Feathers dipped in red
To paint clouds,
Voices tied
Like fences with barbed wire
Eyes tainted black
To shun morning light
Camouflage night
Hands on throats, broken wings
Hollow bones under beaten skin
Angry tears, and hushed beats
Trembling hearts lie dead on streets
Cracked, and bruised
Words and beliefs
Another day
Our defeat.

don't you hate it? -
when you write a poem
and you adopt this persona
you use "I"
(yeah, the first person)
and your reader is so ****** literal-minded
and takes the "I" to be "you"
and comforts you, or winks at you
offers heavy commiseration
or provides motherly or
fatherly advice
or grandpa's advice
(as the case might be)...
and you want to scream:
Hey, it's not me!

it's like the novelist
who's asked by their readers:
Is this novel about your life?

*Hey, it's not me! It's not me!

I am not ready to allow my broken body to yield to you
The centuries have weathered and ruined me
My mind stays, it insinuates movement, restless and hopeful
I am a vessel that bleeds out dreams and simplicity
I long for escape, I long to free myself from insignificance
My muscles ache under my skin from being mangled
All of my bones lie broken
So I am left here, to reflect on how nonessential I am
And I can only gaze at the same sight I've seen
I have been coerced to watch the earth, who does not appreciate me
For I am nothing but the moon.

I thought I'd write a villanelle
though form is not my forte
yet I'll try, what the hell

Let's see if I can do this well
as an exercise in structure
I thought I'd write a villanelle

Can I make my verses swell
write five of them as tercets
well I'll try, what the hell

For to my inertia quell
while my muse is absent
I thought I'd write a villanelle

Now I've fallen to the spell
but the next must be a quatrain
so I'll try, what the hell

My words upon the page do jell
and this is almost finished
I thought I'd write a villanelle
then I tried, what the hell

Cynthia Pauline Jones, 10/5/2014