A.J. Huffman

THREE POEMS

Watching a Waving That Might Be a Drowning

I wade in the shallow
[end] of your subconscious.
Holding
onto my sanity and the salt-
ed waves trying to break
my head. Hurts/fears/falls.
Black is not the shade
of any sun I choose to remember.
[And yet] There you are, back-
lit by embers I gave up
understanding. Bathed/bowed/bouyed
to a memory that may never have been
more than a flicker-
ing thought, we rise. Together,
breaking the calm
that echoes like glass.

Ablutophile

I think about it, even as I sit
at my desk, juggling phones, files,
faxes. I hear the antique, claw-footed,
ceramic basin calling me
home. I walk straight through
the front door, up the stairs, shedding layers
of clothes and stress as I go. The sound
of water, warming, filling, is intoxicating.
I add a handful of salts, watch them
dissolve. Sunlight dying behind pulled
curtains calls for candles, lavender, the scent
consumes the room and my mind. I cannot
think as I sink into the welcome embrace
of the tub. Ardorous nothing flows
through me. I am at peace by the time
the sponge caresses my skin.

Stopping for Tea
for Aleksey Chernyshov

near the corner prayer station, I was
pondering the meaning of randomly tagged string
bags steeped in questionably sanitized water, when
I met a man who could be perfect
ly cast as a teen vampire dream if he lost
his tan and his mind. As it turns
out, he was an angel in a daddy suit, bulging
from slightly weighted wings. He flew
through the drizzle of everyday on the rainbow
of his daughter’s smile. The affectation of their journey
was palpable. They held
their own gravity. Showering sparks of genuine
warmth into every anonymous shadow that happened
to cross their paths.

© A.J. Huffman 2013

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously publishedsix collections of poetry all available on Amazon.com. She has also published her work in numerous national and international literary journals. She has is the editor for six online poetry journals for Kind of a Hurricane Press. Find more about A.J. Huffman,including additional information and links to her work at Facebook and Twitter.

A.J. Huffman

Feathers and Dynamite

“there is a war between the mind And sky”
          -- Wallace Stevens

The moon looks diseased.
All blue
in its shining.
Like me.
Whenever you are near.
I feel your pull.
And I fear it.
And the conflict is often too much.
I am drained.
A crater
waiting to be filled.
But you are the tides.
Refusing to rise.
Until I crack.
And crawl.
Leaving you a trail
of blood and flesh.
You have no choice.
But to clean.

The Sense of the Serpent

Touch is the sin you cannot shed.
It claims in layers
thicker than any skin.
Building itself into and through
your every curve and corner.
It burns your senses.
Until you need its fire.
To breathe.
To bleed.
To be.
Anything
even close to alive.

Beaches of Isolation

Footprints grow from nothing.
Scarring random blankness.
Smooth
          and dissolving.
It all swallows
the salty water of memory.
Drowning.
So beautifully.
The sun has no choice.
But to turn its eyes.
Away.

© A.J. Huffman 2012

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published four collections of poetry: The Difference Between Shadows and Stars, Carrying Yesterday, Cognitive Distortion, and . . . And Other Such Nonsense. She has also published her work in national and international literary journals such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review. Find more about A.J. Huffman, including additional information and links to her work at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000191382454 and https://twitter.com/#!/poetess222.

Guest Poet: A.J. Huffman

A Different Kind of Angel

She rests
her wings of red satin
against the wall
in the dark
that matches
the links of her gown
and the stars in her hair.

They say her beauty
holds
its own dominion.
A perfect salvation.
Immune
to every kind of touch.

But the glare
around her ankle
is fake.
Smaller than it looks.
And flawed

by the blue
flaking from her fingers.

Learning to Choose Exile

The road to hell
is paved.
In good.
In gold.
And every stone I touch
runs wild.
A molten river
between my toes.
Moving me closer
to the edge.
As I slowly sink
through the floor.

Into the Locked Box of Unbeing

He opens the cage.
And finds her
waiting.
Wearing only what is left
of her skin.
Like diamonds
burning for his touch.
Knowing
that if he looks up
she is smiling.
Behind the shadow
of those eyes
he has trained.
To watch
as the hinges snap them,
once again,
into place.

© Amy J. Huffman 2011

A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published her work in literary journals, in the U.K. as well as America, such as Avon Literary Intelligencer, Eastern Rainbow, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, The Intercultural Writer's Review, Icon, Writer's Gazette, and The Penwood Review.