Poetry Friday: The Word is TOLERANT

The very last thing I should be doing now is blogging, what with stacks of work piled up and folks getting pissed at the bottleneck they’ve created for me.
But.
Fuck it.
I’m blogging.

The Poetry Friday Word for Today is “TOLERANT”.

Feel free to use the word in whatever form hangs your chad…story, poem, photo of you being tolerant (e.g., in your undies outside in 30 degree weather), phone message spam, foreign policy. I have two entries today, one female, one male. One sexy, one not. One light, one heavy-handed.

Have a good weekend, y’all!



The Woman Who Shot From Her Hip

Touch me.
Here.
I’m not asking you.
I’m
TELLING
You.

You’ve been a bad boy.

I am not tolerant
Of your behaviour.
You must now
Be punished.

Take off your clothes.
Take off my coat.

You like?

You see how the garter wraps
a-
round
my waist
and how the straps
fasten
to the stockings?
You must undo them.
Now.

I said.
Now.

Bad.
Bad.
Boy.

You will do as I say.

The bra.
Unhook it.
Slower.
Slow-
Er!
Yes. Like that.
You may kiss them now.

Now.

Come here.
Kneel.
Open your mouth.

You must be punished.
It is not up to me.
It is up to you.

Bad.
Bad.
Boy.



The Man Who Shot With His Mouth

He was not tolerant
Of anyone who disagreed
With his credo
with his creed.

Days and nights shuttling through
Boardrooms
Airports
Passing underneath CNN televisions
He’d sputter aloud
To shadows,
Curse the mild and mannered,
Like some sort of weakness to eliminate,
Like cutting off a limb.

He once was kicked out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport Starbucks
For asking a woman
If he could see
What was under her burka.
He once was spit on
By a man
Holding his crying daughter close.
He once was punched dead in the face
By his grandma.

“Freedom of Speech!”, he yelled,
standing on chairs
shouting for foreigners to
getthehellout
shouting for “homos
to
cut the shit”
thumping his chest
like his bible
pointing at passages
preaching damnation.

In Cleveland
It was snowing,
The post-Thanksgiving throngs passing underneath his window
And Bill O’Reilly flickered blue and white light.
The weapon
Finally turned on the owner
When the Red Words of
King James’ Jesus
Rolled off the page
And onto his tongue.

“Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“Judge not, lest ye be judged.”
“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers,
so shall you do to me.”