Cold Angry Sea
Cold angry sea,
able to level whole towns, whole lives.
There you stood,
slab-like back turned to me,
forceful in faux leather and real denim,
contemplating
harsh spray from waves,
harsh criticism from seagulls.
Bland tired room,
washed-out wallpaper wilting.
There I stand,
thickset in thrift shop corduroy,
unable to come to terms
with the complexities of the coffeemaker
or the radiator hissing steam
to chase off the chill.
January Air
After the festive fires burn out
with the last oversucked cigarette butts of New Year’s resolvers,
January air arrives
like a spray of icy peppermint oozing down the throat,
new as the year that won’t be written correctly for weeks,
fresh as the gym membership and tax help ads adorning TV screens.
Holiday hubbub is hijacked by calm,
punctuated by crackling ice or thawed wetness,
premature nights coated by cryptic clouds
and the salient uncertainty of our whereabouts
when Guy Lombardo’s ghost rises again in December.
Adrian Slonaker lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, working as a copywriter and copy editor, with interests that include vegetarian cooking, Slavic languages, Victorian horror fiction, wrestling, and 1960s pop music. Adrian’s work has appeared in Better Than Starbucks, CC&D, and Dodging the Rain, and publication in Ginosko Literary Journal is forthcoming.
