I jump through the loops
     on River Styx Street.
Sharp clicking from my tapping shoes
     produce haunted echoes
to which the ****** can dance
     and celebrate their
     hollow chocolate existence.

The false front city surrounds me,
     its victim,
     patiently biding its time,
stalking,
     breathing,
          watching
     with empty square eyes.

Unalterably, feline curiosity
     will consume me,
and I will enter into
     an unlocked mouth.

Until then, I jump through
     candy cane hoops,
Ignorant of the concave heaven
     hovering above.

-- Kerry Ann Herrmann

Existence in the quiet place
between the changing of times
is safe, is sad, is constant, and
filled with disdain. That is where I went
to escape the cruelty
of your bawling silence.

With whom does my anger more agree?
Should I blame your disgusting selfishness
or my callow desire to please?

How can a man not love his daughter?
How can a person ******,
hate, and distort the world...
yet think himself desired and puissant?

I cannot say I hate you,
because to do so is to deny
the vulnerability of my injury.
But I can and will shout
to the farthest corner
of my and your collective universe...

"Your apathy sickens me!
Every tense muscle in my body cringes
as I ***** your feigned love!"

I will no longer rehearse
your betrayal over and over,
hoping each time for a
different conclusion.

My days twisted between the years
have reached their conclusion.
I am starting a new season,
leaving your carcass
to be eaten by the passage of time.

- Kerry Herrmann

.
The tender Willow leaves whoosh softly
                              with the fickle cherry blossom breeze

Painting the colour
                              these inevitable days ,
                              the fragrant scent
                                                      o­f springtide

No longer holding back
                              the dreams from deep in a heart
                                                               w­axing gibbous ,

the unopined moon
                              rose up over an unwritten poem

painting hues with words
                              shaping the shadows of its song
                              into a musically dappled tableau

stroked by the tickle of poignant whispers

                              waft from the veritable roguish winter nadir
                                              ― a latent and longing heart


         ― beneath
                              a sky full of stars
                                      
                 ­                                        ✩ ✩ ☼ ✩ ✩
                                                     *wild is the wind

Strangers acquaint, announcing particularities.
Thrills run across hungry nerves;
pleasure mounts in rising expectations:
First ruminating, next devouring,
then coalescing into one complete whole.

Gently the wintry chill advances
imperceptible to unschooled senses.
Mirages of fullness fade while realization grows.

Ah, the tender vulnerability of intense gratification.
Discovery of naivety’s betrayal is complete
in the consumption of perfected death.

(Cold as mirrored glass, rebounding time,
numbing fire.) An embodiment of suffocating pain,
The paroxysm climaxes... waiting for release.

(Stretched, drained, quietly entertaining sympathy.)
This sultry expansion - extended abeyance of joy -
turns knowledge of fulfillment into hope that
blends with the waters of insecurity.

(Moments of compression, burning sickness
intensifying with each presentation,
development of indeterminate expectations,
vacillation between stimulating passion and alarm.)

A formidable moment charges toward the funambulist.
Balance seems impossibly demanding.

Abruptly the event ends, time stops, breathing ceases …

        The babe is held in loving arms -
        forgotten pain, dissolving woe.
        Her tender grace, alluring charms
        beget a great, supernal flow.

Kerry Ann Herrmann

You are gathered with your friends
to play a board game
called "What Next"
Four people total, Including you.

First, the person with brown hair
and blue eyes to your right,
filled with HATrEd,
withdraws a card and
deciphers its MYstery:

"You are lost
at sea on a wooden
catamaran. There are others
with you. The phone that shows
where to turn is broken.
How will you unMASK
the land?"

The pitiful one across
from you whispers
the answer: "Unlock
the old, rusted telescope."

It is the pitiful
one's turn, who reads
with self-reproof, "You are on
an island. The boy child
with a broken glass face,
exposing the fire
in HIS head, looks
at you accusingly.
How do you extinguish
the volcano?"

Raising a hand in ANGER
is the disdainful person
with brown hair, who yells,
"Punish the boy child!
His SCARS will never heal!"
The loving soul in red
smiles and says: "Wrong,
you silly creature.
You solve the MYthical puzzle
by joining the flesh
on the boy child's FACE."

It is now THE loving
one's turn to select
a card (the ticket?), done
with a GENTLE flick of the
delicate wrist. One singing
VOICE chimed, "Spoiled farmer
makes you confine the
bamboozled man that names
your strengths. He
SUGGESTS
THAT
the befuddled
has already been put away.
How can you possibly
solve the Conundrum?"

You must answer. Relax!
I order you! Find the solution!
The patriarch has ordered it!
Or else you MUST walk through
a curtain of falling bullets
showering down.
It is the only ESCAPE
back to the beginning.

Kerry Herrmann

pool chairs.
eating emeralds
smoking insects
and becoming the locust
of the world.

party looking like bloodletting
indoor wallpaper rosyblurry violent cough
and vision up like a promised land
windy alcove and energized balcony chats

my fear of heights, lime nicotine
you'll save my anxiety taking me home
naked to the core underwear and bra
talking quietly as you drunk drive
lonely dragonfly intersection intertwined
fingers and again - those kingly emeralds