Poetry Friday: the word is "Muddy"

jo(e) picked the perfect word for this week.

Muddy.

What does that word feel like to you? What kind of 'muddy'? Feel free to include the word in your blog today, however you want to do it.

For Group Masturbation Poetry Friday (or whatever we call this thing), I have three entries. One short story (more an intro), one two-part poem from the kindergarten Mona that didn't want to get out of bed this morning, and one of my favorite poems from my favorite poet, ee cummings. Have a good weekend, y'all!


The Traffic Lights Turn Green For Me

My mom has a tattoo on her arm that says ‘Butch’.

She’s not a lesbian. Sometimes I wish she was. Butch was her boyfriend before she met my dad and popped me out. Butch was the guy who sat her on the back of his Harley and took her from Durham to L.A., Vancouver to Tampa, clutching onto his waist with the vibrations of a soul machine between her legs.

That’s why I ride one. For the soul. More for the vibration. Even more for the get-away.

Campus is pretty this time of year. They study the trees, so every street has some new variety, some different nationality, some hybrid or cross, of a tree my ancestors never knew. The blossoms are falling off into the sticky mud of the clay soil (did you know we get more rain here than Seattle, or London?). The muddy puddles are pink and white, fluorescent green, sun yellow, they splash on my bike, my jeans, my old leather jacket. My backpack.

Getting that thing in my backpack this morning was a bitch. I didn’t expect it to be so heavy. I’m not sure why I wanted it, only the light in the chemistry building had this…this LOOK…ya know?...this look that said, “Come on in, April! Somethin’ I wanna show ya!” Well, if the security guy hadn’t wanted me to have it, he would have locked the goddamn front door. Yeah, they’ll miss it, sure they’ll miss it, but I could give a fuck.

They won’t find me. Even if they see my tracks in the hallway, they can’t find me. I am invisible. I am all-powerful. I am April showers coming to wash away guilt, coming to take control.

I just hope mom isn’t pissed I wore her boots.



Recipes From My Five-Year Old Self

Recipe for Mud Number One:
One bowl
One spoon
One brownie smashed in bowl
Mama scoops the ice cream in, the chocolate yummy kind
Smush stir chopchopchop
Squirt the chocolate sauce in til the squirty top thing sounds like ptttttttthhhh
Smush stir chopchopchop
Melty soup
Ta-Da!


Recipe for Mud Number Two:
Me
My brother
New clothes
Easter Sunday



ee cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloon man whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee