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Nora Apr 2017
Stomach plummets --
Cold blooded fear
Expressionless eyes
Open wide, mechanical
Blinking -- quit thinking
Go about your business
Don’t even nod
One foot and the other
In a perfunctory march
A slip and it’s over
They’ll turn and then stare
Raise up a finger,
Eyes bugging, mouth hanging
Expectantly before it comes:
Loud distorted ringing
The sound of your demise
Inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Nora Mar 2016
You’ve landed in my mind,
Meteor crashing into plain
Sight without any given
Warning - little did I expect
To find a crater in my heart
And a drive to fill the aching
Void

Your voice soft and dreamy,
Immortalized by memory:
The way words and truths
Roll off your tongue,
Cryptic creature, where
Are you from?

Where is your world,
What’s it like? I
Want to know,
But cannot go -
Why’s it that you
Captivate me so?
Same subject as Star Child. I am so captivated by you.
Nora Feb 2016
Supple peaks
Where the Earth swells,
Shapely curves straddling
Land, soft and rounded yet
Mighty and tall.
I’m breathless;
I want the mountains
To swallow me whole.
Nora Feb 2017
Click, hum. The phone line dies,
The ghost of rejection tickling one
Ear as it floats across the other. Her
Breath goes with it, a short exhale
Of frustration and grief.

The room is now silent, save for the
Shallow breaths of the aging dame
Grey mascara rivers running down
Thin crevices, inexorable lines of
An inevitable future. No makeup
So fine and polished can mask: she’s fallen
Victim to the times, pushing and straining
As far as the limits of her youth will allow

Cold remnants of an untouched meal
Watch from the corner, stale, unwanted
collecting dust and fleas,
Waiting to be disposed of, bound to be forgotten.
She pauses, blinks. The pit of her stomach
Grumbles in understanding -- two hands
Jump to grasp a cinched waist.
Open bourbon, brought in anticipation of good news
Teases:  no cheers for the old hag!

A fist and a table, an empty glass soon
Filled as she pours herself a bitter dose
Of panacea, just a little something to take
The edge of her face, to knock off a few years and
Quiet the pain.

Fifty and forgotten, candle in the wind
A name that once drew the largest of crowds,
Full theatres and a demand in the public eye,
Now brings nonchalance, indifference, or
Worse -- ignorance! Who?

The young starlings, bright, eager doe-eyed
Little things: they are the new pull, the desired
Flavor and choice eye candy. She trembles, but
Blames the alcohol: after all, it whispers,
*Who wants to look at you?
Nora Feb 2016
Girl,
You’ll be a woman
Soon, so start
Straightening your hair
So it’s smooth and shiny
And cake on your cumbersome
Concealer because
Acne is for boys.
Browse bras in Victoria’s Secret
The ones with plentiful padding,
Push-up, so your cleavage
Screams: “I am a grown lady”
Even though you’re only thirteen.
Trade your sweats for slimming
Jeans that squeeze, skin-tight
Telling you to take a trot to trim
Your waist because you weigh
More than a delicate number.
Nora May 2017
Just when i think
i might deserve better
i sit shaking, soaked
in salt water tears
sobbing and settling
for the lack of love,
the absence of affection
in the the boundless
desert of my life
Nora May 2017
Just when i think
i might deserve better
i sit shaking, soaked
in salt water tears
sobbing and settling
for the lack of love,
the absence of affection
in the the boundless
desert of my life
Nora Jan 2021
Meticulously maintaining
Impossibly feigned nonchalance,
Toying the cigarette ever so slightly
In her fingers -- careful so not
To appear as too calculated

The pariahs parade the dancefloor,
Shades of ignominy culminating in a
Prismatic rainbow, heightened by
The stale odor of ***** and body heat

Still, she stays in her perch like a silent sphynx
Waiting -- watching --
Aimlessly, but with direction, such
Carefree flamboyance below her,
A stoop to which she’d never deign

And so she watches, resigned
To fate, as much a fixture in the joint
As the gilded barstools --
The closest she can come to confronting
The fact that she is no different
Than any of the rest
After so many years, finally attempting to resume my cinematic poetry project — this one based on 1934’s WONDERBAR, as easily inferred
Nora Feb 2016
How distasteful you are,
With your sundry splotches
and jarring imperfections.
Oh, you taunt me so!
Whether your anathemas
are reflected through the mirror or my own eyes.
Oh horrible, hateful, heinous thing!
I cannot bear to stare any longer.
How sickly your color is--
A pallid yellow, like one giant bruise
That has budded and blossomed
In some unnaturally grotesque fashion.
My blood boils, my pulse races
And I raise my weapons to fight--
Two talons--claws honed to perfection.
Be gone, you wretched scab!
And so I tear, scratching furiously,
Until no more of you is left.
The blood is stuck beneath my fingertips,
Or what is left of them.
My sinews tremble, ****** and bare,
As the last of my wallpaper
Is ripped from my bones.
A small tribute to Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Concept is mine, story and inspiration are not.
Nora Mar 2016
you make me hate me
reject me, dejected me,
a piece of you that is
sadly me, i am me and
you hate me
Nora Feb 2016
Sing me to sleep
And soothe me softly
Make my eyes sag
With the pleasant weight
Of impending repose.

Quell my mind
And feed me numbness
Let the fog haze over
Please free me
Of my thoughts.

Lay me down to rest
In the pitch black stillness
A slumber so deep
I’ll die in the night,
Uninterrupted.

— The End —