by A. J. Huffman

 

from Dinosaur this Learning

Reconfigured fossil bones grow
in child’s eyes. Skin and teeth reform,
shatter restricting tethers and mount.
Imagination triggers transportation
to prehistoric jungle. A distant air-born
monster screams welcome!
A spark is born, a tiny mental flame
of interest holds focus, despite teacher’s
attempts to redirect to next lesson.
Another archaeologist is born.
***

 

Fast Food Religion

The sign said, “February 11
Drive Thru Ashes,”
and the echo of hypocrisy
rippled on the lack of wind.
How can we accept the cross
of fasting if we cannot give
up the convenience of our own
cars long enough to pay
a more proper respect to this day,
to this god.
***

 

Cackle

Perhaps you have seen their
proximity, bombarding obstacles. The vindictiveness
of cocooned hope in tributary maleness.

Not so much here in the sufferance of humanity.
My game was always determined for blasting, legend.
After shade-defying silhouettes from my window, I knew.

Then a liability from the hopelessness
brought about a boycott. My grappling wake,
reformed to this corruption of another baffling yesterday.

Look at this levelless secular thought:

— Like blustering palettes, pending.
Rustic kindness outlawed to opportunistic insignificance,
harboring a situational bonfire.

I like to waltz along hunger,
run the scent, starch my fist with once breathless sprinklings
of dusty wounds.

I know enough about bonnets and masters
to rebuff the limitations of repetition.

Shadows cannot homogenize
in this sentimental hospice. The misconceived whittle.
Each flare babbles about a necessary mimicry.

Omnisciently flexible markings languish
against me, fasten patchworked fiascos
into illicitly neurotic learnings.

I dwindle among the wheat,
wave to the neutralized, daggering their greetings,
and cackle to myself inside this grievous silence.
***

 

Dear G –

In the rare moments that I think
I might someday want a family
of my own, it is you I imagine
as my other half, my safe haven, shimmering
like an angel, answering the million wishes
I have whispered into fountains and after falling stars.

*******

A.J. Huffman has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, fourteen solo poetry chapbooks and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses.  Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers.  She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2600 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, The Bookends Review, Bone Orchard, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, and Kritya.  She is the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  You can find more of her personal work here:  https://ajhuffmanpoetryspot.blogspot.com/