Dear sweet muse
I sprinkle you more than blue
so go ahead
eat the colors
sea the breeze
paint your periwinkle moon

In each and every tune
dream rainbows 🌈
and dragon songs
dip your quill in hues of wishes
and red velveteen kisses

Feel touched by your lover
the earth 🌎
the air
the sky

As your heart dances
miracles
blooming to heaven
past clouds oh so high

Let these petals
gleaming jewels
fall freely from your light

Confessing unicorn
and dragonfly wishes
through your whimsical blue-red eyes.

Ann Marie Steele

~Thanks for reading. If you are new to…

“To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying” — Ted Hughes, Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow

The crows hatch in batches

batches spawned after colorless nights — scorching nightmares spilled over into morning as I rain coal tears

tears salty, dripping velvet down my cheek in the blue hour of morning

mourning for this nightmare to morph its black feathers red again with blood

blood to tint my rainbow arching across this empty bent sky

sky bent by sunflowers — each crow perched committing colors to my mind

mind wandering

wondering when coal tears won’t rain down my cheek
after I dream of crows

crows and eternal flight

at night.

Ann Marie Steele

In response to J.D. Harms’ prompt:

Clinching
tight
these beads between my teeth
let me grovel
on my knees
dear Lord
recite my rosary
in your dark box.

Seeds slick between my
finger
tips
oozing my spice
in this woody confessional
let me atone
wisely
my wicked ways
you drinking my elixir
holy water
from
my crimson chalice.

Repent rapaciously
those fifty shades of blush
and horizon of hues
inked in between my parts
onto You
Yourself
and Yours
my Creator
my hardest
critic
Yes

I said hard

NIBBLE my petals
with your thorn til I rain clover
GRATE my soft cheeks
tickle my lips
with your gruff shadow
CHEW…

I could pen you a sonnet
a love song, a ballad
stamp a brilliant sleeve of
lyrics atop your skin

vibrant verses bubbling ink
so psychedelic that
Juliet will spread her wings
to soar past the Milky Way

for a rendezvous on
the moon with Romeo
staking a claim like gold
on her rosy bosom before

that fatal act of
twisted fate, instead
an angel’s choir will hum lullabies
upon Juliet’s incipient child

your voice like those
hymns turn my river red
in a plague of love
your Tigris watering my Euphrates

in our garden of paradise
when you squeeze my…

My Ray, in basketball vernacular, is one of the big guys
That’s what other players call those who stand at least 6’8"
Go figure.

Towering an impressive 6’11" over my petite frame Ray is more than enough if you get my drift
And sometimes I just wanna climb him like a jungle gym

However, he’s not only tall but tells the best tales in the world — 
like the one when he met Michael Jordan a senior at the same school
Ray, already standing 6’6' as a sophomore, was hard to miss.

This guy tapped me on the shoulder one…

Whistle a sea breeze
as I meander
toes squishy in the sand
the sun is just a tease
eyes blinking in this bright summer land

Race, class, age, politics
nothing divides
at the beach
here for the same
to sun to surf to swim alike

From the middle-aged man so crass
donning a cherry red speedo and
the three girls parked in front of me
gossiping and giggling as he
so tan
returned to shore
getting close enough to see
the word delicious spanning his skinny ass
as he passed

The voluptuous mom tending to her toddler
bending over like a…

Trust Fall
Must Fall
Hand to hand
Face to face

Fly together
Lurching dance
Bodies coil
Connect in space

Duo partners
Acrobats
Whip and pop
And again

Acroyoga
Play together
Touching hands
Skin on skin

Trust Fall
Must Fall
Breath to breath
Heart to soul

~This piece was written a few years ago when I had a designated acroyoga partner, who also became a dear friend and taught me a lot about standing up for myself and letting my light shine. As all good things must come to an end, so did this partnership. In retrospect, to me this poem…

Slip. Slide
collide as
your syntax
conjugates the
hairpin verbs
untangling
every frenzied fold
of my mind
every nook

every cranny
affirm
with words
firm
my love language
lies beneath my skin.

Sip. Swallow
my waist
with your hands
so immense
your fingers
like piano keys
Tip Tap
play
my breasts

your physical
jam is never too much
but
my beauty
blooms
beneath that touch.

Delve. Drip
sprinkle a
mirage
let me hallucinate
drown in those
pools
called pupils

string words
like seraphs
trim my mouth
so prettily parched
gloss my thirst
my love language
will
gulp it right up.

…