Clam Jammed

I am a confident woman,
Not afraid to go up to a man and show a little interest—
The problem, as of late, is the
Female version of a cockblock
And Urban Dictionary tells me that this is called a Clam Jam.

So there I am, trying the best I can,
Trying to win a man, woo a man, pick good words, make good plans,
Not bury my head in the sand,
When some other woman, who already has a man, moves to stop me because
She wants one more adoring fan,
To string along like a pearl
And at every attempt I make, shit hits the fan.

Well sorry to break it to ya, sister, but you’ve got a mister!
Move on! Begone!

In my mind, it’s time to take charge,
Organize a clambake
And have it writ large
That this behavior will not stand
Y’all clams better bury yourselves back in the sand.

Modern Babylon

We took a pilgrimage after the end of the world
To see a Tower rising out of a sea of sand
It rose, sphinx-like, full of unbroken windows
And business-like dreams of yesteryear
We went back to see what we’d left behind—
To mourn in a funeral procession—
To give this last sacrifice of civilization
Up to the sand, up to the flames, the dust
Our modern Babylon.

Riverbanked

A respite from the world,
riverbanked
Resting between the water and the land
I took the old postcard with me,
To give it some character, waterlogged it a bit
And I worked at the British place on Sunday, making fish and chips
And they told me that when a person’s crazy, their brain’s been
“mixed with water”
So I tried to write a story about somebody like that,
Chaos raging through their life, inferno-hot,
And sent it to you in that way that we used to
When we were kids
To picture the mailman and his wandering eye
Gears turning too fast in his brain
Trying to work out our stories like they were real
Made some vague sexual references/innuendos
Mentioned us having kids, you cheating on me, me going crazy—
That poor mailman. He never did stand a chance.
Hahaha.

Silence

Tell me I’m not a ghost,
That you can see me, I tell the empty chair—
Send a handful of texts to a list of busy friends
Tell me that my writer’s art has meaning—
That you can see into my heart,
That it doesn’t take me closer to disappearing,
That it doesn’t mark me as some kind of freak.
Tell me that you’re attuned to the frequency I transmit screams over
Before I become a part of the silence, too.

***

“Modern Babylon” and “Silence” are excerpts from Leslie D. Soule’s new poetry chapbook, My Mentor, Death. You can purchase the book from Terror House Press here.