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Rice In The Hull

Draft

We keep it all inside and instead of pouring it on the page
we smoke it out and drown it down deeper.
Pressing auto-erotic biographies down in the bowels of what we could-a, should-a, would-a.

Thick rimmed Gutenbergs picking and placing letters pushed into our stomach linings.

If this is a cry for help all I hear is a click and dial tone. 

.  .  . 

Godspeed & Badnight,

C.B. Franz 

Story Yelling Deep In The Woods

From the artist "Moki"

A Sob’s Fables

If all the trees in a forest fall

but one still stands (with bad posture)

and no one is around to listen,

How long till it stops making sounds?

Stuck sap surrounding precipitation

shoves south and sours.

Needles drop and halt in amber

still it continues to make the sounds.

The fallen logs say

“Lower those limbs, grab the ground. Give yourself chance.”

It stood, with appendages and appetite

It cries “Sky!” which it’s shriek shook

Stirring a fir far away, shifting it’s branches to look at a

Bristling the pining pine peeking,

beyond the sitting sticks sat some up right foliage

Peek down to see the fallen needles,

amber and green slivers weigh heavy on roots down below.

The trunk tilted,

The calling conifer caws “Clouds!” aloud.

and not even the wind slows.

…

“Sky!”

“Clouds!”

Years later the fallen logs sit stacked

nestled in notches, cozy homes,

sturdy havens of the fallen

circle the bad postured, sap stick.

It cries “Sky!” still.

Bouncing, elastic sound back

and forth back to the tree

“Sky!” “Sky!”

“Clouds!” “Clouds!”

Hearths hum fumes out around the tree

sparks that warm chests tests the sappy, pining pine.

Drying eyes of that sapling catch

Amber rises as bark burns, a lone arson site

Needles to ashes, layers char.

The sappy sapling shouts “Sky!”

“Clouds!” to a solid blue, begging for saving blue.

and not even the wind slows.

There was boy in town who played the strings,

every morning in the square he’d sing.

And the villagers they’d, clap, clap, clap.

All day he’d play and they’d say

“What a treasure! What a joy, that singing, playing boy!”

One night, the boy sat

twanging upset strings back to content

when a flash of fur flew fast.

The boy cried “Wolf!” and ran into town.

Villagers turn up noses, and cold shoulders.

Up and down cobbled streets he yelled “Wolf!”

as doors and windows

went clap, clap, clap.

Screaming and shouting he ran harping

and pounding until one woman

poked her head out and said

“What’s all this yelling? Why all the crying?

We like it much better when your songs you are chiming!”

Before the boy could speak, the woman ran in, shutters shut creak.

Like a rabbit he waits in a barren square,

He pulls out his songs and begins to sing fear

to the empty night air, an empty night song.

As a flash of fur and one last shrieksang the empty night air.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Many apologies for how long I've been away. It's been a busy past several months, and I've been writing screenplays and also felt rather jaded and uninspired concerning my poetry. This is the first thing in a while that I've written that didn't feel totally awful and/or pretentious and/or whining. I know how frustrating it is when an author neither updates or produces new material on a regular basis, so I apologize again for that as well. 

I hope to post more soon and update everything but it's currently 4:13 am and I don't think that'll be happening today at least.

Winter break is coming up and I should have plenty of time to get things back in order but until then...

Goodnight & Godspeed,
C.B. Franz