"mantel" poems
#there are the ones
that feel it climb up
the shadow towards the light,
hesitation on every rung,
each wave of the arising
overwhelms unabated ―
and woe betides those
who are on the run
from a storm's deluge
A rousing ocean breeze
stirs inside the memory
of an unframed seashell
lying on the hearth mantel;
heightened sensitivity
lapping soundlessly,
spindrift plashing
the shoreline
of another world's
feigned peace
Perhaps the muted voice
of guilty pleasures,
hushed by their own
hidden truths
Feeling the unfelt textures
of every stifled vibration
left unbreathed
The naked truth befallen
so cold and lonely
Running in circles,
volatile as all those
unspoken excitations raging ―
and the whispers of those
who hear not
the voices in the wind
An emotionally enslaved heart
tarries, marooned high and dry
in a memory on a distant sand bar
lain fallow for so long ―
stagnant darkness
of an unsated soul
gathered on the back
of a parched tongue
sullied wordless
Rising up through
a dusty hieroglyph corridor
through an unlocked
labyrinth gate; vestige echoes
from somewhere left behind
in an incomprehensible
abandoned wake
It's getting harder and harder
for an insatiable soul to breathe ...
climbing up a tree trunk―
up within the silence
of the listening tree
Toes dug into
the rough bark furrows ―
fingers reaching upwards
beyond their deepest known grasp
A shadow stranded
out on a hangin' bough
hearkening without ears that hear:
“perhaps they’ll listen now“
the wingless bird sings
in psalms that fly away
on tattered feathers
over untamed waters roil
Back to nature’s waning youth,
the bough bends unbroken
to taste the freedom
of the wild absolving seas
Jesse Stillwater
June 2018
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 12:41 PM UTC
287
A Clock stopped—
Not the Mantel’s—
Geneva’s farthest skill
Can’t put the puppet bowing—
That just now dangled still—
An awe came on the Trinket!
The Figures hunched, with pain—
Then quivered out of Decimals—
Into Degreeless Noon—
It will not stir for Doctors—
This Pendulum of snow—
This Shopman importunes it—
While cool—concernless No—
Nods from the Gilded pointers—
Nods from the Seconds slim—
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life—
And Him—
8.1k
The griffin outside my balcony
squinted and shook
flipping Kansas City
upside down and back.
Giant flakes descended
like softest down -
coating the plaza below
with a mantel of frosted white.
The griffin is squinting once more.
Watch out; hold on tight!
Here we go again
whirling about in a cyclonic flurry
of magic fairy crystals.
August, 2010
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 4:11 AM UTC
we have a clock up on the mantel
it's right just twice each day
but, when you get to my age
i guess that it's ok
i don't need clocks to keep in time
my body works for me
i don't need hands on an old clock
to tell me when to ***
my stomach says it's time to eat
the clock says ten past eight
it's three hours off as i can see
but, still ....i think it's great
the clocks been there through seven kids
four dogs, two cats, one wife
it's no wonder that with all of that
it barely has a life
you can still hear it try ticking
if you give it a good wind
i'd hate to look inside it
for fear of what i'd find
the cuckoo clock i used to own
went cockeyed, the bird died
i couldn't get the cuckoo back
no matter how i tried
i figure now at eighty six
that time has passed me by
i used to be quite punctual
i was just that sort of guy
but, now the clock up on my mantel
it's right twice...and i see
it's ten past eight again my friends
so...it means it's time for tea.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 6:21 AM UTC
(Mangroves shake the boy
Rapture tempts his will-
He will not eat tonight.
Only blue shades fill
a hole so deep
covered
with
ashes
he
eats
- Himself -
an ardent fill
of bruised light,
like chimeras on
the mantel.)
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 8:00 PM UTC
Put the coin in the box,
Colin, Uncle Donal said,
Hear it shake, and he’d
Take up the box and shake
It hard so that the coins
Would rattle loudly. Do you
Hear that, Colin, that’s the
Change from my purse and
Pocket, the missionaries can
Have that for their work abroad,
To feed and spread the Word.
Will you hush the noise there,
Granddaddy called; I can’t hear
Myself think for the racket of it.
