This week’s Little Vines.
4596.
A superlative actress. Great eye contact.
Our cat plays to a small but devoted audience:
just us, her spellbound family.
4597.
the building stands silent and empty
blank windows and pale gray stone
distant expression and ashen complexion
4598.
she climbs the stairs to the second story
a keeper of secrets
a person who leaves mysteries unsolved.
4599.
I make hard-eye contact with the slack-faced
I kick away two of the fearful dedicated deluded
I pry another one from a light fixture. I take names.
4600.
There is no flamingo in symmetry. There is
no mayonnaise in shiny. There is no sense of honor
in a plate of scrambled eggs. There is no telling
what I will do next.
4601.
Making excuses again? I didn’t mean
why couldn’t it have been
I’m sorry it wasn’t. Oh, just shut up.
4602.
They are buttoned up tight
the zinnia buds. The sun goes to work
persuades them to loosen up
let themselves shine!
4603.
The injuries the knife caused – Mortal. Fatal
Now that sleek actor lies here gleaming in the sun –
Wicked. Indifferent.
4604.
The next day was uncertainties
and hesitancies. Think celebratory champagne
that you drink with a half-smile.
4605.
wearing a homegrown emerald ring
of deep green forests
the planet sparkled in the starry sky
4606.
if there is anyone wondering where we’ve gone:
we have shopping to do
for an evening dress
4607.
with his oily bald head and thin-lipped smile
the stereotype of a sleazy lowlife blowhard
he turned out to be the best surgeon I ever knew
4608.
The withered crone who
sweeps clean the temple ruins
every day at sunset?
A millionaire. She just likes to keep busy.
4609.
this song, I knew its lyrics –
something about a broken mirror
drilling deep into the skull – but whose?
Whose reflection do you see?
4610.
Squeezing out lies like black paint from the tube
he doesn’t sleep any minute any night
that he isn’t making fake deals in his dreams
and chasing marks down the street
4611.
experience first the green
then envy then the smear campaign
welcome to your brand-new subscription to
the National Journal of the Dynamics of Jealousy
4612.
I know what you thought it was in that soup tureen.
No need to mention it.
I’ve cleaned everything up for you.
4613.
Such hostility, my dear,
it does not go well
with that lovely dress
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I really like 4605. The earth shines on despite our petty obsessions and concerns. And even alongside the large and heavy ones. (K)
The earth will be here. Maybe it will be different, but it will endure. It’s us who may not be here, I think. The planet lives on a whole different time scale and we are just a tiny part of its almost eternal life, I think.
Lots of intrigue and mystery in this selection of LVs. #4605 is my favourite. The imagery is just so beautiful and I like that idea of the earth thriving despite whatever transitory nonsense humanity is getting up to. I also really liked the one about the surgeon. I remember thinking about how entirely lacking in bedside manner a particular surgeon was but that, after all, only his medical skill mattered since I was going to be unconscious during my critical interaction with him.
Thank you. Yes, I have the same feeling about surgeons. Most of the ones I have had were abrupt and unemotive. I could always tell that I was getting better by the corresponding lack of interest they took in me (since the repair job was working, well, I had no more to offer them!)