white walls,
the cackling night,
festering liquor,
and a chance to break from my landlocked liturgy
collapse on the fine-toothed grass.

my head -- a dark carnival of shared substances --
smolders at the grind of its gears,
as my Black Venom mistress dribbles
drunkspeak for an hour, and aimless
boys find holographic truth
in a hallucinagenic bathroom --
"we should mean less than this."

close the door to bedroom crypt--
"you've got to die to be born again"--
Black Venom undresses me
while the shutters of perception
rattle open, then closed, open, closed, open--
a grey wind and erratic desire fire, fall, pant,
realign to destroy body in the name
of a newness to follow--
if I'm mad,
I'm quite good at it--
if I'm sane,
I have no intention of staying that way.

Thanks for the gift you left at the front door--
I wept cause I figured you left for good
'till I opened the box in horror
to find a zombie black mamba instead of my heart.

Thanks for the living dead snake
constricting around my brain
making me think of nothing but you
eschewing daily life.
The venom takes away my appetite--
the sun is too bright and sunny
so I stay inside my room filled with flies
writing about the time you left this
living dead snake instead of my heart.

It keeps squeezing and gnawing--
it's venom fills me with haunting memories
of the times I didn't see you slowly pulling away--
hugs stiffened
your kisses listless
and eyes drowning
while the sound of your voice sings disinterest.

Luckily you gave to me
a zombie black mamba instead of my heart
so I can always remember our time together.

my mother calls it being rude,
tends to yell at me for it
as if deluding herself into believing
that i won't yell back. i'm not a *****;
i won't take it
lying down.
i might be her son, but
being the teenager doesn't make me wrong,
and her being the adult doesn't make her right.
she doesn't get that,
doesn't see my side.

my friends call it sassy,
and encourage it,
and laugh, and it's nice
to just snark with them, back and forth
like a steady stream of sarcasm,
cutting quips from sharp tongues,
scathing remarks. it's all
playful, in the end,
like children who squabble over toys
then hug after mere minutes of cool down.

my mother used to call me "mouthpiece"
as a kid. it's funny how
she takes me so seriously when i'm only joking,
then laughs and degrades me
whenever i take something personally,
as if the verbal abuse slipping from her lips
is nothing more than teasing.
she's a hypocrite.
she calls me rude, an "ungrateful little ****",
wishes hell upon me, slaps me round the head
and gets in my face like a threat,
teeth bared like blades

but mother, i'm not scared of bleeding―
got that beaten out of me
so very long ago.
if you could just stop now, shut up,
quit being a mouthpiece, as you call it,
then this will all blow over,
and we can go back to pretending
that each of us doesn't exist to the other
for a couple nights.
we're sort of volatile, you and i
sometimes your words hurt more
than daddy's gripping hands or neglect ever could.

sometimes you make alcoholism tempting,
and wouldn't that be a fine symphony,
"like father, like son"
ringing hollowly in the empty space
between my ribs and my lungs
forgetting how to breathe
without breathing too much.
somebody once called my panic attacks
"attention seeking", but they were so wrong.
i've never wanted to be more invisible
than when i've found myself vulnerable
over a ******* memory, a ******* ghost of all the--

do you know how strange it is
to feel your heart hammering against your bones
with the too-fast flow of blood making your head spin,
when you've been so certain
that you've never had a heart at all?

this heart never got broken, depressingly enough.
it's kind of tragic to want something to hurt bad enough
to make you feel normal, human
but i've kind of been conditioned for disappointment
and solitude, and anger.
i've been so fine-tuned to drum beats
and cold voices,
it's no wonder i'm so closed off and detached.
but hey, at least it saved me some trauma,
no betrayals here, no questions,
no "i thought you loved me". hell,
i'm not even bitter that i never got a chance at a proper family

does that make me lucky?

ah, such a mouthpiece,
always spitting venom, dark humour at my own expense,
warding off any meaningful company
laughing about those times i tried to **** myself
like they're nothing

did you expect any less? how could you expect more?
your worthless son
is as cold and dead on the inside as his daddy.

that bitter symphony,
"like father, like son".