The horses are on the run and I
Can’t hear who is where and who’s
Behind. Uncle Donal put the
Charity box down on the mantel
Shelf with the gentleness of Cousin
Chloe removing her underwear
Before her bath. Ah, **** the horse,
Granddaddy bellowed, I could run
Faster myself so I could. Never bet
On the horses, Colin, he said, they’ll
Let you down and take your money
Just like a woman. Uncle Donal pulled
A face and grinned from ear to ear, as
Grandmother entered the room with
A face of thunder and Granddaddy said,
Oh, hello, wife, how are you my dear?
Jul 29, 2016
Jul 29, 2016 at 2:51 PM UTC
What is it we see and so often despise,
when we view ourselves using only the eyes,
that distorted image inside our head,
the old snakes skin that we’d like to shed,
dare we look from behind the frame,
beyond the self-loathing, repulsion and shame,
our vesture is woven from the beauty inside,
so take on its mantel and wear it with pride.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
The Stars will collide and the ashes will cover our grounds
- Tiffanie Noel Doro
•••••••••••
burn my body,
flesh and bone just the same•
let loose my soul so it might be free•but
save my remains before the wind comes to
claim•so you'd remember me as the dream-
er infinitely•pluck the stars from the night
skyline•don't forget the moon for I adore
it so•grind them to dust and scatter the-
irs with mine•i'd have them as comp-
any to the place I will go•handle me
with care, no you must not spill•
ashes and dust...funnel me in
turn•place me near, on the
mantel or the sill•my for-
ever will then be sealed
in your cold...shelved...
urn•
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 6:12 AM UTC
I'm snuggled up,
all warm and cozy...
wrapped in your lovin' arms,
full body to body,
your leg over mine,
feelin' your breath
on my bare shoulder,
hearin' you softly breathe,
feelin' your heartbeatin'
along with mine-
My dreams are of
you and I...
we're in our home,
in front of the fireplace,
snaps and crackles
comin' from the fire,
we're makin' love
on a sheepskin plush carpet,
candles a'glow on the mantel,
country music playin'
softly in the room,
the scent of roses
in the air-
I awaken feelin'
satisfied and happy...
then I realize I'm in my own home,
my own bed,
all alone,
no candles in sight,
country music playin'
on my own little stereo,
rose scent
non-existant,
room full of daylight-
I roll back over,
tryin' to recapture
that dream~
I guess, I must have been...
Dreamin' In The Daylight!
2007
COPYRIGHT; Sabrina Denise Healey,
~Angelmom~
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 9:36 PM UTC
Angry, Annoyed, and Jobless
Starting to feel hopeless wondering what it takes to make it and if I have it or if I can even find it.
Friends changing, time passing, learning the youth is not everlasting.
Face changing showing some aging starting to feel the body aching.
Looking at all the time taken. Many roads could have but should have that were never taken.
Searching for employment in a maze of internet searches and job applications.
Getting red starting to steam with the same response with different logos.
Not knowing why it's always a no go. Went to school got a couple of degrees.
One is just a mantel decoration made of cheap balsa wood and lies.
The other is great but never enough. Wanting more companies always want more.
I think education and jobs are working together.
Education is the wheelbarrow that takes all of your money
Jobs is the boot kicking you in the *** to remind you that you do not have any and that you need more.
Every time we pass go with another job interview we get a glimpse of hope but it drives off in a car or sails away in the corporate battleship.
That leaves only the dog to **** on our dreams and leaves us wondering where is our dream of lots of money and a big top hat.
Just left to feel thimble like and try to iron out the details of your life
I am tired of looking tired of getting told no. Going to do it on my ******* own.
