Poetry By Madeleine Corley

                      Yuliya Nemova Flickr



georgia dawn

i’m enveloped in peach grey
mist saturated with mercury
pebbles rolling in children’s hands
i pause to hear the owl and eye
no bats cross the sky i guide
myself like the moon
omnipotent and flustered
mustard leaves bounce
on a trampoline with each past
day of november and the dew
collects on my leather boots
musing at the scent of rain
and miscellany hail pellets
plummeting through the skies
it takes no time to recognize
the melancholy, the friction
of each passing spine or page
or sage piece of advice i am neither
deft nor dealt hands i know
how to utilize i am the wisp
adopted by a sculptress
at midnight she crafts me
onward i come back beige.

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stretching

Pink is vulnerable and
as swirling as oil in water, gummy flesh
like putty. I can trace rivers up
my abdomen, tandem in
erosion and carvings. Watch them
pool on my belly, waiting
to be fed. Love tastes of
the candy I bought when I was seven,
feels of newly minted money.
Its crisp bills ripe in
my hands, curling and creasing,
aware of the future fingers
they yearn to be held. How sweet
is the song of breaking, a symphony
of golden threads sewn together
as currency. My body is the bank
caressed and left lonely, flooded
by the rivers waiting to be seen.

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Madeleine Corley is a poet by internal monologue trying to break into the written craft. She has had work published in the Ibis Head Review and Zathom.com. Of the many things she loves, her current favorites are Captain Crunch Berries for dessert, her dogs giving her kisses, and movie-to-musical soundtracks. She currently lives in Marietta, Georgia, and will take residence in Ireland come November. 

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