Tom Hatch: Mistletoe

Turning the corner on a late fall day

The leafless trees were full of it fifty sixty clumps

A head each one so beautiful I could not be missed

To be kissed by the beauties under it's

poisonous bright greenness

Could be death could be love

In bouquets the size and shape of medusa's snaking head

Charmed in reflection of beheading their mass

An unwanted guest from her host cell (the tree)

yet waiting for a little kiss below the parasite

Eventually killing its host as all love does

Mistletoe is so misunderstood a kiss is not love

But if you ate some it kills imitating love all the same

 

 

Three Poems

B. A. Brumfield                        Tom Hatch

There are stars up in the sky 
                                                A day does not go by I pretend 
Flickering promises
                                                Your promises are not a lie
But I can't see through 
                                                Only see within until exhaled cold breath
These raging storms
                                                An umbrella of steel to protect
The haze is thick and weighs 
                                                Of fog and no grace then
weary on me
                                                The steel is hard and thick
And I sink under its weight 
                                                Subterranean shadows move me
into the ocean
                                                Near lost promises in faded gowns 

And now I'm drowning
                                                In soaking wet of you and me

Father father I reach out to you
                                                        A metaphor of savior that is all I have 

Through the haze and waters as they rage

                                                        Coming in waves of I don't care
I reach for the promises and they

                                                        Have stopped pretending promises are real
flicker, they flicker.

                                                        Turning into flames that melt the stars up in the sky