Everything plus-minus,
Venus, I beg you
to sponge me
All her fishes
Swim to surplus
and I imagine John
and all the people living
in peace but your niece looks
like Octopus
A priority the postman comes
Again twice got sponged
paid another
wet your
palate
price

His sturdy strong
legs
Milkman diary
but so many legs
But not enough time
Seattle rain
dating site
of Squid
She said to put a
lid on it
With such fluid
of water legs

They can really swim
Diet of fish my mask had
holes Swiss cheese lace
The golf game hole in one
sponge
I am home cooking
Calamari all knifed
inside like
Samkari  Uncle Sam
Sponged in with a lady
in her Mercedes

All squid-crabmeat
Those fish cakes water
crabby women
town
Sponge Bob aquarium
what an age
The college sorority
took over
the man's legs
Colliegate Girly
Fun side
authority sponge me
anytime no cell phone
So precocious hair rinse
game
So fictitious
legs so pompous
showing
Something always
more flirtatious
Sponge wet lips
she thought things were
clean delicious women
why do we
get devious wanting
what others have
You cannot share
your way too jealous
everyone became about the
The next winner New Jersey
Mrs. Cleaner not the dry ones
joy luck don't press me out
Club sandwich of legs
Got sponged
obnoxiously
I Apple phones
too much of a bite
She got bugged
things had to change
They deleted
everyone's name
Those monstrous

Mother in laws belly buttons
with gems rings of octopus
Everytime the same things
Octopus every October
They were Cowboy riders
And baked trio swingers
Quickdraw Mcdonald burglar
the gun always the silencer
Those sponge ladies love
to clean with their dancer's legs
Hitting some ***** spots
with her sponge
Those octopus men muscles
Leg lift Taylor Swift
Men love their leggy
eating muscles
Snake eyes of Venom
That jellyfish way too clean
lemon
Those surrenders
and wet calender
reminders
They got suspicious email
But lemons are the climate
Of October clean
Halloween became
beyond nasty
Thirteen sides slippery
Got slimy at the Door concert
Jimmy with his Morris(sons)
  Octopus
Octopus caused a vigorous
scene smashing pumpkins
There is no science to an
Octopus and sponge
But she loves her computer
and it was
an infectious disease
She was overly had
obsessive-compulsive
behavior

Cleaning it with her sponge
Eating her blueberry
sponge cake big mistake
She became on this sugar
leg kick really sick
Aggressiveness
So reckless or
Metamorphosis
Wheres her thesis
What a day for the sponge to
be doomed with curses
Sponge talk ***** lounge
Cafe with mud packs
Dilemmas

Sponge sticking to Mamas
Octopuses garden wanting
to hold your hand
The Beatles pin cushion shaped;
like an Octopus needles
I am the Walrus all doodles
Meretricious appliances
Her child had
Octopus performance
What allowances

Woodstock New York
The concerts heavy rained on
Purple haze Octopus
You needed to ring it
out on the clothesline
This felt like a pipe dream
The Octopus needed
more money

All burlesque Cher legs I got you
Sponged
The seamstress what madness
The butterfly lost her wings
Hannibal all Octopuses cannibal
They were sewed into the
Octopus picnic outing
Salads calamari tomato rotten
Got crush from her leggy

Going out of the country but
I cant back down
Tom Petty got sponged
with a  million buggies
Dr. Seus Octopus in the hat
Her legs got flat
That's a Jerry Mcquire Hire
Octopus got so baked I wonder
who made the fire

Black as night, cold as ice
the heat melts away the waxy
wane, I hold the fire that
burns deep inside my poetic soul.

Shackles binde me to the
words that cage my mind
in this poetic design.

Thorny roads overgrown
by poetic ****'s of all
kind's.

The sentencing is final,
my guilt is plighting
my soul is fighting this
poetic venom that bit my
creativity turning me...

Poetry, poetry brings me
to the edge of reality.

Guide's me through the dark,
candle light feed's my venomous
needs. Its smoke invades my
being.

Leaving me in the window of
your mind's to write this
venomous design.

Poetry is my venom
I am its poet a candle
lit in the darkness of
a window somewhere
in time.

©️ 2022 By Amanda Shelton

Her kiss was full of venom
Her teeth were made out of
  broken pieces of glass
Her tongue was a slithering snake
  that crawled down your throat
  and squeezed all the blood out
  of your heart and swallowed
  your soul whole
She couldn't help but stab you in
  the back, her finger nails were all little
  daggers... she couldn't hold or touch
  anyone without cutting to the bone
She was beautiful though, and even more
  beautiful to anyone who looked at her
  with heartache in their eyes
And she could smell heartache,
  heartache and loneliness and all
  the foul smells of a broken soul.
She was helplessly attracted to the scent,
  she couldn't control herself around the
  aroma of misery
You could never tell by looking at her, but
  she was miserable too.
She was as every bit as broken as she
  was beautiful
She made a deal with the devil the first time
  her heart was broken, she just didn't want
  to feel the pain she told him
So he shook her hand and numbed her wounds
  but he never took the pain away
Her heart is still broken but she doesn't know
Because she can't feel what the devil
  made numb

I. To sleep...

As if I needed affirmation
of the weekend from a mouse

As if I needed mutually
indecipherable dialogue

As if I need a hip social setting
when Insomnia gets off on my inside

As if I need a drink for the prodding
of my eyes or charisma for the charming of hers

As if we need a hotel or a bed
for that matter in Dormiveglia

II.* ...perchance to dream.*

Darling Insomnia
how you dazzle in your quilted
queendom of suction

Darling Insomnia
**** out the vanilla gumming
up my timid lungs like sugared venom

Darling Insomnia
I promise I won't burden you with moans of
fantasy-inflicted headaches

Darling Insomnia
let your sirrah latch his inhalation
onto your majestic ***** like an asp

Darling Insomnia
does subordination in my windpipe
do right by your despotic grasp?

