more poetry by Tonya Kelley

SubtleTea.com has a new look

more poetry by Tonya Kelley

Tonya Kelley lives between New York City and her home state of Connecticut. She studies Creative Writing at Western CT State University and is a writer of poetry, stage plays and short fiction. Her work has been featured in such publications as Promise Magazine, Jill: A Magazine for Women, Dicey Brown, Iconoclast and Poetism. She is a regular contributor to The Electric Mayhem and her first book of poetry, UNSEXY (Wasteland Press) was released in February 2003. Aside from reading, various teaching gigs and unrelated day-jobs which make working a six to seven day per week affair, she has no life.

order her book

(Tonya's book, Unsexy)

ON A MAN

Tasty artistic intentions and
A branded picture of moments
Mix with words existing only
In an itinerary, smuggled away
By a sour face glowing green
In a fermentation haze.
Exhausted by a lack of completion,
Waiting on a something road
For an earth-shattering something
He passed a mile back, eyes down
Checking his directions.
He tutors a wicker patio on the
Ways men use their inside voices
While the head screams back
To the real question --
Not she, but is he, complete?
His aptitude is spread-able and
Good with crackers,
Eaten up with translucent
Boyish enthusiasm.
His voice keeps pace with his mouth
In every short-distance sprint,
But the spelling is his true calling.
And when he stands for the trophy,
Back straight, hands at his sides --
Word, spell, repeat word --
I'll be the last to clap
And the first tap
On the back stage door.

ON IT

It was like mercury

In that every time I went down on it

It felt a bit like crazy

And touched on a mirror base

It rained down on pillows

And in red hair

Then made long distance calls

To its' mother in Santa Fe

It was an egotist and a sadist

A masochist and a plagiarist

It read temperatures

With unprecedented accuracy

And was a hot commodity

In all major black markets

It hid memories of tobacco perfume

And the profound feeling for hands

It is like the past with fragile hips

Preferring night-stand teeth

It believes that dusk should

Outlive us all and that cowboys

Shoot at anything tanned

It buried itself inside, feeding

These ideals, until it could breathe

On its' own two feet, then shot like sperm

Aiming for a target-practice egg.

All poems are copyrighted property of Tonya Kelley.

[back to top] [home]