I should’ve known the first time you brought back flowers.
To watch them bloom so beautifully
Then wilt so tragically
Like how our love at first did bloom
Before deceit followed into the bedroom
The charade finally ended
With petals dipped in (your) blood
Left crushed on the ground
As I stepped over and made my way around
The body of someone who once promised so much more than flowers.
Jess reads "I Should've Known":
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Jess confesses:"I felt sad watching a dying bouquet of previously bright and cheery flowers that my boyfriend had brought home. It made me think about a dying relationship and how romance can turn lethal."
JESS CHUA enjoys yoga and spending time with her cat and betta fish. Her microfiction was a runner-up in a Mysterious Photograph contest at Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
Curious yellow eyes watched,
in the twilight
from corner concealed
in shadow
tail flicking
as woman paced
vinyl kitchen floor
she talked but only
to herself
bowl of decaying fruit
saccharine odour filled the air
neither minded
it masked the smell of man
sat slumped at dinner table
face black and bloated
tongue lolling covered white
dead milky eyes wondering when
the snap occurred
she began dicing veg
noticing not kitchen blade
sliced finger tip
off
cackling in the night
Cat purred wondering when
the snap occurred.
James reads "The Snap":
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James confesses:"I was trying to right a dark valentines poem and I noticed my cat watching me type away. I wondered how many pets had witnessed what was going on behind closed doors. I was also watching something on tv, where there was a drunken step father or abusive father and I wondered what would happen if the mother/wife snapped."
JAMES LILLEY, 34, father of three. Working in the day as an engineer and studying Creative Writing part time. By night a Bare knuckle boxer and poet. Work previously published in various zines and poetry book The Blue Hour published by Close To The Bone due in 2022.
April is National Poetry Month, "launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996 to remind the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and, of course, poets, marking poetry's important place in our lives."
The Five-Two participates with an annual blog tour. Originally called 30 Days of The Five-Two, featuring guest posts about Five-Two poems, its new name, from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", is apropos of our crime theme but also reflects the tour's growth beyond Five-Two poems. It's a chance for anyone to post about any poetry and introduce themselves and their work (poetry or not) to a new audience.
We will feature four debut Poems of the Week and any guest posts contributed in preparation for or during the tour itself. If you'd like to join, email me a link to your entry or the entry itself (text, video, etc.) to post here.
Also challenge yourself to write poems and submit to The Five-Two by March 15. Accepted poems will be published in April and beyond.
The official hashtag of National Poetry Month is #nationalpoetrymonth.
Participants and promoters of the tour may download the badge image above and add it to their entries or follow these instructions to copy-and-paste the image HTML code.
All April revenue from Five-Two and Lineup books and merchandise is donated to the nonprofit Academy of American Poets, supporting poets at all stages of their careers and fostering the appreciation of contemporary poetry.
Thursday, April 1 - Rusty Barnes on "Beneath the Chickenshit Mormon Sun" by Bruce Embree
Friday, April 2 - C.W. Blackwell on "Reno" by William R. Soldan
Saturday, April 3 -
Sunday, April 4 -
Monday, April 5 - Poem of the Week - "The Thief Came In" by Michael A. Arnzen
Tuesday, April 6 - Charles Rammelkamp on "Attempted Suicide" by Tony Dawson
Wednesday, April 7 -
Thursday, April 8 -
Friday, April 9 -
Saturday, April 10 -
Sunday, April 11 -
Monday, April 12 - Poem of the Week - "Power Murder Ballad" by Scott Cumming
Tuesday, April 13 -
Wednesday, April 14 -
Thursday, April 15 -
Friday, April 16 -
Saturday, April 17 -
Sunday, April 18 -
Monday, April 19 - Poem of the Week - "False Identity" by B. Sedgwick
Tuesday, April 20 -
Wednesday, April 21 -
Thursday, April 22 -
Friday, April 23 -
Saturday, April 24 -
Sunday, April 25 -
Monday, April 26 - Poem of the Week - "Another World" by Tom Barlow
like Jane Greer in Out of the Past.
Cigarette smoke curls around alluring
eyes; wrapped in a tight white dress she’s
an angel of desire in a dark cantina.
I know there’s nothing pure about her,
except my white hot lust so strong
I’ll risk death from the gangster who
hired me, if Jane can be mine.
One honeymoon with Lizbeth Scott worth
every second. even if our affair ends
when she puts a hole in me, like she did her
husband, over stolen loot in Too Late for Tears.
A few fiery kisses from Barbara Stanwyck,
and we’re plotting her husband’s murder
and how to share our Double Indemnity
insurance windfall. I know she loves me.
Forties films could only imply how femme
fatales bewitched their men, but easy
to imagine silk sheets, naked bodies,
earth shaking orgasms, shared cigarette after.
John Garfield and I can’t stop staring
in Lana Turner’s blue eyes. She wears
a white blouse pulled up to show bare
midriff. Dropped lipstick rolls toward
stunned Garfield, past his feet and on my
living room floor. Lana looks at me; I reach
for the cool metal cylinder and fall into
that black and white world -- small, cheap
California diner where Lana’s so desperate
to escape she plots to kill her nice guy husband.
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Garfield
learns at the end, but right now Lana’s
mouth meets mine, I smell perfume, taste
tobacco on her tongue. She pulls me up to bed,
starts to strip off clothes, but I freeze, realizing
in this version of the film, I’m the husband.
Peter reads "I Want a Film Noir Femme Fatale":
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Peter confesses:"I’ve become a regular viewer of Noir Alley on TCM and enjoyed seeing how those femme fatales seduced men. In response to Gerald’s call for Valentine’s Day crime poems, I wondered how a date with Jane Greer or Lizbeth Scott might end up for me."
PETER M. GORDON won the 2019 Thomas Burnett Swann Poetry Prize. He's had over 100 poems published by journals and web sites, along with collections Two Car Garage and Let's Play Two: Poems About Baseball. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.