I hope you choke on my heart
as you devour it before me
relish every part
knowing the pain it brings

I will smile as you do
while your gaze turns to disgust
I even gave fair warning
that my love was poisonous

Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. Her bio appears after her poems, and it is a fascinating bio...



Temple Hymn 15

to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Most ancient and terrible shrine,
set deep in the mountain
like a mother's womb ...

Dark shrine,
like a mother's wounded breast,
blood-red and terrifying ...

Though approaching through a safe-seeming field,
our hair raises as we near you!

Gishbanda,
like a neck-stock,
like a fish net,
like a foot-shackled prisoner's manacles ...
your ramparts are massive,
like a trap!

But once we’re inside,
as the sun rises,
you yield widespread abundance!

Your prince
is the pure-handed priest of Inanna, heaven's holy one,
Lord Ningishzida!

Oh, see how his thick, lustrous hair
cascades down his back!

Oh Gishbanda,
he has built this beautiful temple to house your radiance!
He has placed his throne upon your dais!



Temple Hymn 7: an Excerpt
to the Kesh Temple of Ninhursag
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, high-situated Kesh,
form-shifting summit,
inspiring fear like a venomous viper!

O, Lady of the Mountains,
Ninhursag’s house was constructed on a terrifying site!

O, Kesh, like holy Aratta: your womb dark and deep,
your walls high-towering and imposing!

O, great lion of the wildlands stalking the high plains!...



Temple Hymn 17: an Excerpt
to the Badtibira Temple of Dumuzi
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of jeweled lapis illuminating the radiant bed
in the peace-inducing palace of our Lady of the Steppe!



Temple Hymn 22: an Excerpt
to the Sirara Temple of Nanshe
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house, you wild cow!
Made to conjure signs of the Divine!
You arise, beautiful to behold,
bedecked for your Mistress!



Temple Hymn 26: an Excerpt
to the Zabalam Temple of Inanna
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O house illuminated by beams of bright light,
dressed in shimmering stone jewels,
awakening the world to awe!



Temple Hymn 42: an Excerpt
to the Eresh Temple of Nisaba
by Enheduanna
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

O, house of brilliant stars
bright with lapis stones,
you illuminate all lands!

...

The person who put this tablet together
is Enheduanna.
My king: something never created before,
did she not give birth to it?



Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

******* of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.

Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.

You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,
why you carry on so?



The Exaltation of Inanna: Opening Lines and Excerpts
by Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon I of Akkad and the high priestess of the Goddess Inanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lady of all divine powers!
Lady of the resplendent light!
Righteous Lady adorned in heavenly radiance!

Beloved Lady of An and Uraš!
Hierodule of An, sun-adorned and bejeweled!
Heaven’s Mistress with the holy diadem,
Who loves the beautiful headdress befitting the office of her own high priestess!

Powerful Mistress, seizer of the seven divine powers!
My Heavenly Lady, guardian of the seven divine powers!
You have seized the seven divine powers!
You hold the divine powers in your hand!
You have gathered together the seven divine powers!
You have clasped the divine powers to your breast!

You have flooded the valleys with venom, like a viper;
all vegetation vanishes when you thunder like Iškur!
You have caused the mountains to flood the valleys!
When you roar like that, nothing on earth can withstand you!

Like a flood descending on floodplains, O Powerful One, you will teach foreigners to fear Inanna!

You have given wings to the storm, O Beloved of Enlil!
The storms do your bidding, blasting the unbelievers!

Foreign cities cower at the chaos You cause!
Entire countries cower in dread of Your deadly South Wind!
Men cower before you in their anguished implications,
raising their pitiful outcries,
weeping and wailing, beseeching Your benevolence with many wild lamentations!

But in the van of battle, everything falls before You, O Mighty Queen!

My Queen,
You are all-conquering, all-devouring!
You continue Your attacks like relentless storms!
You howl louder than the howling storms!
You thunder louder than Iškur!
You moan louder than the mournful winds!
Your feet never tire from trampling Your enemies!
You produce much wailing on the lyres of lamentations!

My Queen,
all the Anunna, the mightiest Gods,
fled before Your approach like fluttering bats!
They could not stand in Your awesome Presence
nor behold Your awesome Visage!

Who can soothe Your infuriated heart?
Your baleful heart is beyond being soothed!