Load up the cannon with what money, hope, and dreams I have left and shoot for the stars and hope I can reach mine and fulfill my dream and escape this monopoly game of life.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 11:49 PM UTC
Her presence is superfluous and your demeanor is vindictive, and you can’t hold her close enough to pass the hours with any more trivialities. Your allusions to Eos mean nothing to her comfortably deaf ears. Her smile drips with poisonous innocence and she’s reaching for you, and oh no, you’re doubled over again, and she’s rubbing your back, and you’re clutching at your insides and you just want to hurl them at the wall and redefine expressionism. Transgressions displayed in a mason jar atop the fireplace mantel, like the ashes of some dead relative who stopped mattering when the estate paid out and your dad blew it all at the casino again. With a knock and a bump, the skeletons come tumbling out of your closet; their bones crumble into dust on your carpet. You've lost track of how often this happens but you think the carpet looks better grey anyway, and she’s still looking up at you. Those eyes so much like a child, riddled with naivety and wonderment, like you’re the perfect picture of Eden. It’s 5am and you can’t see the room through the smoke, and she can’t hear the cries for help over her utopian illusion of This Is All We Need. You were never one for cathexis and you hope she can’t see the blood on the walls, or the blood(lust) on your hands. She has the uncanny ability to not know, despite your nuances. She’ll never read into your mind the way she reads the words you carve into the trees and the sand and the snow. Every articulation of Truth is just refracted through her pretty little head and sent spinning into the abyss. The sun is rising and you wish she’d leave, but your shift in weight and your sideways glance is subjective to her and she promises to stay. So instead you make bets with yourself over whether your body falling from a 30 story building, or the rising sun, will reach the horizon line first.
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 6:12 PM UTC
what is this body but a vessel to you?
carrying your what if's and
your unborn children
a fixture
to *****
This body is but
curves that turn
and cut your wit
dim forest
that you trail-blaze
converting rolling hills
to farmland
unearthing soil,
to dig your pleasure graves.
what is this body to you?
But two bouncing *******
under a cotton summer dress?
what is this body but lips spread wide
open, teasing
a flash of teeth?
does it make you break a sweat?
what is this body but your chess piece?
mantel piece
piece of ***
strip tease
arm-rest
a body
beside you
to look down upon
and fake a smile at
in photographs
what is this body to you
but a vase?
to fill with your complaints
to empty your sorrows into
to empty your ***** into
to let down
then help up
to coo over and
cry on
and cry on
and cry on
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 9:15 AM UTC
Is life a story, is life magick dreaming to love?
I gazed up. “Standing below the elephantine magnolia,
the ground still bore Tuscany ochre from autumns last kiss.”
My eyes solivagant orbs fed on spring’s dews in mourning
──jewellery clinging opulently to her naked form.
Dawn chilled the breeze caressing her body as abscission
demanded she undressed her emerald gown of leaves.
Magenta and cream blooms sprang “loudly” seducing
─ blushing mauve crowned centres,
a population of endless figurines perched motionless on aching
naked branches.
Solomon’s seal burned white within me drunk impending suns arrows, opulent words of silver Verbus diablio kissed in a cauldron
of Magnolia words, a banquet for mortals that seek loves gold.
A lone spider echoed silence bearing the sigil of Jupiter’s
vermillion and white spun striations luffing on the breeze
warming. “Magnolia dressed the day ardent in perfumed
── glorious plumes that each set sail across waking skies.”
Ablaze I am luscious dreams wrapped in sweet nectar,
travelling limbic memories breathing deeply, held captive,
wanton within her labyrinths of silk caresses, petals whispering,
sweet love as she engulfs my last resolve.
In raptures white velvet gown my hem sweeps over gold russet
and brittle autumns words forged in winters need for warmth──mind leaves crunching beneath life’s changing seasons,
stitched I cling enamoured to mortal honeymoon summered fields.
I am the female of sapphire tears twisting, glittering melting ice shards, bequeathed of pained black stars travelled on passionate magick fires, breathed on melodious Roma nights.
Rested among the branches a mantel crucified- drunk once more,
a bloom held silent in time weeping, exploding fragrant in a coloured soul, a luffing flower creature to life──crowned
──to sun hope thorns.
©ASPAR (A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 6:17 AM UTC
You stupid sonofabitch.
I hope you burn less than you did when you were here,
and that maybe you finally caught up with the monster you were chasing.
We still drink to you
on days like this,
Glasses raised to the day you showed up,
Broken bottle on the back porch to forget the day you left.
Oh, and pay your mother a visit sometime, she misses you so.
She's been saving lives in your name for years now,
but the kids are still dropping like flies.
Tell her it's okay,
that she's done her part.
I guess I just miss you.
That heart of gold is still the talk of the town, but I remember the black fingers wrapped around it much better,
And I want you to know that I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I didn't save you.
So tonight I'll drink
Not to the ashes on the mantel or the flowers on the grave.
But to you.
