DOLLY MIXTURE (With Love to Women) // A Jelly Bean Tanka

we are pretty sure
venus doesn’t want a riot
when she spins clockwise
mixing up her left and right
how very like a woman

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

100 WORD SKITTLE // Once Upon a Lent

God spake to me in a dream. “Arise, my son. Hasten thee to the kitchen!”

I arose. I did hasten me to the kitchen. At the fridge I did pray, “What now, Lord?”

“Bratwursts be Satan’s handiwork. Thou must cleanst thine abode of these sin sausages via fasting and supplication! And maybe a bin.”

But I ateth my filleth of them—did it matter anyway how evil be conquered? Still, I did fell to the floor in bloat and faint.

“Forgive me, Lord! Save me from your wrath! (And excess pounds…) I only did this in your Name after all!”

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

seeds for your pocket

o demon face
may you reach the end of yourself
so that you will know
you will know that no one had to die

your lies have led to a thousand blooms
set alight in the silence
your crimes have made them feel too much
everything then nothing

the bodies you’ve threshed underfoot
are the seeds you’ve sown of your destruction
their scarlet heads now reach and sway
freedom cries scattered to the wind

and the wind remove all trace of you
hie thee into damnable night
your brutal answers went unquestioned
now circling back to haunt you

o barrel chest
may you reach the end of your hollow self
you know that none had to die
you fucking know

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

let it rain

have you dared to declaim with your true face
have you seen how they inward flinch
have they made a monster of the hole in you

have you longed for truest validation
have their eyes doth pummelled your face to tears
have you hidden your tears under veil of rain

if only this was a happy song
if only we could fill our lungs again
if only for the air ‘tween the drops of rain

have you pulled truer weeds from the broken earth
have you doth counted and more so for praying
have you monstered after the four-leaf clover

have you truly known that you never belonged here
have you paid your respects to friend grief again
have you layed yourself down in the face of pain

if only this was a happy song
if only we could feel our lungs again
if only for the air ‘tween the drops of pain

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

We Stand With Ukraine

I Stand with Ukraine

We stand with Ukraine. Ми з Україною. Мы с Украиной. 💙💛

by TETIANA ALEKSINA (UKRAINE) & TONY SINGLE (AUSTRALIA) 2022