The Guest Who Arrived After the Feast was Eaten

By Dani Rose

Sure,                “butter noodle” is fun to say!

            Can Poetry be artistically written about butter noodles?

Wafts of steam rise from reeling ribbons

Of odiferous silent stalk…

Slipping like eels,       they slap each other

                        and sound as they slide from my spoon         sssSplat!

But what’s the good in that?

            Beauty with no substance,                  no value?

     Can meaning be derived from a bowl of buttered bliss?

                                                            Perhaps, the Butter Noodle is a metaphor

for the elusiveness of Desire

                                                                        Perhaps,

the most difficult part of ambition

                                                is swallowing your Failures,

                        ingesting Humility

until it fuels your cells

                                                to achieve

Perhaps,

                        the taste of achievement is not as                   Rich

            as the Scent of Necessity…

REeeach

STreettCH

                                    jUMp

and pray.

In the End, they are ONLY buttered noodles.

Sunshine and Destruction

By Dani Rose

“You’re a beautiful ray of sunshine

and destruction”

Isn’t it one in the same?

Anything beautiful has the capacity to destroy

and to destroy itself in fragility.

Fragile like a flower,

or fragile like a bomb?

In both cases, fragility causes destruction:

one, held, bruised, cut, and torn 

by hands too rough to be soft, 

the other: an abruptly magnified reaction

I am, perhaps both, 

after all,

sunshine hyper-focused is also a death ray.

the smoking ants littering 

my grandmother’s sidewalk know 

how mishandling magnification works.

Epiphany Whilst Dining on My Couch One Early Late Spring/Autumn Night-Morning

By Dani Rose

Things don't have to make sense for it to be order...

Ironically beautiful true

true

It ... 

What is "it" that is order? 

And why don't things make sense in "it"?

"It" seems to me is a conundrum.

"It" is order, where things don't make sense

Therefore, order is senseless ... 

Yeah...

I suppose it is senseless, order.

You can't have a quarter without -order.

Different letters... same sense.

Order, it is not perceived by sense...

We grow accustomed to the mean.

What we sense, makes sense, is dis-order.

Only when my comfort is "dis"-ed am I inclined to move, respond, reject.

Only when I am pushed can I discover where I stand.

Otherwise "it" is just order... senseless order it is.

Passion, Aliens, and Spitfire

By Dani Rose

You commented on my post

slipped in my DMs with grace

landing directly on my face… I mean, heart…yeah.

pinning my desires to the floor, 

stinging them into submission

with your alien theories,

spitfire-surprise, and a top hat 

that was nowhere 

but in your voice.

I could hear your voice all night,

states away, turning water to air,

drowning in your life force

knowing there’s 

no way can I stay away.

You caught me at a breaking point,

or point of break 

— between semesters —

an em-dashed appositive

tying my time tight,

not as tight as it will be

— swollen, when my fingers…

I mean… fuck… your eyes, 

those lips, and the sounds 

that flow through them —

teeth, smile and those fucking lips.

Every word you speak 

excites my hunger for more.

I could see us

talking for hours

cuddled on the floor,

on a rug,

before a fire… 

and after…

…after… heh. 

You know I’m down with after, too.

Same as you, so let me ride you…

ride this wave of you with me 

with all the feelings of the sea 

as it calls to the sirens blaring, 

tides turning to howls 

of freedom 

and permanence.

It’d Be Me.

By Dani Rose

If God made mistakes,

It’d be me.

A one-night stand rush,

hastily pasted 

with parts of this—no, that:

a too-big nose

bent just a little — good enough,

Grandfather’s Great Depression eyes,

brows thick, expressive,

making secrets impossible to hide

—lips a little too loose, 

but too tight to smile,

a smile flecked with as much imperfection

as beauty can hold.

Pour some spirit in…

truth, wisdom, and intellect…

Ope, a little full there, 

brains spilling 9mm too far for comfort, but 

there’s no time to even out the sharp parts —

time to go! They started early.

Wrapped up and sent —

to the wrong address, perhaps

Mom wants a refund

of her late teen years.

Father’s on tour – behind a gun,

forgetting me, and a son, apparently.

Maybe God forgot 

to give me a category,

he seemed to be rushed:

intellectually - fluid, 

emotionally - fluid, 

gender - fluid, 

sexually - fluid,

astrologically - fluid.

I guess, you could say,

I go with the flow.

If anyone could flow,

It’d be me.

Flowing like sea.

Well, less like waves’ 

steady wax/wane

more like a river

conquering currents of shame, 

finding a way,

through any terrain, unstoppable—

a force dammed to be contained, 

but breaks through instead

flowing in and around

flooding through streets

of nearby towns.

Perhaps categories 

can’t contain me—damn.

Life would be easier if they could.

I’ve tried to fit in, 

but nothing appears as it should

Because if God made mistakes,

then they aren’t God, are they?

If the gods decided to break the mold,

it’d be me.