THANK YOU, STORMY

by Peggy Turnbull 

You know how to manage power,
dressing like an offensive weapon,
steering through men, creating
a wake where dicks stir, leers creep,
implanting images
into strangers’ wet dreams,
your iconic self melting
into unknown imaginations,

smiling to evoke volt-filled fun,
teasing that leads to a luxe room
where naked Donald
awaits, stone-faced on the bed,
erection quivering beneath
the belly of his junk-food appetite,
a devilish abyss
gilded with pyrite,
where nature smokes, razed,
all gentleness cropped
like a mountaintop.

Grimacing, you absorb
his distilled contaminants.
Sorrowful angels
send you compassion.
A bouquet of cut roses
nods in recognition.
We all have bad days.

But the aftermath’s best.
You, refusing silence.


Peggy Turnbull lives in Wisconsin near Lake Michigan.  Her micro-chapbook Rocking Chair Abstract was  recently published by the Origami Poems Project.

MEALS ON WHEELS

by Peggy Turnbull 

A Meals on Wheels cook moves trays down the line to be packaged. (Josh Galemore/Associated Press) —“Mr. President, come take a ride with Meals on Wheels,” The Washington Post, April 7, 2017.

A cruciferous scent wafts
from the institutional kitchen
where a helper drops cheese
on a main dish we can’t identify.
We cover foam trays tightly
in plastic wrap, pile them high
in an insulated carrier, grab
cold lunches from steel carts.

Eat your bread in happiness.

At subsidized senior apartments
we roam dim corridors, step
on well-worn carpets, pound
on thin doors. We enter a den
of cigar smoke. Across the hall
Yorkshire terriers bark. Ladies
in the lobby are excited
about the Brussels sprouts.
We ring the light for the deaf woman,
who gestures for us to tie
her high-topped leather shoes.
A paper towel is her placemat.
Her plate and fork are ready.

Eat your bread in happiness.

A corridor reeks of bowel movement.
The elevator smells of kitty litter. A man
isn’t dressed, asks us to pass his meals
through the gap in the chained door.
We deconstruct the cold lunch, hand
him a milk carton, squeeze a sandwich
through.  We leave the building, hold
our noses at the urine soaked entrance.      

Eat your bread in happiness.

Peggy Turnbull lives in Wisconsin near Lake Michigan.  Her poems have recently been published in Verse-Virtual, The Young Ravens Literary Review, and Snapdragon.

SONG OF THE MOUNTAINTOP, REMOVED

by Peggy Turnbull

Mountaintop Removal Site in Pickering Knob, West Virginia. Image source: iLoveMountains.org

Coal sparkles
where the miner’s lamp hits  
plants wait in darkness
millions of years
transform into sequined shards
burn
become electric

no more easy pillage
no more bolts of velvet
crammed into caverns

thin black ribbons
weave beneath
Appalachian forests
too small to mine underground
too precious to ignore

where clouds hang
between branches
where the mystery
of day unfolds
say good bye
to the tree frog’s song
clear cut these trunks
explode the earth’s crust
let machines like carnivorous insects
rip off the mountain’s head
eat its slender bituminous bed
toss leftovers
into rushing creeks
alongside

a higher intelligence
wills it
for jobs
for corporate wealth
mountains
become flatland
coal
exists no more

Peggy Turnbull has been recently published in Eunoia Review, Rat's Ass Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and is forthcoming in Muddy River Poetry Review. She made her home in West Virginia for 26 years, but now lives in Wisconsin, where she is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.