Of Pole Dancers and Dark Desires

Undress
molasses sweet.
Reach
through the sound
of smiles and tomorrows.
Hook
your nightly
dream.

Of Screeching

tires
featherlings
fingernails
on chalkboards
sonic tonations
of terror
& terrorizing
tangible
auditory
………..hallucinations
………..elicit
physical
responses
ear covering
skin crawling
echoes reverberating
………………………..down
………………………..spines

Watching the Rain

gather on a tired handrail leading to the subway,
the metal worn, possibly diseased, layered in years
of germs left by fingers and palms. I wonder if it sees
the water as temporary relief, even as it quickly rolls
off its smooth curves. I look deeper, searching
for the answer in the tiny drops clinging
to the underside of the silver cylinder. What I see
is a strange universe, a bizarre abstraction
of the city surrounding us, skyscrapers smashed
flat, mixing with the graffitied letters, spelling out
a bizarre tomorrow that somehow seems to make sense
in a blink of a moment just before it falls
into the obliterating oblivion of another anonymous puddle.

A.J. HUFFMAN has published thirteen full-length poetry collections, thirteen solo poetry chapbooks, and one joint poetry chapbook through various small presses. Her most recent releases, The Pyre On Which Tomorrow Burns (Scars Publications), Degeneration (Pink Girl Ink), A Bizarre Burning of Bees (Transcendent Zero Press), and Familiar Illusions (Flutter Press) are now available from their respective publishers. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a two-time Best of Net nominee, and has published over 2,600 poems in various national and international journals, including: Bone Orchard, The Bookends Review, Corvus Review, EgoPHobia, The James Dickey Review, Kritya, and Labletter.