STORM WATCH
CONTEMPLATION ON BREAKFAST
(a hashbrown for the hollow guy)
I looked down to my plate —
Where the fried potatoes rested,
Their skin so brown.
Having been fried (they are dead).
But their souls
Still drift angrily about the kitchen.
Some of them
Are sucked through the fan
Above the stove,
Never to be heard from again.
I smile in anticipation.
Their aroma wafts gently to my nose
In the steam
That used to be their lifeblood.
I pour on the ketchup
It covers them in a thick red sauce —
Cooling them and relieving their pain.
The souls begin to scream,
“He is burying us!”
As they whiz about the room
Like electrons in an atom.
Rebounding wildly off of each other in their panic.
I cover them
With a delicate layer of salt
And place my napkin
Gently into my lap.
(.haos and the void colliite
The view hazes over,
choked tvilh old pollen.
Squirrels fussing corkscrews around an oak
ignore the lowered sky, don’t feel
the leaves and blades jump, can’t argue
the heavy gray smell of rain.
A faint thrumming on the roof,
a pulse deepened in the gutters.
The street goes rabid; curbsides froth
and rush; hail salts the driveway
with bluish stones, then relaxes
into holographic silver.
The street smokes with hot thoughts;
the yellow-gray slant of sharpened sky,
a distant, summer-slow ripping of thunder,
the spastic, green-ragged lawn.
Clean cells fisheye
through beaded lenses,
the new advocates of structure.
Ken Chamlee
They seem to be at peace now.
And strangely so.
They speak to me
As I pick up my fork and smile.
They tell me they are happy
To be eaten by me —
For they believe that
I am a worthy god
To end the life of a potato.
Andy Valli
I am a line in an ice cube-
You can see me and I can see you,
Yet we never understand why each other exists.
I see your five strange tentacles
Grasping me and pushing me toward my brothers-
I never understood why they existed either.
You hold me high and force me to
Dive into a murky pool filled with bubbles,
But I don’t mind because at last I know that I have a function to perform
My nightmares begin soon after the descent.
I’m able to remember that I once lived in a stream
Many miles from this dark water.
How did I get here though?
My ideas proceed quickly, but
Still I have no conclusion — my memories are faded.
What’s happening to me? The shell which once protected
Me is dissolving bit by bit —
I’ll soon be completely exposed.
Terror-stricken I try to fight, but it’s
Already too late. I no longer exist.
Mandi Ayers
Photograph by Cherl Harrison