POETRY BY DONNA DALLAS

Donna Dallas studied creative writing and philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School under William Packard, founder of the New York Quarterly. She resides on the North Shore of Long Island with her two husbands, seven children and two dogs. She wanders the beaches endlessly searching for lost words. She has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently Horror Sleaze Trash, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Opiate, Beatnik Cowboy and Burning House Press. She is the author of “Death Sisters,” her first novel published by Alien Buddha Press.  Donna serves on the editorial team of Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

She can be found on Twitter at @DonnaDallas15

POETRY BY DONNA DALLAS

NEBULA

I spent $15 on a lunch today that was awful
I have a weird thing growing in my ear
it tickles
want to rip it out
I think it’s whispering
maybe it will tell me something important
one day
like not to buy a lunch that sucks
not to talk to strange men
like I did when I was eleven
but I was a dumb kid
picked my ear back then too
nervous habit

Turned the inside of my ear into a nebula
sucking at sound
pulling in vibrations
churning galaxies
a funnel of static
knots my hair
tangles into my brain
creatures crawl in at night
sift through
see what they can latch onto
for the ride
to nowhere
blank stares
when brain disconnects from eyes
just not interested
in what’s happening
rather pick my ear
feelthe creepy crawlies
settle in
for warmth

GODS OF A BONEHEAD 13

I spend hours conjuring up the dead
in my head I see their faces
their greyed hands
boney and twisted
relentless they come
wave a gnarled finger
speak in tongues
bark orders 
they want money buried
pay retribution to their bones
they desire forgiveness
need to pass messages
they still long for the thing
that they exited from
I wait for my own dead to come
they creep outside
afraid to see me
I am confirmation
they have moved on

BLOOD SUCKER

I look for bats bloated
with blood
like to wrench them
over a wine goblet
so I can get a good
drink these days
my kind of table wine
is hard to come by
with out a body
in a bag—never
fresh enough
would like a horse
but none to be found

prefer to wait for my
winged evangelists
to return
scratching at my coffin
dripping blood on
1,000 year oak.