Scents of rot are sweet
at first,
syrup-thick and
magnolia-cloying.
They linger, soft
as slime, to stain in
gentle streaks
the sunken fat of this
wrung body.
Just east of Eden
even the dirt smells of
sugar. The flies come
to pick at it. To pick at
my bones. To eat of dust.
There is too little
moisture for maggots--
Still, they try
the awful reproductive
consumption, the
drive that kept me
at these gates
kills them too, so my
body and fly
bodies and the
bodies of other
lost
are mummified
before the lovely mirage.
May 15, 2021
May 15, 2021 at 9:33 AM UTC
The doors to this
temple
beg reverence,
yawning wide
that I might
bow my head
sip
from silken chalice
of clavicle and skin.
I’ll come in
veil of curls,
feather-ringlets draped
to cover prayers
of tongue and teeth,
hot against the
the taste of
center,
this garden’s
hidden seed.
Let me kneel
before the altar,
press offerings
of dampened
silk on curves
thick with myrrh,
sugar-slick and
soft as
bruised persimmon.
Eden’s gates
are opening,
tomato-red and overripe
to spill, in runnels,
a warm communion—
fruit
of my flesh
of yours.
Aug 11, 2020
Aug 11, 2020 at 2:54 PM UTC
is a broken rib—
the same sharp pain,
wooden-lung breathing.
I stand alone in an
ocean of bodies,
mouthless half-faces,
gaping holes beneath
strips of cloth.
Your assumptions
dissolve me only
gradually—
an un-bronchial
consumption,
though still,
I am left gasping.
Aug 11, 2020
Aug 11, 2020 at 10:53 AM UTC
Wile-some,
sick-sweet,
glass eyes and
fairy eye-teeth
peep from a
fictitious smile.
Floral scent,
lemon-twist,
silk grips and
tendrils quick
accompany your
enchanting grin.
Cast it away
fey creature, lest
it haze neural maze
and I slip-stumble
love-tumble
flip-furl-fumble
into your mystic-trick
will-o-wisp gaze.
Jun 12, 2020
Jun 12, 2020 at 9:26 PM UTC
This room is
cacophonous
a crowd in halves,
ceaseless dichotomy,
roaring in
desperate appeal.
Vilipend the words
of the other side
as they aren’t human
but voices shouting
obscenities incorrectly.
Truth, here,
is a myth
sold for millions,
and those of us who wish to
listen
drown in the
tide of screams.
Jun 11, 2020
Jun 11, 2020 at 11:56 AM UTC
Soft flesh flowers easily
tomato-red and over-ripe
to spill, in runnels,
a warm mirage.
Delusions
never reach
parched lips, but
taunt and I love
the torture enough
to lick up
the dust of this
wasteland.
At the gates of Eden,
I thirst,
a sinner barred
from forbidden fruit.
Jun 10, 2020
Jun 10, 2020 at 5:22 PM UTC
Through tangled wight-lit
weald she wends, one hand
on veinous sword
For in this boscage
fiend does grow, in bile-
brimmed pustules nest.
*Beware the night wood,
bladed lady, it’s paths
do twist and gambol
And hellions of the dim
do know its ev’ry
maze-cursed bent.*
“Oh come to me!” she
sings out high, into
aphotic brake.
“My vein-sword fears no
devilry. No imp or
soul-baned blight.”
With ringing snick her
blade does flick, to warble
through the murk.
It’s long vein fills
with fiend-blood spilled
from conniving lurk.
*Beware the night wood
bladed lady, though first
foe has fallen.
There are still miles
of treachery afore
you find your love.*
The dim around her
quickly thickens, with
creatures best not named.
They have come squelching
from fetid pool, from
rotted bole and fen.
Too many for a
veinous sword swung by
skillful warrior,
though still she stands, her
shoulders square, to face
the squalling din.
“Halt!” Calls a voice of
crackling ice from grim
and toothy smile.
“I’ve come to proffer,
lady knight, a means
for your escape.
“Your maiden fair, within
my lair has pressed on
me a wager.
If in fair combat,
I take your life,
she’ll be mine forever.
“And if in turn I
am the one who falls
in ****** failure.
You’ll be hers till
end of time, your strength
ever greater.”
*Beware the night wood,
bladed lady, and of
deals forged in the dark.
Though bound by word,
wise ones know, the Night King
can’t be trusted.*
For quite a time the
lady hummed in careful
deliberation.
The night-king watched
motionless for her
tiny grim-faced nod.
Then with ringing snick
blades did flick, and warble
through the murk
and history’s greatest
battle was fought for
ghouls within the dark.
When the Night King fell
it was with
a subtle grin of triumph
As fiend applied a
black-thorn crown to
lady’s sweat-streaked brow.
The bladed lady
did achieve
her heart’s earnest goal.
She was wed, ‘neath
dripping bough to the
one she’d come to find.
But while in death, her
foe was free, she
could never leave.
From deepest copse
she still rules, Night Queen
of the night wood.
Mar 5, 2020
Mar 5, 2020 at 3:25 PM UTC
You cried me a cage
or I did
until I stood behind bars
each metal rod a
feeling that wouldn’t
blossom in my breast
or one growing
in yours.
Freedom is a hairpin
******* a lock, but
it sure as hell ain’t
running away. I
had a dream
last night
standing at your
door, banging out
too-late I-love-you’s
in Morse Code. You
didn’t answer. Nursing
your pain like
dying embers.
I’d like to swallow it whole
burn blood and fat
till it melts, though
it’s kinder this way
me on my side of the pond
East of yours.
Feb 12, 2020
Feb 12, 2020 at 9:37 PM UTC
The only person
you can save is
yourself, little
girl. Stop
playing with knives
build yourself a
room of
mirrors, find the
dark, coward
place that doesn’t
say no and
look her in the
*******
eyes. You can’t
be molding clay
any longer, re-
forming into
distorted sculptures—
how you think they’d
like to see you. Hit the
kiln. Shore up your
edges. It’s time we
took up some
space.
Feb 3, 2020
Feb 3, 2020 at 9:13 PM UTC
((Whit Holland challenged me to write about an ordinary object close at hand, and now I challenge you all to do the same. :) Use #knickknacks if you participate.))
I.
Something about
corduroy
seems old from
beginning and
chocolate brown
hides stains
less effectively
thank you might
surmise (cat hair
even less), but
there is something
to be said for
free when
shipping off to
a second degree.
Four roommates
(one almost
married), three
lovers (one previously
mentioned), two
states (but not that
far), and one
hard-won diploma
later, there is
still something
to be said for
free, and for
familiar and
perhaps also
for family.
II.
In my kitchen
there sits a
teapot
small, porcelain,
vaguely oriental,
floral-patterned and
stained
in the creases,
a ring of
bergamot brown
lining center. You
live
in that tea-ring,
in faded exit signs,
in owl-boxes and
memory,
bitter-sweet like
Earl Grey.
III.
Mom says they
just don’t make
clothes
like they used to:
sturdy, thick-
woven denim
never popped a
button, but
cuter
with the sleeves
cuffed. It
doesn’t matter
how many of
us
wear Papa’s
old jacket, it’ll
still be here
when we’re gone.
IV.
On my little
table, between
notebook and old
lamp there sits a
perfect pinecone.
It smells a bit like
my siblings on
a fall day,
drenched in
leaf-bits, crunched
underfoot and
piled to make
walls and
beds and
pillows. We were
prepared
to live there,
beneath boughs,
beneath clouds
and dreams— maybe
one of them
knows
why we left.
Jan 29, 2020
Jan 29, 2020 at 10:22 AM UTC