Happy birthday, Matt.
Wherever you are.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 6:37 AM UTC
fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself
so maybe that's why i
hide
your identity behind a cloud
of prestigious synonyms and
truthful lies because
i'm scared
of you and
scared for you
and if
i'm not scared then i don't feel
anything
at all (when your fingers are
wrapped around mine
or wrapped around my neck) because
i feel like i'm suffocating, your
skin
used to be on mine but now my
vocal cords have been
snapped, strained, broken,
so maybe your lips
are like electromagnets;
they took away my steel strength
when
you pulled them away;
like tectonic plates evoking
an earthquake in my core, in my mantel,
maybe i am a planet
but you made
me inhabitable;
my atmosphere poisonous,
i am impossible to breathe around yet
you
had the audacity
to sheepishly hold up a second hand
gas mask
and say someone else
will one day finish
project "love"
on a tiny planet
who's name
begins with m
and ends with e
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 8:08 AM UTC
To tell the story of the nice-guy
is to tell a tale of unlost innocence.
There is no complexity that circumstance can’t remedy. There is no effort
to niceness; only a ****** world that blossoms
on genetically mutated ideology, growing larger than generations past.
Tomorrow, in Houston,
a butcher will wake up to slaughter a cow he may have named.
There will no be no tears when he grills steak for the wife he wooed
and the children he prescribed himself.
Three daughters,
from fifteen to twenty-two.
Tiramisu for dessert.
Ten guns in the cabinet beneath the stairs
and innocence buried behind the woodshed.
Pretend now, that you are forgiven.
Mistakes fade like snow angels, regrets
float like chemtrails.
You love you as much as the world always did.
You have not seen friends struck down by powders or lunacy,
you have only lived in the glow of their light. Hearts remain full.
The word swagger hasn’t been hijacked by hip hop
and bluejeans still mask imperfections. Sunsets are memorable,
and so are first dates and last kisses.
Sun won't blister fragile shoulders.
Fields blossom just in time to suit your irregular taste buds,
satisfying sweet corn cravings on Christmas.
Forget your father’s words
or a stranger's hand.
Forget improbability, impossibility,
impotence, importance,
impatience
and improper goodbyes.
Forget the tears cried alone
into ***** filled sheets at midnight.
Forget the effect but remember the cause,
camouflaged like a landmine of good ideas.
Forget the fights and slow-turn walk-aways
that turned words flaccid.
Forget friends ******* ex-girl friends
and amphetamines crashing into hallucinations.
Nice-guys vanish like good ideas,
lost in the shuffle,
looking for pen and paper,
just like house cats die
on the forth of July,
and all that’s left are ashes
on a mantel
alongside fraudulent grins.
Oct 29, 2011
Oct 29, 2011 at 7:42 PM UTC
My brittle skeleton has become an abandoned motel
and you
were its last visitor.
Why didn't you enjoy your stay?
I made a trail of light kisses across your forehead
like spreading mints on your pillow in the morning.
I peeled back the curtains
to let rays of light color your cheekbones
and swept your troubles underneath the wooden sofa legs.
A motel's only guests
are faint silhouettes of those passing through.
How did I believe you could be permanent?
I have cleaned every inch
of this haunted cottage,
but when I dust the mantel of my shoulder blades,
I only find your smudged fingerprints.
I cannot scrub you from my skin.
It flakes,
it scars,
but you are still embedded there.
How did I mistake touching for feeling?
A closed sign now dangles around my neck
This vacancy can never be filled.
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 5:22 PM UTC
I think about you around the holidays,
how I’d follow the sprinkles scattered on the floor
like bright constellations guiding me to you
kneading dough on the kitchen counter.
Your dress shirt, missing a button near the pressed collar,
was painted with flour. You carried those grains of sugar
in the pocket of your fingernails for days.
The holidays aren’t the same since you left.
The wreath has shed its needles
like a rattlesnake stripping of its skin.
The Coca-Cola snow globe on the mantel has cracked,
leaking snow confetti onto the rug.
(I swear it was sobbing, too.)
Last night, I awoke to a glass ornament
dropping to the floor like a fallen angel.
I sliced my fingertip on a shard
while sweeping the remains.
