Hannah Millsap

Hannah Millsap Feb 2014

There is at all times
A soup boiling
In the plains of the Savannah.
As the wind presses its large and small hands
Into the course straw grass
To smooth the wrinkles-
But also to make more.

And falling slowly, fluxing,
Between the waves—creatures,
All of them strange,
Blending.
And from time to time, a sickening red,
But only for a while,
Until it is swirled once more into the soup,
Or steeping into the earth as tea.

There is sometimes a stacking of skies;
Amber
On top of pink,
On top of blue,
With pyrite flecks-
But not yet indigo.

And one form rises up out of them;
A baobab moving slowly,
Mushrooming monster,
Exploding exponentially outward.

And at its calloused feet
Are porcelain painted zebras
And soft clay elephants,
Who reshape themselves in the gray murk
Of the water hole-
Which is sometimes blue,
And sometimes sheeted mica shimmering.

Watching quietly, the prince.
Who is still,
(But not exempt!)
Unable to be, but becoming.

Exhausted and exhausting,
Around his furrowed face is a mane
Of technicolor flames.

Inspired by Wallace Stevens

Hannah Millsap Feb 2014

Kintsukuroi

Frozen soldiers, my fingers and toes.
Young, numb, and out of control.
Bare blue feet pad along the boardwalk,
To the splintered dock, my solemn spot.

I used to be falling for months at a time
Down every rabbit hole.
Stranded, standing still through the smoke and fog.
How could I ever let it get this far?

Love, I'm set so apart, and it's such a part of me.
The coffer, my coffin.
Full of souvenirs, Daddy's tears, and heavy stones.
Such zemblanity
To be so free.

I threw that key
right
back
to
sea.

Clocks are stopped, the auction block is overstocked
With broken shells, and lonely thoughts.
A dime a dozen, and so distraught,
Devil tips his hat, he'll take the lot.

There's a secret Raven who sits on my shoulder,
Whispering sweet nothings down my neck that weigh me down.
An abusive lover, all my own.
How could anyone know this burden?

Sitting now at the start of the sea
Have I ever been this small?
Fold me up, don't let me be
So alone at the start of the sea.

We all have such tiny fractures in our eyes;
Frozen stained glass marbles,
Cracking slowly around the darkest hole;
My poor, pathetic tortured soul.

Pick me up, be close to me dear.
But please don't fix or mend…
This sundered thing is who I am,
And it's who I love to be.

So beautiful to have been broken.

Kintsukuroi is the Japanese art of reassembling broken pottery and sealing it back together with gold or another precious metal, knowing that it is now more beautiful for having been broken.

Hannah Millsap Feb 2014

Catharsis

The ash is damp. The forest, burned.
Possibility falling from my fingertips.
Death and life look so alike,
An angel falls and before me, sits.

Crowds of clouds gather in protest.
Rainstorm, nature's baptism.
Washing Mother's sins away,
The long-awaited cataclysm.

Young woman, standing at his grave.
What's next? What could possibly come next?
Piles of pieces, you know make the whole.
At least they've finally found their way home.

Beneath the city, tucked into catacombs,
Are the secrets that you trust me with.
Your lips press into my self inflictions,
And the marks begin to melt.

A voice enters these chambers
Saying "Angel, what have you done?"
It echoes in the hollowed vacancy of my chest.
I am a stringed instrument.

This is not a time of growth,
Or a step in the forward direction.
This is re-genesis, demolition, catharsis.

— The End —