In Retrospect and other poems by Z.M.Wise

I should have
looked both ways.
I should have
seen your forceful
wishes to confuse me into
mental paralysis.
If I should dribble,
apologize and disconnect from
any form of contact.
I should have
asked for your digits and hyphens
when I first planted my eyesight on
your supple frame of a figure.
I should have
battled with the
most secular of all studies and
asked to be Chief Generalist of
all hovering tangerine machines.
I should have
recorded the last
lunar eclipse, the darkest night
in five hundred years.
I should have
interfered with the
One who Stabs Backs Repeatedly.
I would like him to lie
face down on his own knife.
I should have
intervened when
substances matched your wheel of fortune with
a life of consuming valuables,
prizes for the painstaking.
I should have
complained instead of
begged the spirit of the stairway
for imploding contact.
This is what
I should have said.

---

Flowers Drank Your Image

There is no blossom
more sophisticated than
you, to whom I drink.
I drink to the
gateway of surreal images.
Another sip brings forth
knowledge of ancient battles past.
Comfort your platinum afternoon
that you hold so near and dear to
your chatterbox heart.
Day of exhaustion,
night of fornication.
We reincarnate as
two satisfied angels
climax simultaneously.
Our Earth Mother was
very pleased with our result.
Escaped chuckles exit the
mouth of ribbing humor.

---

Rhythm Hair

It flows and moves with the
beat of your
ever-smiling soul.
Feel it, baby.
I can sense the cosmic vibrations
from fifty feet away.
Fingers snap.
Golden blonde, fiery redhead, ebony brunette…
I care not for color but
for the swaying,
to and fro,
like a hypnotist’s dangling pendulum.
Wait…
I just received a
tingling sensation from a
face full of curls,
spritzed with the hairspray of clarity.

---

Icarus

Take this flight and
escape from supervision.
Dada Daedalus says
not to fear the outcome, but
do not cake that sun with
manmade candle wax.
Who is he,
flying across the ocean,
attempting to learn all
tricks of the trade?
The Brothers Wright will not
start breathing until their numerous thousand year births.
There are times when
all must learn to lead on.
Sickly Icky never will.
Follow in the footsteps of Father.
Rebel at the last minute of procrastination, capiche?
Feel that sweet self annihilation.
Curses to the rooms that
lock the pair of solitude lovers!
Curses to the shadows that
chase the seeker for a change!
Curses to the crossroads that
intersect for explorers of adventure!
No one ever mentioned
winged feathers attached to
human features that are not
seen with a collective balance of naked eyes.
A radical change, Son of Suns.
‘Tis time to change!
Do not cross paths with
Helios unbound.
Chains of fire have reached the
thickest point of resolution.
Glorious ascent led him to ways around.
Sordid descent fed him to the water hounds.

---

Drinking Flowers

Oooh, lovely baby.
Oooh, pretty goddess.
I danced on the river of
no eternity.
I ran across the country of
bleak diversity.
I blessed every person
who looked me in the eye.
I cursed every heathen
who wanted to die.
Semper fi,
blooming buds.
Let the rain and sun
spread everlasting love.
Oooh, royal lady.
Oooh, glittering mistress.
I ate the fruit of
no return.
I drank the flowers of
her love that always burns.
I walked around the Earth
that gave me a trial life.
I kissed that beckoning girl.
With this ring, you’re my wife.
Semper fi,
blooming buds.
Let the rain and sun
spread everlasting love.
Semper fi,
blooming buds.
Let the rain and sun
spread everlasting love.

 

Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native, poet, co-editor and poetry activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He has been a written-word poet for almost two decades and a spoken-word poet for four years. He was selected to be a performer in the Word Around Town Tour in 2013, a Houston citywide tour. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press, an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. The journal was nominated Best Poetry Journal in 2013 at the National Poetry Awards. He has published four full length books of poetry, including: ‘Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock!’ (MavLit Press), ‘The Wandering Poet’ (Transcendent Zero Press), ‘Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems’ (Weasel Press), and ‘Cuentos de Amor’ (Red Ferret Press). Other than these four books, his poems have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. The motto that keeps him going: POETRY LIVES! Mr. Wise will make sure to spread that message and the love of poetry, making sure it remains vibrant for the rest of his days and beyond.

Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.