I found your missing button under the tree skirt,
the only piece of you that stayed.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 12:18 AM UTC
The clock slows to a stop and stares
At my pencil, my paper, my thoughts
Waiting for something profound
But my abilities are lost
This haze is a metaphor
These words are a matador
And I am a bull trying to charge
But running only into the red
The crowd waits for my failure
But I am determined to put on a show
I will not be hoisted upon a mantel
For the viewers high and low
I will write these words
I will treat them as if the red
Were a target for my victory
And get inside their heads
I am a Taurus of the moment
There’s nothing stronger for you to see
I will move past my demise
And these thoughts will be set free
So I move into a stance
And I **** my head to the side
Get ready to charge into the red
Or so everyone thinks this time
My target is but one
It stands there with a smirk
I’ll charge it at the last second
And the crowds will see my worth
The clock slowly starts to count
And my thoughts are free again
And the matador is lying there
With no one to attend
So I put my pencil down
My victory is sweet
I close my pages and then my eyes
This bull is anything but weak
Brockman ©
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 9:43 AM UTC
I read a story to my son. Really,
I am composing it, off the cuff, but
there is no reason his mother should know.
One day, Elliott built a rocket ship.
His rocket ship was going to take him to the moon.
The boy sees nothing silly in this, and
for a second, I don't, either.
And every spare minute, Elliott worked on his rocket.
When he was at school, he drew out in
blue, and chalk-white, a dream for his rocket.
When his mother told him to do his homework,
he worked on his rocket.
When his mother left him
in the dining room to finish his carrots,
he worked on his rocket.
"I wish I could work on a rocket,
instead of eating vegetables."
Tonight, you won't have to.
One day, Elliott finished his rocket, and he went to the moon.
From the Moon, he heard the earth mumble.
From the moon, he saw the tide hug the shore,
and knock down his sister's sandcastle, left
on the beach from the summer before.
From the moon.
"He saw China!"
And Brazil. And India.
"And he got to see what his school looks like at night!"
He wouldn't know that, as a a boy, I went safely walking there,
and as a foulmouthed teen, I was drunk in the playground, at night.
That I looked down, from the hospital adjacent when my father was there.
He asks if, from the moon, you could see plain
the shadows of the craters on our planet, too broad
to behold, on sidewalks and soccerfields, during a game.
"You could. All the shadows, in the cities and the seas."
And his ruby face relaxes, deeply struck,
and musing, I think, that maybe
shadows aren't all bad.
Elliott came back, in time that his mother,
could wake him up, and he could loudly fake a snore.
And he righted his sister's sandcastle.
He went to Brazil.
He was drunk on playgrounds.
He saw shadows. They weren't so bad.
And often, when he would walk on the
sidewalk, his feet would feel light, like he
was on the moon again.
"Because the Moon has no gravity."
No gravity at all.
When I leave, and land beside my wife in bed,
I admire the helmet on my mantel,
I crumble old moondust in the paw of my suit,
I feel, still, the dimples of the sheets,
light, and shadowed, like the clefts of the moon.
Mar 8, 2010
Mar 8, 2010 at 6:48 AM UTC
Llamar al pan el pan y que aparezca
sobre el mantel el pan de cada día;
darle al sudor lo suyo y darle al sueño
y al breve paraíso y al infierno
y al cuerpo y al minuto lo que piden;
reír como el mar ríe, el viento ríe,
sin que la risa suene a vidrios rotos;
beber y en la embriaguez asir la vida,
bailar el baile sin perder el paso,
tocar la mano de un desconocido
en un día de piedra y agonía
y que esa mano tenga la firmeza
que no tuvo la mano del amigo;
probar la soledad sin que el vinagre
haga torcer mi boca, ni repita
mis muecas el espejo, ni el silencio
se erice con los dientes que rechinan:
estas cuatro paredes -papel, yeso,
alfombra rala y foco amarillento-
no son aún el prometido infierno;
que no me duela más aquel deseo,
helado por el miedo, llaga fría,
quemadura de labios no besados:
el agua clara nunca se detiene
y hay frutas que se caen de maduras;
saber partir el pan y repartirlo,
el pan de una verdad común a todos,
verdad de pan que a todos nos sustenta,
por cuya levadura soy un hombre,
un semejante entre mis semejantes;
pelear por la vida de los vivos,
dar la vida a los vivos, a la vida,
y enterrar a los muertos y olvidarlos
como la tierra los olvida: en frutos…
Y que a la hora de mi muerte logre
morir como los hombres y me alcance
el perdón y la vida perdurable
del polvo, de los frutos, y del polvo.
