Chelsey Minnis
[Five Poems]
When I try to write a poem it seems reasonable…
But it can never be reasonable…
It must be well pleasing…
Because it is a little unburned note!
It is like a whip brought to you on a tray…
And don't you want something?
* * *
I like sea-crabs…
It is very sad when their legs pop off…
Or when they try to threaten with their claw…
If you are on a crab-fishing boat…
Then you start making money in your head…
Some lives are too hard to be lived without cigarettes…
* * *
This is when your hair sticks to your lipstick and it is so cuckoo...
So you close the bedroom-dividing curtain…
This is gold smudges...and a gemstone powered engine!…
A great devalued thing is a plain life…
But I like it like a venus-fly-trap pried open with tweezers…
* * *
This is like someone who frowns at minks…
And it is like a squandered money-gift…
This is the magic syphilis!…
There is no need for the truth…
Like scythes that cut through prom gowns…
* * *
This is when you think you are earning a reprieve from self-disgust through busy-work…
The poem lies on the floor until you step on it and it sticks to your shoe…
It is flimsy and soft like lemon mousse…
And semen stains on your earmuffs…