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Scarecrow

by Frankie Sanchez

- A collaboration with Steven Kenworthy -

You thought I was speaking metaphorically when I said,
"my zombie bracelet glows in the dark."
You got sky quiet.
So I put my tongue in my cheek and pocketed my thoughts.
 
It's a situation like this that reminds me
to bite down until it bleeds.
Dry ice
dry as dust
mummy's lips.
I'm buried in the Middle East,
telephones,
I want to taste your exoskeleton,
through telephones
we are a Rolodex of mistakes.
French-pressed into a desert existence.
Tethered to reason as headstrong as the prettiest anchor only always looks like a chandelier.
 
Glass bits everywhere,
this must be transparent castles crashing
busted antique broken jawbones,
crystal keeper,
I wanted to get old with you.
I wanted to get senior on your citizen.
 
Class photos,
pose,
I'm talkin' old as an idea, not an age.
I'm talkin' about not giving up, not stopping,
never reaching a point where we feel as though we're owed something.
Debt collection is an ugly sport you know
always counting to fifty.
When I'm sixty, you can color me Allen Arkin,
bring me to the Grand Canyon,
watch me stand on her edge, tipy-toed carelessly overlookin'
unimpressed,
waiting for a larger answer.
I just hope that someone will find you, stand on your edges,
hold you to your figure and show you
(in ways I can't, due to distance and boundaries and lack of communication)
that if you're going to call it 'love' than it shouldn't be so arduous,
it's not about emotional preservatives.
It's that I'm never feeling leftovers.
We should avoid used furnitures,
at all costs,
open your eyes, get comfortable and pay attention.
Put some wind in your words.
 
It is okay to fall in love with a breeze
so long as it is saying exactly the right things.
 
Coming inhaling exhaling going--
I was willing to chalk-white your sidewalk-eyes bright
and say something clever about pedestrian skies.
 
Tonight this evening
I almost revealed my horizons to you-- pink and orange.
Nearly slipped citrus and told you something bold about this moment.
My inner-twined workings almost outed themselves for you in strings.
I almost made a gallery of myself for you to stand in.
My thoughts saliva-painted on this red-stained tongue,
echoing in this esophagus, sore throat,
how I acknowledge that the old me is an x-ray not a photograph.
How I want to build a life like a Craftsman, I don't wanna have too many stories.
How I hope the pretty people of Guernica died knowing they were in a Picasso,
reveling in the frame of their existence.
Existential residence.
We could share a neighborhood and make fragile houses
out of shapes
 
Figures, roman numerals and numbers,
Italian,
you brought your baggage claims,
talk to me like cold fluorescent terminal illness 'tis the season.
You say, "there isn't much difference between the sky, a slow eulogy and the desert."
"Vast," you say, "we're pale-faced traveling in box-towing caravans."
 
Bleached defeat,
I drop my eyes to the floor looking for an oasis,
I say, in a whisper you could never appreciate, "all of my lovers are deserts."

You get night quiet,
sand dollar in hand,
you stand there falling apart with asphyxiated foundation

like an unemployed scarecrow.


08/26/2011

Author's Note: yeah. Steven Kenworthy.

Posted on 08/27/2011
Copyright © 2024 Frankie Sanchez

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Steven Kenworthy on 08/27/11 at 03:03 AM

honored to be a part of this fancy funeral for hope. :) great times FS. may the champagne stay aflowing...

Posted by Linda Fuller on 08/27/11 at 10:50 AM

Immensely enjoyed this ride on the jetstream of your intermingled consciousness. Into favorites. And, if you'll let me use it, I've found my next pickup line: "I want to get senior on your citizen."

Posted by Colleen Sperry on 08/28/11 at 01:55 PM

I so enjoyed this .. so many GREAT line.. a big well done for you both on this poem!! :)

Posted by Meghan Helmich on 08/29/11 at 09:36 AM

"How I hope the pretty people of Guernica died knowing they were in a Picasso," and "I say, in a whisper you could never appreciate, "all of my lovers are deserts" are my favorite lines. this is a beautiful collaboration.

Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 08/30/11 at 09:35 AM

Such a pleasure to read a collaboration by two fine, fine poets. "all of my lovers are deserts." - indeed.

Posted by A. Reed on 09/20/11 at 06:17 PM

I can't quote a favourite because there were quite a few. Definitely one to remember.

Posted by Laurie Blum on 09/20/11 at 10:50 PM

Congrats on the Contest win! Well deserved. This is a wonderful collaboration.

Posted by Maria Francesca on 09/22/11 at 12:52 PM

Congrats on a great win!

Posted by Amy Manning on 10/05/11 at 12:05 AM

I am utterly in love with this. It's so well done and uses such interesting wording, definitely going in my favorites.

Posted by Bertram Sparagmos on 09/21/12 at 04:35 PM

This is so delightfully bleak.

Posted by Bertram Sparagmos on 09/21/12 at 04:39 PM

This is so delightfully bleak. It speaks to a certain part of me.

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