Shared Stories

By on Dec 2, 2013 in Poetry

Dancers and juggler on colorful background

of furious strum, permanent press, truncated
Average Joes along for the ride, becalmed
anonymous donors beset by mood swings,
voided warranties lacking proximate cause;

chattering mimes at ease in no-man’s-land, kid-gloved,
tear-to-open-push-to-reseal savvy,
posturing, taken aback in soft-serve swirls,
tilting at no shoes, no shirt, no service signs;

mood lit slow dancers fumbling for dimmer switches,
neutral buoyancies shaken on the rocks,
sucker bets stirred by happy hour distractions,
enduring last calls, twists of fate, transactions of No!;

plain speakers who know what is, is, tracing
results-may-vary bell curves, so just let it ride, you
Jiminy Crickets taunting free-range chickens, you
standard deviations of average mean;

service entrance wits cooing shopworn sentiment,
pawns stoked by snooze button heebie-jeebies,
worst-case scenarios of ham-fisted serendipity,
partial credit laziness holding sway;

dark energy dreamers rendezvousing with gloss,
works in progress overdosing on keep the change
jingle-jangles, out of pocket, out of mind,
antigravity wrestling entropy to a draw;

dice rolling also-rans, close, but no cigar,
horseshoe luck out of context, out of the blue,
maybe, or possibly, not existing, 0 search results
taking its toll, lost in the far end of the tunnel;

jugglers ill-suited to slow rides in fast cars,
speed bump bouncers heavily into redacted bone,
hemmers and hawers holding up the show,
aggregates of expletives, deleted;

survivors of the flimsiest of rough draft surprises,
loose-leaf spittle cornered in sullen smirks,
beat-spooked retro reflectors hell-raising
articles of faith, proselytizing subsurface trysts;

full tilt background noise, wild pitches,
mixed metaphors and stunned silence,
marginalia awaiting further review
through short takes, long shots, crazy talk howls;

little car clowns beep, beeping road trips,
afterthoughts, textured finishes, ragged
loose ends seeking loose ends seeking to intertwine
a continuous etcetera without end. Amen.

 

 

About

Richard T. Rauch was born and raised in the suburbs of New Orleans and currently lives along Bayou Lacombe in southeast Louisiana. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Big Muddy, Confrontation, decomP, Grey Sparrow, Hotel Amerika, The Oxford American, Pembroke Magazine, and Poydras Review, among others. Three of Rick’s poems appear in the Love Notes poetry anthology (Vagabondage Press, 2012). His flash fiction has appeared in Infective INk and is forthcoming in Aspen Idea. One piece was selected as a finalist in the 2012 Aspen Writers’ Foundation/Esquire Short, Short Fiction Contest.