To The Anonymous Lovers [Kelli Watson]

She wore a red sweater.
He ate 3 pickles, then napped.
It was fate.
Ambiguity blanketing young lovers.
Who knew? It's only Thursday...

Jay & Ray: Poetry in Motion

To The Woman of My Dreams [Jeremey C. Watson]


Her name was a faint echo.
Was it the gusty wind or the autumnal breeze.
She left.
Sage bronze and gold adorned her attire.
The air was dry.
No recollection.


To the man of my dreams [Rachael L. Altman]


I can’t remember your name.
Maybe it began with R or S.
We danced.
You wore a blue shirt.
The night was a bit fuzzy.
I think.

a spider moves across the ceiling as the sun sets into a sea of crimson-periwinkle

they left
undrunk glasses,
vacant shoes.

she finished
dressing
among furniture.

We forgot all the names we used to know

Some may consider it
dangerous to show
so much skin
on a day like today.

You have a face that lies.
I secretly hope you
choke on your teeth
while you spew words to the moon.

I have waited twenty-two years
to accomplish my purpose,
but I forgot
all I used to know.

Today, I want to know
what it is like to live
in the snow, away
from sparks snaps flashes.

Your old man always said
there was something there.
Something he kept in his pocket
for a gloomy day.

We didn’t listen,
we were young,
only interested in the way
the wind carried umbrellas.

we were born on logan street

we have eyes like embers,
and hands of history.

my house is unknown.
names cease to grow.

i am atmosphere,
unacknowledged presence.

i am new relationships,
unrealized secrets.

we need something to believe in.

anyone, of course, could see her, could see her eyes

i used to believe in everything
but it is lies that teach us how to live.

i would like to take my fists and beat you.

i don’t like looking at strange eyes
when promises of slumber have been broken.

you want what you want,
nobody else can have.

one deception will always prove another.

Dedicated to my best friend, Jeremey C. Watson

The Four Tops sang about Bernadette, but that’s only because they didn’t know me


I am not Nikki Giovanni.
I am not revolutionary,
but I have something to say
about those beautiful Black men.

Baby, you send me.
I could build my whole
world around you
when you wear bright
red, green, purple,
Bluetooth in ear.

I am not Nikki Giovanni.
I am not revolutionary,
but I have something to say
about those beautiful Black men.

Out of sight, funky beats, hip-hop style,
I get this feeling,
proves my theory:
Black men look good
in just about anything from
Armani suits,
poppin’ Crystal,
playin’ basketball
in sweaty, dirty, ratty
sexy old clothes.

I am not Nikki Giovanni.
I am not revolutionary,
but I have something to say
about those beautiful Black men.

I have straight hair,
my skin is white rice,
but I can’t help myself,
I want you and nobody else.

Let me say it again:
I am not Nikki Giovanni.
I am not revolutionary,
but I have said my piece
about those beautiful Black men.

In a locked car outside of JR’s Liquor store, Harvey, IL

Jeremy was a better looking Gary Coleman.
He said it was safer for me to wait in the car.
A tall, lanky white girl,
did not belong in the -gated window,
swisher smoking, brown bag drinking- hood.

Five years below legal, high on life and substance,
we slammed 40’s of Steel Reserve and King Cobra,
mixed drinks, and races,
chain smoked packs of Newport menthols,
rolled blunts, packed bowls.

If our parents only knew,
we thought we had them fooled.

Shopping with The Pornographer’s Wife

My mother never left me with a Cuban mamacita named Titi
while she worked it with the trainer for five hours a day.
Weekend- table dancing trips to Vegas, dropping ten grand in New York,
flaunting her chemically enhanced body, and frozen face,
Mrs. Vivid has one job in life: look better than
the other girls in the family business.
She parades through the streets of Malibu,
nanny entourage on duty to care for two well behaved, well dressed children.
Being a mom is the greatest.

We promised to remember for as long as we could

I like change, as long as I remind myself that I like change.

The time has come when eyes stopped dancing,
sleepwalking through dreams, looking for places never known.

My eyes are smaller now, full of hopelessness.
Laugh-lines are deeper, I have seen the way words tear.

I still don’t like water, but the sea is a good place
for thinking without going over the edge.

the fine line between love and safety

i watched an elderly couple
eat dinner in silence.

a man sat in a subway car
searching for what he already has.
i watched him move,
and wondered what looking is for.

maybe we are here to look
in the other’s face every morning,
eat each other’s cookingand say it was good

To the man of my dreams

I can’t remember your name.
Maybe it began with R or S.
We danced.
You wore a blue shirt.
The night was a bit fuzzy.
I think.

I remember pulling the sections apart

It mattered more than anything had ever mattered before.
He said, bitterness does not suit you well, my dear,
I can hear it running through your veins.
The familiar sound of clinking bottles
hit the perfect note of disharmony.
You knew it was gone.
The uncontrollable impulse to scream,
knowing laughter would make it all right.
Life went on exactly as before.
It was as though a match was stuck
illuminating secrets of shadows.
I feel like the oldest person in the world.

The sky was filled with cicadas

When she was young she cared for nothing
but the way raindrops slipped down leaves of weeping willows.
Down by the water’s edge she would lie in the grass,
big greengray eyes twisted with the sun.
She would sit there for hours thinking about the
cold indifference of her father’s dreams.

Darkness is home in the middle of the day

They can be heard throughout the city
with the same irritatingly irregular clicking.
Heads down on streets, nobody ever stops to talk
as though they found the meaning of life in their
coat button or the sidewalk.

I am sure everyone is someone.
Someone important.
We all want what is beyond
boardrooms and tapestry patterns.

He smiled once, a jewelly reflection
like the gloomy yellow light
flickering in the window.

the smell of lemon and lavender

He always wondered why her hair got shorter with the absence of earth’s colors. To make life more exciting she wore blue tights. He never really noticed. The tears ran down her cheeks ruining a dress she wore for him. He didn’t notice that either. The purple light that once reflected from his amber eyes faded, or perhaps she could no longer see beauty. His words were not a question, but had exquisite texture. Her front teeth touched when attempting to hold back. A crushed heart is not as easily mended as a tin can. Her mother said, I would never want you to have what I have.

Your mother always said you were a gray hummingbird

You catch fistfuls of moonlight and gather hackberry leaves
collecting dust on the bookshelf we built together.
I can’t remember your face when you are away.
How strange is the garden of memory,
fashioning our lives around an ideal.
It was actually the bookshelf you built while I watched and thought
how you once believed in love, but most people are blind to such things.

Yes, I am a blogger

I probably do not have anything terribily interesting to say, but I figured I would give blogging a try. Words & Things will be dedicated to poetry, books, and the other things that float around in my head. Enjoy!