My Cardboard Balcony

Pretty Monster by Belinda Roddie pretty monster likes to sleep in a deep, deep yellow moon. pretty monster plays ukulele and strings green bows in her brown hair. pretty monster kisses men on mouths and watches thorns spring from lip cracks. but pretty monster doesn't understand why people run away from her if she's pretty.

Once again, OneWord.com wasn't updated today! Pretty disappointing. But I'm putting up a Poet Corner regardless. So nyeh.

Blue Tea by Belinda Roddie we drink blue tea go on shopping sprees we smoke tiny pipes light up tiny lights hang them right above our beds so they heat up all our heads we go surfing on the moon we play oboe and bassoon we go dancing, we go sleep while our souls the fairies keep

Difficult to separate the child from the adult. The beanie and the briefcase. The baseball bat and the golf club. The milk carton and the champagne glass. Silly putty melting in the sun. Hot glue on a board fused to make a new porch. Puppy dogs. Old dogs. Lots of red locks on the head. Lots of gray stubble around the jaw. Smiles. Smiles.

The Racer by Belinda Roddie broad gold helmet, shoes strapped in perfect place, the vessel streaming with technicolor consumerism, yellow logos melting like butter in a screaming redneck sun. the last cool moments before hot burning rubbers stinks up the air and the flames threaten to kick over the bucket and pour out oil from the skeleton of victory.

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name..." I wasn't listening to the Lord's Prayer. Or the priest's heavy breathing. Or my mother's muttering as she clenched my hand. I felt the pressure of bodies around me, the heat of fingers and palms, the warmth radiating from old women's cheeks and old men's noses. I tried to focus on the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide weaving in and out of pious Catholic nostrils.

His alibi was simple: He was at home having sex with his wife. Only it wasn’t his wife. It was his boss’s wife, having an affair with him. Only it wasn’t an affair. It was an accidental one-night-stand after drinking too much vodka. Only it wasn’t vodka. It was very strong ancient rum, excavated from the ruins of a Mexican temple. Only it wasn’t a Mexican temple. It was some fogie’s destroyed house after he had accidentally lit himself on fire with his own cigarette.