Zubak & Snoddon & Demond – February 2017

Crystal Snoddon, LuAnn Zubak, and Marlayna Demond traded art and words. LuAnn shared this image, entitled “Looking Back,” with Crystal:

In response, Crystal wrote this poem:

Vernon Now

rakes an arthritic hand through grey hair,
slumps over to the bay window Dappled
day, here we sway, here we go round
the mulberry bush, stands, stares. Tangled by
boxwood borders the mulberry bush, the mulberry
birds flit to and fro from the thicket. Vernon’s
rheumy eyes track bush, here we go round the
green verdant leaves. “Meal time, Vernon,”
Tyrannical Tyrannisaurus Vex, we’re going round here-
“Here, Vernon, let me help.” He brushes off
hands who try once more to steer him by the elbow,
steer him away with a stagger and sway
We should go round before the light is all gone,
he bleats, peeks backward to the window, a child
in short pants, with a tear that drips from his eye.

* * * * *

Crystal shared this poem with Marlayna:

Read It Cold- a prose poem

Nibbles of the latest news are all my stomach can digest of late. It has been too hot, too ambitious, the acid bubbles up over fragile skin, burns in violent etches the homebody landscape I’ve attempted to create from amorphous ether. Emotion. There is just too much bloody emotion being served on this plate of uncooked circumstance. The newspaper lining drips of it, the newscasts are smugly sated, filled with lip-licking smiles. Unsavory wills, jockeying for jurisdiction smell repugnance. I picture Caligula, cheering from the side, picking his teeth with a shaft of a humerus, while bodies amass for the feasting. Tears abrade my eyes, I tear away from these unholy moments, to return later and nibble away at tenuous knowledge once it’s grown cold.

In response, Marlayna made this image, entitled “Digesting Fires”: