Pris Campbell: Among other Journals and Poetry Collections, Pris Campbell's poetry has been published in Poems Niederngasse, MiPo Publications (print/digital/radio), Boxcar Poetry Review (her poem in the May 2007 issue won the issue's peer award), The Dead Mule: An Anthology of Southern Literature, In The Fray, Blackmail Press, Tears in the Fence, Thunder Sandwich, Verse Libre and the Woman of the Web Anthology. Her chapbook, Abrasions, was published by Rank Stranger Press and Interchangeable Goddesses, with Tammy Trendle, by Rose of Sharon Press, S.A. Griffin, publisher. Raised in the Carolinas, she has lived in the mid-west, Hawaii, New England and now lives in the greater West Palm Beach, Florida with her husband and two very odd pets. Formerly a Clinical Psychologist specializing in developing and running treatment units for people with chronic mental illnesses, she has been sidelined by CFIDS since 1990.

Booted

Over the edge and fed up,
I bludgeoned him with my boots—
the same ones that walked me
to Woodstock
then sat glass-encased
with the scent of weed and crushed daisies, his

screams now embedded
with Hendrix howls
into my shrine.

 

 

Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree

I look for my love-fix
in dead men's eyes, men
who woo with words writ
for pennies tossed in a cup.

I've lain in too many beds
that sag like a fat man's coffin,
reek of other women's perfume.

Like the Times Square clock,
I've seen them all come and go.

Tonight's lover turns in his sleep,
calls out a woman's name.
His words fade into the damp city heat,
then fall as a flash shower
around midnight,
startling two hookers,
high-heeling their way home.

 

 

A Stone's Throw

He hurls pebbles, calls them words.
They sting cheek and thigh.
He drinks my blood, his sacrament.

I curse the illness binding me
to this house, that man.

Thorns cover the windows.
Rats scurry across wood floors.
Ghostly voices speak of bloodless days,
once promised, and lovers who bedded me,
hearts laid in the palm of my hand.

 

 

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