"The Earth grew dark, and its figures passed by me, like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only—Morella" (Morella) by Harry Clarke (1919, Tales of Mystery and Imagination)
1.
A Me-Too Prophecy, The Dawning Comprehension Of Intolerable Embarrassments
You left a heck of a
ring round the bathtub.
The overflow, that's what
makes people nervous.
It spews into the alley
like an interant.
Mama wore her best shoes
on a Sunday, four inch heels.
By the time we got home
the water had filled the house
and you had floated
away to college.
I didn't recognize
you for four years.
2.
It All Started At The Harrison Wedding
Benjamin held forth
in his sharkskin suit.
Beatrice dazzled
in similar silks.
The honeymoon was inclusive.
We land artists followed
them to a tiny island
off the coast of Maine.
To reach the display area
one had to crawl
through a narrow cave.
Claustrophobic screams
melded nicely with the
seagull's plaintive cries.
My work was a huge
map page I emboldened
with sensual colors.
Curtis, the famous photographer,
promised to return every two years
to document the weather's
destructive beauty, and other
apprehensions of misfortune.
About the author:
Colin James has several chapbooks of poems, Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writers Knight Press and A Thoroughness Not Deprived Of Absurdity from Pisces’s Porch Press, and a book of poems, Resisting Probability, from Sagging Meniscus Press. He lives in Massachusetts with two cats, Dorothy and Jane.
