Haiku Confab

I want or I need. Mutually exclusive? I don't think so. No.

Free falling through night's celestial sky, your journey ends on dawn's mossy bluff. Scratching the earth with fingers and toes, you're more beast than divine spirit. Birds take to the sky. Forest floor comes to life with creatures escaping. In a feathered nest made from your wings and bone, you coil around the night God's thundering voice still ringing in your ears, Go. Find a life to guard. Photo: (c) Cindy Bailie

Wild overgrown hedge, green tendrils like fingers reach out to stop us. Sunken sidewalk, bog of wet leaves, moss, and mud. We cross, watch from other side. Scary side of street. Houses with eyes watching us, and whispering,  go . A light flickers on a cat appears, we cross and call, kitty, kitty. The cat watches us padding uphill to the woods eyes glowing green blue. Here kitty kitty. Don't follow it. Come back. Run. Around the corner... We find normal life a hat shop where church ladies buy pink feathered crowns.

Sticker warning reads: Taking with alcohol will unleash the harpy. Yellow eyes ablaze, she'll flap, squawk, peck at your eyes. Take food from your mouth.

Cherry's mom drinks beer day and night and night and day angering, sour breath. Twenty-four bottles fat, brown, icy and cold for us, when she's out. Till then we listen watch her engines rev and spark fueled by alcohol. Itching for a fight she spews a slurry of words: ...You're not my child. Drink. Your real mom's crazy. She left you, wandered away. ...In my house now. Drink. You cut that picture from a magazine. Not her ...You're pathetic. Drink. Buddy's my real child. You're taking food from his mouth. ...Yours is dirty. Drink. Sweet Cherry Candy we'll survive this nightmare. Friends. It's dark. She's out. Go. Bare feet on wet grass we run into the black night. Mud between our toes. Down a gravel path it cuts but we can't feel it. Grit between our toes.

A girl named Cherry loves Jesus, howls at the moon. Sloe-eyed gin fizzy. Her gal pal Candy recites Pledge of Allegiance her hand in his pocket. Hey cherry candy sticky-sweet, pink candy floss. You know you want some.

Ground down to fine dust words crush spirit to powder, mixed with dynamite. One spark lights it up, ignites the fuse that is the rope we dangle on. Cut the cord and fly into nothing. Cut the cord, the noose we hang from.

Dreamed of sailing through slate blue water to a garden filled with hummingbirds. In tiny nests their bellies resting on the ground. Feathers teal, fuschia. Stepping gingerly towards a plum tree alive with screeching and flapping I look up to see hundreds of black birds, red eyes on fire. "Hummingbirds, fly now." Watching a blur of tiny wings plow through the air black birds fill the sky.

Friends, like chocolate are sweet but temporary. Bitter when burning.

Smart ones buried deep under a load of stupid. Most seats are vacant. Who's driving this bus? Under it, five bodies deep. Someone, hit the brakes. Here comes another dazed from lack of direction. Throws herself under. Better right this thing stop the barrage of pointless. You, step on the gas.

Lips part to inhale smoke from burning angel wings. The story starts here.

No goblin, trickster conjurer potions needed to provoke magic. Charming, misleading beguiling, tempting, lying easy as breathing.

To a well-lived life, you walk in the light of day like an upright man. No belly slither No horns, hooves, or full-moon beasts. Open deceit, no. Skin smooth velvet, breath honey mead. Tormenting and irresistible. Alexandrite eyes aqua green in the daylight rubies in the dark. The slow, setting glow of an orange red sun builds anticipation. Sounds of rushing souls their shadows growing, then gone when night's curtain falls. Tap at my window an invitation to fly deep into the wild. In the pewter sky stars blink, look away, ashamed of their nakedness. Thirst for nourishment a gulp of your dream herb is intoxicating. Beneath your black wings in a thicket in the dark blood rises, fire rains.

Liquid fire of fermented dandelions, honey, lavender. Candy of strangers goes down rough, like swallowing a thistle abloom. Bloodied, not beaten wine-stained hands give way to the rosy-fingered dawn.

Rattling dry bones in a forgotten boneyard  best left undisturbed. The crushing weight of experience, memories tarnished by rain, air.

Holy tyranny! The guv'ment, out ta get me. Saw it on you tubes.

Rushing water, stream. Ideas bubble and flow. Where do I spill them? Here? Destination desk, chair? The creative process, disrupted.