Residue of Luck

     I’ve been killing myself
     in half the time.

     Do I stress you out,
     swimming in your stomach?
     Dig the hole much deeper
     with a splintered ruler.

     I use my exclamation points
     [floating accidental-like on a breeze]
     like a special kind of glue.

     Electroshock me back into coherence,
     into the free and clear.

     I’ve got one more
     stupid question in my pocket
     and a three-letter word for candy.

     No, that’s all I have to say.

     Quotes from:
     the movies, Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion
     and Forrest Gump
     Quotes from the sitcom Seinfeld
     Song lyrics by Alanis Morissette: “All I Really Want,”
     “Hand in My Pocket,” “Forgiven,” and “You Learn.”

Everybody Goes Ooooh

     When the full moon
     turns the beach to a bone,
     thoughts slip their collars
     and run free in the land
     of selective remembering.

     I want to know just enough
     so I can lie colorfully
     in a what-if second;

     my capacity for invention
     (edited like a movie for television)
     makes everybody go Oooooh
     at the same time.

     A remixed poem composed from
     select lines and phrases from chapters 2, 8, 11, 14, 19, and 20 of
     Bag of Bones by Stephen King.

Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from Bangalore, India. She loves experimenting with Japanese short-forms of poetry, as well as found/remixed pieces alike. Her poems have most recently appeared in After the Pause, Five 2 One Magazine, Otoliths, Right Hand Pointing, and Poetry WTF?!, among others. Shloka is the founding editor of the literary arts journal Sonic Boom.
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