Tal sobre el muro rotas uñas graban
un nombre, una esperanza, una blasfemia,
sobre el papel, sobre la arena, escribo
estas palabras mal encadenadas.
Entre sus secas sílabas acaso
un día te detengas: pisa el polvo,
esparce la ceniza, sé ligera
como la luz ligera y sin memoria
que brilla en cada hoja, en cada piedra,
dora la tumba y dora la colina
y nada la detiene ni apresura.
1.7k
From the prompt: The End Of Monsters
“Nobody asks why the chimera needs killing.
It’s a lone thing – a wrongness,
a distortion wandering in from elsewhere
burning the straight plowed fields of us”
- E. Rose Sims (On Cartography and Dissection)
He took his vorpol sword in hand
and with it, slayed the last Jabberwock.
Claimed its head, and placed it on a mantel,
in between Grendel’s arm, and the Minotaur’s horn -
Trophies of his conquests.
He told himself that he was making the world safer.
Still, that didn’t stop the nightmares.
The memories of the screams let out by the faun
as he plunged his dagger into its neck.
The way the chimera begged to be spared,
in is best human accent, before he thought to cut out its tongue:
“Please, no **** Who will look for my family?”
“No mercy, not in this world.” He tells himself.
“Monsters need to be killed.”
He told himself that he was the great Dragonslayer.
The adventurer.
Eliminating the native threats
so that his people can safely claim the land.
Now that his deed is done,
the final monster, slain.
Our hero hangs his vorpol sword up on the wall.
Yet, he lies awake at night
unable to sleep,
he stares up at the stars.
He dwells on a bone chilling thought -
that maybe somewhere in a distant land
there is a map being made of his home town
and some undiscovered other
has labeled it -
“Here Be Monsters”.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 12:24 PM UTC
George sat down at a table for two
at the local coffee shop.
He is a heavy caffeine consumer,
seventy five years of energy
rushes with his blood
Cynthia is less of a coffee drinker.
George always buys her a small version
of what he is drinking.
He thinks she is beautiful.
One simple adjective
describing a very complex character
Thirty five
was the age he fell in love with
Cynthia
A metamorphosis
of a friendship
into more
They talk
and talk
talk some more
continue talking
about everthing
and nothing at all
all at once.
George has a daily routine:
Coffee with Cynthia,
drive home,
read the newspaper,
water the flowers,
clean the house,
and last
polish the urn above the mantel
containing the ashes
of Cynthia.
Nov 26, 2011
Nov 26, 2011 at 5:25 PM UTC
I sew the seams of my life together.
The fingers of my Heart
busily stitching
the patterns of my Mind.
A wondrous patchwork quilt.
It lays upon me like a mantel
with a bridal train billowing along
in the wild Cosmic Wind.
A garment not quite complete.
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 6:25 PM UTC
Go to sleep my baby boy;
Momma’s only gonna be here
for a little while.
Nod your head my precious boy—
Can I kiss you
before I go?
I’ve waited ten dark years
to see your face,
and now I know—
Momma’s been a sinner
and she’s only gonna be here
for a little while.
Momma gripped the infant soul.
She clutched that child to her meager heart,
Hoping like a dying man in fever
To swallow salvation before his hour of going.
Then she heard the eerie angels singing—
The Man stepped out through the cloudy mantel.
She looked to Him and cried:
Oh Lord, please forgive me,
I’m an unwanted guest—
But I snuck in through a back door
And I’ve been to see my boy
before you send me on my way.
I’ve had a ten years’ wait
Since I’ve learned to love my baby,
Only let me stay,
Let me stay enough and be forgiven—
She descended, her back to the place
From which she had came
And the next of her days would be warmed
By the devil’s burly chortle,
By her midwife’s toil in the nursery of demons,
And the smoke from below,
Which rises through three worlds she’s seen
And scratches even the angels’ throats to coughing.
Apr 5, 2010
Apr 5, 2010 at 11:33 PM UTC