Richard Lighthouse Richard Lighthouse holds an M.S. from Stanford University. His work has been published in: The Penwood Review, West Hills Review, Mudfish, and many others worldwide.
house signs houses sing to you while driving past. buy me. rent me. i'm yours. these are homes un wanted. places not owning anyone. rampant in begging, please. now. cash in that long promise. ink your desire in scribbled name. your need can live in this yard. i will call you home from work each evening. bring me your body's weight. lay under my shingles of love. even the rain won't find you here. dear lover say something surreal, honey. tell me how i fill the moon's aura and airily glide inches above this earth. speak to me impossibly, darling. fill my soul with whimsy words that cut thru the hazy madness of monday. charm me with nevers, sugar. i will dance on the crystal lake of forever now. then sing me to lullabye sleep. i am your impossible. your surreal. your now. your never. dear lover. smoking sanity she tries on masks each evening, with a bottle of wine. the chain smoke circling her head like a gentle fog. her long white gloves tipping at the ash tray. every envious suitor has a tale from that strange night. scratching at the brink of sanity, where age does not matter, where cold bones rise rest less. she is that, and more. dark. lurid. leaning into the wind. some nights she will call to her suitors, long after they've left. madness is unique for each tenant, wouldn't you say? slowly devouring what others recall. "pass me another cigarette," she would say. "i think i'm losing my mind." grocery aisle in my dream of you dreaming of me, i am more wonderful than myself. or so it seems. tossing thru nights like tumbled bowling pins, and grocery carts abandoned. in your new dream, i am a new me. shiny, polished, & packaged. selling on the discount aisle. your cart full of has-beens and why-nots. and no, i am not on your weekly list. but seeming a bargain - tossed in, checked out, & bagged. take me home. |