The Happy Couple: A Photograph

She had the look of a 1976 Buick, driven hard and left too long in the tall grass behind the barn---the nesting place for wayward mice.  The lines on her face told sordid tales of drug-induced stupors and drunken one night stands.  Barbed wire tattoos coiled around each arm and a poorly inked vine spiraled around her mid-section. A gaudy dragon clutched a cubic zirconia and dangled to and from her stretched navel.  She wore a stripy, knit half shirt in horrific autumn hues that revealed years of tanning bed abuse.  An overwhelming array of rings, chains, bangles and bobbles littered her heroinesce frame.  Her arms were curled around his neck in a desperate fashion and capped off with shiny, blood-red talons.  They were locked in a gag worthy kiss.  All eyes closed---her face relaxed, his pinched like a 5 year old forced to kiss his Old Aunt Mabel, whom he barely knows and certainly doesn't like.  His drooping seventies rocker hair hung like stringy linguini and fell over a filthy looking leather motorcycle jacket.  His look is disheveled and dirty, clad in tight blue jeans with a hole below his left buttocks.  A chain connected his presumably empty wallet to his belt loop and clung with uncertainty over his thigh.  Boy, woman, man, child?  Too old to attain his rock n' roll dream, too stubborn to let it die.  A dream not so much deferred, more tarnished and yellowed with age and laziness---soaked in sex, drugs and alcohol, light on the rock n' roll.  The happy couple living out a hazy fantasy---the hot, sexy groupie and the sensational rock god.

Old Mrs. Greery (Children's verse)

Old Mrs. Greery lives down the street

She has a wart on her nose and clumpy big feet

Short and squatty with snaky white skin

She smells of mothballs and has a crooked witch grin

She sweeps off her stoop, we watch from the park

Hiding behind bushes until it grows dark

Then we creep closer to get a good look

As she sits in her chair and picks up a book

Can’t tell what she’s reading, we think it’s ‘bout spells

‘Bout gremlins and goblins and what else we can’t tell

Then again, it could be a story, quite boring

Before we know it she’s soundly snoring

copyright MG Mack

Below The Surface

Beneath the skin, red tissue and bone

Far below the surface to the great unknown

In the deepest recesses where it’s peaceful and dark

There exists a an entity glowing like a spark

This is the place where emotions dance

And simmering thoughts ignite romance

Where tenderness lives and love grows sweet

Where generosity and nurturing gestures meet

Warm and inviting people held dear

Always have a home and nothing to fear

It’s where pain goes to rest and heal

Where patience lives and weary finds zeal

If you look closely and pay attention

You’ll see things that no one will mention

For there are times when what is below

Will pierce the surface with its insurmountable glow

© MG Mack

Soothing Waters (lyrics from title prompt)

Capsized by the daily grind

thrown about in a turbulent sea

Torrential rain and ten foot waves

threaten to swallow me

Choking, coughing, gasping for air

Treading lightly but getting nowhere

Lies to the left,  reality to the right

As day comes to a close

I'll win this fight

Because like soothing waters

your smile cools my head

immerses me in serenity

brings me back from the sea of dread

Like soothing waters

your eyes they draw me in

rushing, receding

slowing the bleeding

they bring me to life again

Never wanted anything

Never thought I'd be

lulled so deep, dulcified

that it would feel so free

Like the cool black ocean

on a moonlit summer night

You ease my restless mind

in my darkness you're the light

Like soothing waters

your smile cools my head

immerses me in serenity

brings me back from the sea of dread

Like soothing waters

your eyes they draw me in

rushing, receding

slowing the bleeding

they bring me to life again

Copyright MG Mack

Solace

Solace

Two gentle white butterflies ride a warm summer breeze

That lifts my hair and flutters through the leaves

You reside in that warm feeling: soft, on the nape of my neck

The familiar scent that swirls: fresh yet faint

You offer a sense of reassurance, a feeling so subtle and settling

An invisible touch on my right arm

Barely a whisper, but still a whisper the entire world falls away and silence beckons, you answer.

© Copyright MG McClintock.  All rights reserved.

The Raven, The Crow and The Lark

Sorrowful notes fall upon my dancing heart

as tears upon the heaving flame.

Soothing words that once quenched a thirsty throat

be wrested from my mind,

leave no evidence of thy presence hereafter

The wilted rose bore hues of red and pink,

colorless remains of blushing cheeks.

How now? Thy honourable, ghostly Knight,

warrior for truth, slayer of tyranny,

wordsmith of whispers fluttering on rippling winds,

barely breathed, little more than vapor swiftly dispersed.

Darkened, steadfast eyes of the raven, turned irksome crow

lurks on yonder bough.

Haunting memory, find fascination nay fancy

more neatly near your nest.

Thy cawing colours my complexion an irritable and saddened shade of grey.

At the dawning of day, the lark lifts my weary lids with a lively melody,

a hopeful song of all things passing.

His heart, small and fickle, ventures far from roaring fires.

Oh, the safe, sensible, happy lark.

©MG McClintock