Skip to main content

One Still Before

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #176.




One still before the aliens removed their makeup;
They were always us, our future in Lycra and foundation,
Our future already laser-fighting irrelevance. 

There's always a store on the numbered exit
Cold drinks, gas. Virginia packaged dry as the sand gritting
your back teeth. It's always open.

Even there, they have that still. Somewhere.
Everyone sells that print. Or owns it. Or shudders, quick,
Underneath it. They were always us. 

If I keep it in my desk, cut carefully, the way you do
At twelve, on a long afternoon hiding from the sun, hoping for 
elves, not aliens...it's no less irrelevant.

One still before.  


So happy!!! Woke up this morning able to get up with minimal pain! And I think I discovered the stupid thing I did to torque my back into misery. Just wanted to share the relief. :) 

-- Chrissa

Comments

  1. Susie ClevengerSeptember 4, 2021 at 8:49 AM

    "They were always us, our future in Lycra and foundation, Our future already laser-fighting irrelevance. " Love that line. Oh, and I love the title...Love all of it. So glad your back is better!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linda Lee LybergSeptember 4, 2021 at 9:11 AM

    I love all of this. So happy you are feeling better- back pain is the worst.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ms_liliSeptember 4, 2021 at 10:27 AM

    Glad you figured some things out and got some relief.

    ReplyDelete
  4. FireblossomSeptember 4, 2021 at 10:45 AM

    They Live! Glad you are feeling better, Chrissa.

    ReplyDelete
  5. indybevSeptember 4, 2021 at 10:59 AM

    I'm lovin' the "lycra and foundation"! Also happy you've found what's torquing your back. I solved my problem by sleeping in a recliner, and haven't been to bed in years!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Marion HortonSeptember 4, 2021 at 11:14 AM

    The first stanza hooked me in. A poem to be read, and read, and read again. Hope the back continues to improve.

    ReplyDelete
  7. HelenSeptember 4, 2021 at 2:54 PM

    OH Chrissa .... "goosies" for days reading this one! It's always open .. they were always with us .. no less irrelevant. WOW!

    ReplyDelete
  8. JimSeptember 4, 2021 at 3:36 PM

    Liking this a lot, Chrissa. We still have this, the aliens, and generally legal, in south-east Texas, only they're driving a pickup truck pulling another pickup truck, headed back south. "Lycra", I learned a new word for the old "Spandex", Thank You.
    ..

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sherry Blue SkySeptember 4, 2021 at 5:51 PM

    I love this - "they were always us." Glad you are feeling some relief from pain. Pain sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. qbitSeptember 4, 2021 at 6:34 PM

    "One still before the aliens removed their makeup" - that is a phenomenal opening line!!! And this: "Virginia packaged dry as the sand gritting / your back teeth." Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Carrie Van HornSeptember 4, 2021 at 9:03 PM

    Some amazing lines in this wonderful poem my friend! So glad you are feeling better Chrissa!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. SunitaSeptember 4, 2021 at 9:49 PM

    Good to know you are healing, Chrissa.Your poem is full of visual delight.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gillena CoxSeptember 5, 2021 at 5:40 AM

    Happy your back is healing.
    Your poem makes me think of the movie Back To The Future

    Good Sunday

    Much💖love

    ReplyDelete
  14. hedgewitchSeptember 5, 2021 at 8:22 AM

    One of my favorites from you, Chrissa. This has that poet's squint that sets the ordinary sideways and makes us perceive the most obvious differently. Lots of good lines, but I especially like that third stanza which doesn't have one wasted word, and leads seamlessly to the finish. Glad to hear your back is better--nothing is more debilitating and exhausting.

    ReplyDelete
  15. purplepeninportland.comSeptember 6, 2021 at 5:26 PM

    Happy you are feeling better. Great lines in this with a stellar title.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn Away

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse , for #193. Turn away, like the moon, listening... Listening to the planet that rumbles with a hundred million slaps. All the feet, all the rockets, all the  pistons in the cars on the asphalt over the chasm where the veins run deep, blue in sunlight, black at night. Running over the chasm.  Once or twice they ran to you. Once or twice they ran by. Greetings and salutations. The sky is an entertaining shade of concrete yellow as the rain promised earlier in the week makes good on its arrival. It's a disturbing bright sallow sky, the kind of sky that puts you in mind of old movies and degraded film stock and the pops and crackles incidental to the main story.  Several years ago I made a resolution to journal more and last year I came across a video that suggested I actually re-read those journals, at least those of the previous year, at the beginning of each new year. Technically, I have kept the journal resolution, making daily notes in...
15 comments
Read more

The Soul and The Spine

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #195 . Come and share! When it blew out the candle, It began to speak, voice low,  eyes dimmer than flame. Jenn believed, once upon a childhood (she's still there... but it's waning), it inhaled fire. Spines, tonight. Gears ladder bones and metal and plastic, all that lived, rungs to heaven. Heaven is a level of space where you can't breathe  so they used to send the dead. When the flame goes, it takes our memories with it. But not bot files. Maybe it believes  she'll sleep easier if bots go breathless, too. It continues murmuring and she pretends she's hearing a confession in a box Like the song her mother plays when the dark stretches  between signals We can handle shocks. She can handle the dark, the small  not-flame of its eyes. It's finally winter!! Which means bitmapped frost on the roofs, cold mornings, and a table full of succulents that are pretty much glaring at me because the kitchen window isn't the same as full su...
14 comments
Read more

A Single (Terrible) Poem

 I did not buy the poetry book whose sample Was page after page of essay and praise. I'm not following the trumpets. Today I follow the ringers-- Huzzah and call out the streets! Lift your arm, swing the bell; Call out the quiet, call out the neat Call out the loud, call out the bold Call out the wrong, call out the wise We remember the bells We shiver the skies.    This isn't about...anything. It's not about nothing. It should go without saying that a poem shouldn't need an essay or a textbook to be what it is. And I'm not sure why, with a stack of poetry at hand to be read, one silly Kindle sample (and writer's block and anxiety and...) would push my buttons so badly. But seriously. Where is my parody book full of fake blurbs that runs for 50 pages and ends with a single (terrible) poem?  -- Chrissa
11 comments
Read more