A writer
in love
puts all
the effects
of recreational
drugs
to shame
A writer in love
levitates
A writer in love...
Oh God Have Mercy
for pen shall burn on paper

I remember pressing my
innocent ears to the mouths
of discarded seashells, just to
hear their secrets; and I shared mine.
They told me secrets in the form of
ocean waves and whispers of wind
between the fingers of the palms.

On days that I feel the world
crumbling and combusting
around me, I press my wiser
ears to the same lips that kept
all my secrets safe. I remember
the advice seashells gave to a
young girl who'd felt discarded.
Be like the ocean, let it flow.

Angels make the bouquets 
I see as I thumb through this Chagall book
life is served on a bed of blue sky
aspirations made of soft shells 
like molting ***** 
these flowers bloom risking penury 
to offer a glimpse of eternity 

make themselves windows of the blooming tree 
a prism in a subjective room 
they chose their lives in alternative 
and reflect themselves as canals of rainbows 

I sip a glass of wine and ponder this page
the museums of silken selves the artist left for us
Chagall painted old age so devoid of color 
and vitality 
because he knew as we age
we empty our imaginations
into the angels
who then arrive
holding flowers
for the young

here is a cup of fog
mix it well
with melancholy
spoon in a bit
of saccharine ---
indigestible sentiment ---
and blend it all
together

take this tablespoon of
creative fire
douse it with
unrelenting tears
repress it into a ball
then let it stand,
covered,
that the yeast of
sorrow may bloom

when doubled,
punch it down to
bloom again

punch
bloom
punch
bloom

work the dough of Life
to death
form it into a blob
put it into the cold fire of the ego’s
oven
leave it there to burn away
to nothing edible

serve it in hard chunks
on delicate china
and --- wait
trust that the teaspoon of
Love added at the last minute
will be enough


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

You stand out
like a fruit loop
in a bowl
of cheerios

He drew a figure eight on my spine, absentmindedly,
and traced the nape of my neck with his fingertip when he said,
“You are beautiful to me.”

But the ellipsis in the silence spoke louder than he did, and the look in his eye was not born because I was lovely;
It was not because he loved me.

A thing too small for love-
But far too large to be lust;

Simple. Ugly.

He looked at me like he was hungry.

So sweetly he critiqued each curve, every line, blurring my edges with the images of every bent perception pulled from the mire of his mind;

and I
could not
satisfy


Pretty innocence diminished in the grip of his vice,
Pressed tight against my body, despised in dark eyes.
I am not the inhuman creatures you contrived in the middle of the night.
I am not the feminine expression of your ******* pride.

What a wicked crime,
to take a woman’s body and leave the woman behind.