Paper
Dolls Shaded Green
Clifford
K. Watkins, Jr.
There
will be no blackened trees
No
charred remains
Void
of smoldering coals
No
five-year plan
No
consolidation
Or
cohesion of goals
Only
four unclasped hands
Screaming
futility
Hand-puppets
Shadows
Facades
Unreality
Too
eager to be wise
No
more gelatin brains
Or
cosmic ooze
Will
roll from their eyes
Simple
lies
Uttered
with tactfulness
And
aplomb
A
vision in the clouds
The
solon meets the finite sky
Empowered
So
high
No
ruins
No
chimney debris
The
improbable expansion of clueless tiers
Ample
increments of sadness
Counterfeit
discipline
And
wasted years
Two
sticks rubbed together
Long
enough to spark an inferno
Of
towering flames
Yet
perforated paper dolls
Remain
uncut
And
UNCHANGED!
***
Clifford
K. Watkins, Jr., is a writer/poet/lyricist/rapper originally
from High Point, North Carolina. Some of his publishing credits
include: Underground Window, Endzville, Infinite Glass, Prism
Quarterly, Cynic Magazine, Seeker Magazine, Oracular Tree, Poetic
Voices, Ygdrasil, Poetry Stop, Zygote In My Coffee, Wildchild
Publishing, Forever Underground Magazine, Muscadine Lines, Poet's
Haven, Lit Vision, Interpoetry, Canopic Jar, Winamop, Long Story
Short, TM Poetry, The Toe Tree Journal, The Persistent Mirage,
A Darker Vision, Emptiness Spills, Red Fez, Words Words Words,
Vain Glory, The Voyager, Tears For Eternity, and Green Brier Review.
A Painter's Ghost is Clifford's first novella: a nonstop psychological
thriller told from a drifter's unique perspective—a four-pane
window.
©
Clifford K. Watkins, Jr.