Three poems published in LA's Cultural Daily
www.culturaldaily.com/kathleen-florence-three-poems
Heavy metal petal
we were rolling to Nashville the day lovely Layne died
somewhere near Dayton, Ohio
stopping to drop shots at the local pool shop
you hallucinating your next tattoo
a peace sign butterfly cactus-headed horse
riding a red rose vine heel to neck
small bud unopened above the hip bone
highway artery between two cities
between wrist and heart, knees and lungs
north and southern differences
you repeat ramble on and I keep thinking the killer is me
my heavy boot crushing flowers to make time
in a non-stop rock n roll road trip fantasy
in reality there is no reality
no one knows for sure what happened in between
night glowing neon
motel signs boasting colored tv
diners tempting all-night breakfast
there was a moon
I saw the whole thing just before we came down
through the tunnel under yellow lights
feeling like an empty stomach
in a country we didn’t recognize
with its southern signs for finding salvation
billboard legal advice
billboard medicine price
1-800 no one can afford this
after a time you changed the tune
slowing us down like a dance in the gymnasium
young like something might surprise us
young like this country on reverb
*
Stoners
my throat remembers gravel
and no matter how I would sweep
or kick or wish them away
they were always clinging
the way gravel rocks do
remember we used to get high
when our little houses got us down
when school monitors got us down
when this town and its droop got us down
when the shits who chased us
in monster-sized trucks got us down
when your father found out and lost his shit
got us down
when my mother shut the door got us down
when no one cared no more got us down
we threw rocks and started running
broke windows turned our backs
turned right back around again
taking the air and words and hatred
anyone dared throw our way
*
Back in black
there are days when
sadness has no ground
to break or bounce back from
when Tom Waits doesn’t do it
when REM won’t shut up
when syrupy songs twisting
knives in my daily drive
until the gas tank empties
and there’s nowhere else to go
in my parents home I close the door
turn up True Colors
playing until the tape jams
strange cry the only kind of friend
to want in hard times
and my AC/DC sweetheart
who cancered in her thirties
the year of divorces
the year of choices we live with
it is her gravestone I see
the picture her family had carved
hint of a double chin
I tease her about it
with a flower
I can hear her laughing
over that spaghetti supper
tipsy faced school dance
crush on her brother
and the things that crushed us
into turning the volume UP