Tonight's Poet Corner: Manchester Cigarette Lighter

Manchester Cigarette Lighter
by Belinda Roddie

Flicker on a ticker, tickle her
belly button with smoke. You
check your time bomb before it explodes,
hold your breath until it reeks of
battered cheese. Stinks a million
times worse than the kiss you gave
at the New Year's party at a quarter past eight,
when you lit a Manchester knock-off
firecracker and flung it right under a
poor New York mascot's rubber nose
and sent it off screaming out firefly flickers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday's Storyteller: "Though it had been amusing at first, the mounted deer head's constant quoting of memes was beginning to wear on us."

by Belinda Roddie   Though it had been amusing at first, the mounted deer head's constant quoting of memes was beginning to wear on us. So was the bear skin rug's persistent singing of Parry Gripp jingles. So Ronald took out his shotgun and fired two direct shots in between the deer's eyes before sticking lead between the bear's teeth. When the distant din of shells on wood had subsided, we were greeted with the "Nom nom nom" song. "Ron," I said, "they're already dead." Groaning, Ronald placed his gun aside and pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniels from the cupboard. As he poured him and me two glasses, he shut out the incessant LOLCats references emitting from the bullet-riddled deer head's mouth. He told me he knew he shouldn't have left the laptop open for so long last night, but he had been rather busy "playing checkers" with his girlfriend. I didn't know why he had to be specific with his girlfriend, bu...
Read more

Saturday's Storyteller: "Nikolai did it."

by Belinda Roddie "Nikolai did it." "Who?" Anton rolled his eyes. " Nikolai," he repeated. "You know how he is. Always getting into trouble." "I didn't do anything!" Nikolai screeched from the other room. "Sounds like something a guilty person would say!" retorted Anton. "Anton," their mother said, "you realize you are accusing your own brother of shooting the neighbor's dog." "Oh. I thought we were talking about the missing cookies." His mother raised an eyebrow. "Who said they were missing?" " Nikolai did it!" shrieked Anton as he ran outside and into the snow. This week's prompt was provided by myself, Arden Kilzer, and Bethany Kilzer, conceived during a walk on Christmas Day last year.
Read more

Saturday's Storyteller: "The raindrops glistened on her eyelashes as we danced."

by Belinda Roddie The raindrops glistened on her eyelashes as we danced. The rain was heavy, and it was cold. It made the grass clump against our shoes and the gray pavement a slick, oily black. It made nearby cars shine and lamp lights glitter with dozens of metallic stars. "Twirl for me, sugar," she murmured in my ear as she pulled herself into me. I twirled for her. "That's a good girl." When we were done dancing, we went outside and took off our wet coats, and we settled into wooden chairs before she put a kettle on the stove. The kitchen smelled like rain and tea leaves and salt. I never knew salt had a distinct odor until now. I breathed it in, and I was by the sea hundreds of miles away. "Do you dance in the rain often?" I asked her. "Not often. I could get sick." "It's very cinematic of you." "Oh?" "Romantic. People dancing in the rain. Kissing in the rain." "Have we kissed yet?...
Read more