the liquor store down her street and spend $10 that you don’t really have. You walk up to her street. Four boys and an older woman (mother, landlord?) crowd a portion of the sidewalk. You brush past on the gravel, almost slipping. A form that strongly resembles hers is in the driveway; your heart threatens to leave your chest. This walk is eerily familiar to you. Music is crowding your thoughts and you slip out of your headphones, unsteadily approaching the porch. You sit. She is moving her car so her roommate can go out. You don’t know what to do.

She says “what’s up” like you’ve seen her do to people she doesn’t know very well but wants to flirt with and her eyes betray no warm recognition like they used to. She asks if you should come in?  

I just picked up liquor, I can share it with you if you want to have a drink, you say. There’s no way that your nerves are going to steady themselves on their own.

I don’t know, we’ll see. Cross the threshold. Door closes behind you. You are trapped now. You knew this would happen. You want to go upstairs, up to her room, climb the familiar steps and strip naked, settle in your niche in the bed like you’ve always done...

Bookcase isn’t where it used to be. Curtains are different, or new. Couch is ratty as ever. You remember the nights you used to spend making food in her kitchen, nursing her stomachaches on the couch watching ****** TV and laughing in each other’s eyes during the commercials. Breaking each other’s molds and melting away from the rest of the world.

Did she fix the window from where that guy tried to break in last semester?
No. The curtains are just new.
Oh, nice.
Drink?
Definitely.

You’re handed a pumpkin-flavored hard cider and this relaxes you a little, because you’ve always felt cooler than you actually are when you’ve got a bottle to gesticulate with while you’re talking to someone. It’s really just a mask for social anxiety, a cute 8oz bottle of conversation lubricant. Apply as needed. Consult a doctor for intense pain lasting more than four hours.

You two try and talk. She asks why. You can’t speak. After a few minutes of holding up, you fold, crumple.

Hoarse, tense. Your throat is burning and she isn’t doing anything as your knuckles around your knees wrench up your jeans and turn white telling her about how Heather died and how Chickee is in the hospital and just had a seizure from the meds they were using to keep her from dying of pneumonia and now she’s lost whatever precious vestiges of memory were left and remembers nothing at all and you’ve been fighting daily to keep your mind from running away from you, doing this all on top of work and courses is stringing you out so thin can’t she see that you just wanted you to have time to take care of yourself holy **** -

I know you hate me now I know and I’m never going to escape the hurt I caused you because it feels to you that I just left but I didn’t ever want to leave it just had to happen

We see relationships from two different vantage points
((Did she **** her neighbor))
Why are you on a dating site

It’s a tool you’re using to force yourself back into social interactions but it's also a necessary evil. There aren’t too many queer women to find anywhere but the internet anyway, they’re all in hiding during the day in a batcave or something -

Why did you leave me
You never thought it’d get like this
Coward

Leaving after you tell her to ******* because she asks you to, walking out with my things onto the porch and a cigarette in your mouth desperate to inhale something that’s toxic as if the carcinogens will take effect right there and you’ll drop dead of all kinds of diseases in the middle of her walkway

She comes outside with letter keep this read it you’re not going to like it but it’s all I’ve got for you and it’s what I’ve wanted to say
You don’t want it, you say, you don’t need this cancer sitting on your desk and silently invading your life
******* take it
You stand in the street reading the letter and it’s all about how she thinks you’re some heinous ******* who just left her and took the easy way out when things got difficult.

Maybe you did, you’re a nihilist, you don’t think there’s a point to anything and you do like things when they’re easy for you, it hurts less that way- but doesn’t everybody?

People who say they’re saints are lying to themselves.

Remember the thirst of your tongue
the need to dispose of what was not wanted
now feel your mouth
deserted as mine when you were my last drop of water.

Sip a glass of white Zinfandel
******* sand paper strung-out love.

One final push. Afresh, I tell myself
I’ll make it farther from the starting line;
that clean will mean eternally this time.
I swear I won’t repeat a strike and swell
beyond the bones, stay intact for my health.
When well intentioned vows distort to lies,
the best that I can do is hide the thighs
and keep my body numbed by zinfandel.

I’m doing well. The surface still intact.
Slight murky colorations, senseless goals
in idiotic, broken breaths of angst.
Unsettled by the battle for control,
I might as well give up while urges last.
Afresh, the starting line: tempting me home.

I know that now it's far too late
For you to take me seriously
I'm sixteen glasses deep
Of that wine you recommended
That night you thought I wasn't
Even paying attention
I did that a lot you know,
Kept quiet in the serenity of your presence
I was always afraid
My words would cause you to
Vanish
Again

Anyway,
I never had the courage to say it,
I would just get so caught up in my head
But the words flow now
So effortlessly
I want you to know
It's true what they say
Ain't no rest
For the wicked


White Zinfandel,

I still have the headache.

Such a mundane thing
To walk through a door
Yet you are there
On the other side, smiling,
And we are already making
Memories and pressing them
      into our pages --

We laugh at saying the same
Word at once: zinfandel
And I feel a beginning
Coming toward me --

In our first goodbye kiss
That night was a telling, sublime,
Beyond our lips and our stories
That cocooned us in that moment
      and spun love's possibility
Under approving December skies --