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P.C. VANDALL - POEMS

9/15/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Pamela is the author of three collections of poetry: “Something from Nothing,” (Writing Knights Press) “Woodwinds” (Lipstick Press) and “Matrimonial Cake” (Red Dashboard). Her next book of poetry debuts in spring 2017 with Oolichan Books. When Pamela is not writing, she's sleeping. She believes sleep is death without the commitment.

​

                                        Misconception


There’s a terrorist perched in the pine tree
in the backyard. He’s frozen as ice is,
legs coiled around the tippy top branches,
AK-47 slung to his side.
 
The birds bludgeon the morning with whooping
war cries and my body hits the floor, takes
cover beneath the bed. There is no God
here to help me. Clumps of snow fall and limbs
 
crack. Earthworms churn their bodies through dark soil.
It won’t be long now and his polished boots
will appear at my bed. He will kneel down,
lift my bed skirt, and peer into the cross-
 
hairs of the veiled darkness in which I lie
in. I pray Allah’s bounty of virgins
is enough to go around and wonder
if God knows the women are being screwed?

 


                 Kurd from Baghdad wins Oregon Lottery
 


The story does not end here but triggers
a full blown, Facebook feeding frenzy
with people going ballistic, blowing
 
up their walls in shell-shocked statuses
and point blank posts about this little known
man of international mystery:
 
The money belongs here in Oregon!
There needs to be rules. This is messed up.
Not to be racist, but this is so wrong.
We can’t give money to a foreigner.
Isn’t gambling illegal for Muslims?
This is not what our soldiers died for.
Way to bring the terror home, America!
God bestows millions on a Muslim.
Lord, help us all if they give it to him.
This should buy a few air missiles, virgins,
guns and goats. In a related story…
Iraqi Kurd becomes warlord overnight.
This guy will use our money to kill us.
You dum (sic) asses. You’ve funded ISIS.
What would Donald Trump say? When you’re sliding
into third and you feel a squishy Kurd…
 
A man from Iraq wins the lottery.
They withhold his name with good reason.
 

 
                                     Croyden Courts
 


They live in enclosures behind sun bleached
walls facing a courtyard sandbox, littered
in beer bottles, butts and dirty diapers.
Lawns are postage stamps clipped out like coupons.

Grandpa sits captive in his den, confined
to his chair rolling loose leaf tobacco,
sipping stale coffee. He tells me Birdie
is sleeping with Leo, Tabby's a bitch

and Rex is a snake. Robin’s a pussy
cat in her tiger tank top, black panther
boots and leopard leggings. Ava's the doe-
eyed one who drives Buck, ape-shit crazy

and even though Jonah thinks he's a catch,
he's really just a jackass. Grandpa's sick
of the shrieking, snot nosed kids running wild
while parents take time to procreate less

time. He roars at them to keep off the grass,
keep their hands to themselves and quit feeding
the beast. They're all a bunch of animals!
Fingers coil around fence posts and eyes glow

yellow through the keyholes as doors slam shut.
He's the zoo keeper, minding his business
while cages moan under the moonlit filth
and children curse inconceivable beds.
 

 
                                       Haven’t got a Prayer
 


How do prayers reach Heaven? Do they hitch
a ride on the cosmos in the backpacks
of angels, go air mail on the wings of doves
or do they drift on a slow spaceship to Zion?
 
Is there a place in Las Angel Bliss where God’s
messengers sort requests between the seven
deadly bins before sending them Heavenward
with their seal of approval? Do they measure
 
and weigh each one, filter out what gets tossed,
returned to sender and dispatched to the dead
letter office seven stories below?
I’m sure they wire the flyers and The Daily Bread.
 
Does all Hell break loose when God receives junk mail
and do the angels go Ghostal?  Maybe God
is fed up with our lack of creativity,
our inability to grasp his word.
 
Maybe he’s golfing all over God’s green
acres and is on a million par hole.
They say God answers in his time, not ours
but time doesn’t exist in eternity,
 
so forever and a day takes no time
at all.  Perhaps prayers are left unanswered
because God in his infinite wisdom knows
we just haven’t got the damn message yet.

 
​
                                    It’s all about the Yoga
 


A forest of women spread leafy green limbs
to the matted-mossy floor. They are ferns
unfurling branches, bending and arching
 
their newfangled bodies with open minds.
I'm the camel plodding along, sweating
it out in the dry hump of midday.
 
I don't belong here in this dense grove
of women, this cathedral of ever-
green composure. I don't wear a red
 
cape, drive a blue mini-van or drink.
I am a trinity of all three
melting into a twisted rendition
 
of Edvard's Scream in an ugly frame
of mind. I am not sitting Lotus
or posing as the Fallen Angel.
 
I'm the woman in the yoga pants,
downward dogging it to pick up toys,
soldiering on till I undertake the corpse
 
position. I lie there, a spineless
cactus without a stiff prick of rain
to inspire me to get off my stump.

2 Comments

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