Uncontrollable Wild Cow, elder daughter of Sin,
O Majestic Queen, greater than An,
who has ever paid You enough homage?

O Life-Giving Goddess, possessor of all powers,
Inanna the Exalted!

Merciful, Live-Giving Mother!
Inanna, the Radiant of Heart!
I have exalted You in accordance with Your power!
I have bowed before You in my holy garb,
I the En, I Enheduanna!

Carrying my masab-basket, I once entered and uttered my joyous chants ...

But now I no longer dwell in Your sanctuary.
The sun rose and scorched me.
Night fell and the South Wind overwhelmed me.
My laughter was stilled and my honey-sweet voice grew strident.
My joy became dust.

O Sin, King of Heaven, how bitter my fate!

To An, I declared: An will deliver me!
I declared it to An: He will deliver me!

But now the kingship of heaven has been seized by Inanna,
at Whose feet the floodplains lie.

Inanna the Exalted,
who has made me tremble together with all Ur!

Stay Her anger, or let Her heart be soothed by my supplications!
I, Enheduanna will offer my supplications to Inanna,
my tears flowing like sweet intoxicants!
Yes, I will proffer my tears and my prayers to the Holy Inanna,
I will greet Her in peace ...

O My Queen, I have exalted You,
Who alone are worthy to be exalted!
O My Queen, Beloved of An,
I have laid out Your daises,
set fire to the coals,
conducted the rites,
prepared Your nuptial chamber.
Now may Your heart embrace me!

These are my innovations,
O Mighty Queen, that I made for You!
What I composed for You by the dark of night,
The cantor will chant by day.

Now Inanna’s heart has been restored,
and the day became favorable to Her.
Clothed in beauty, radiant with joy,
she carried herself like the elegant moonlight.

Now to the Noble Hierodule,
to the Wrecker of foreign lands
presented by An with the seven divine powers,
and to my Queen garbed in the radiance of heaven ...

O Inanna, praise!



Enheduanna, the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today. She appears to be the first named poet in human history and the first known author of prayers and hymns. Enheduanna, who lived circa 2285-2250 BCE, is also one of the first women we know by name. She was the entu (high priestess) of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar/Astarte/Aphrodite) and the moon god Nanna (Sin) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur. Enheduanna's composition Nin-me-šara ("The Exaltation of Inanna") details her expulsion from Ur, located in southern Iraq, along with her prayerful request to the goddess for reinstatement. Enheduanna also composed 42 liturgical hymns addressed to temples across Sumer and Akkad. And she was the first editor of a poetry anthology, hymnal or songbook. Now known as the Sumerian Temple Hymns, this was the first collection of its kind; indeed, Enheduanna so claimed at the end of the final hymn: "My king, something has been created that no one had created before." And poems and songs are still being assembled today via the model she established over 4,000 years ago! Enheduanna may also have been the first feminist, as she made Inanna the supreme deity. Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, translation, Akkad, Sumer, Nanna, Inanna, Ur, Sumerian temple hymns, Gishbanda, Ningishzida



The Love Song Of Shu-Sin
(the earth's oldest love poem, Sumerian, circa 2,000 BC)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling of my heart, my belovéd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey.
Darling of my heart, my belovéd,
your enticements are sweet, far sweeter than honey.

You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!
You have captivated me; I stand trembling before you.
Darling, lead me swiftly into the bedroom!

Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you!
My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!
In the bedchamber, dripping love's honey,
let us enjoy life's sweetest thing.
Sweetheart, let me do the sweetest things to you!
My precocious caress is far sweeter than honey!

Bridegroom, you will have your pleasure with me!
Speak to my mother and she will reward you;
speak to my father and he will award you gifts.
I know how to give your body pleasure—
then sleep, my darling, till the sun rises.

To prove that you love me,
give me your caresses,
my Lord God, my guardian Angel and protector,
my Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil's heart,
give me your caresses!
My place like sticky honey, touch it with your hand!
Place your hand over it like a honey-*** lid!
Cup your hand over it like a honey cup!

This is a balbale-song of Inanna.

This may be earth's oldest love poem. It may have been written around 2000 BC, long before the Bible's "Song of Solomon, " which had been considered to be the oldest extant love poem by some experts. The poem was discovered when the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard began excavations at Kalhu in 1845, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam. Layard's account of the excavations, published in 1849 CE, was titled Nineveh and its Remains. Due to Nineveh's fame (from the Bible) , the book became a best seller. But it turned out that the excavated site was not Nineveh, after all, as Layard later discovered when he excavated the real Nineveh.

As a surrogate for Inanna, the bride's mother would be either Ninlil or possibly Ningal, both goddesses.

As a surrogate for Inanna, the bride's father would be either Enlil or possibly Suen, both gods.

Shu-Sin was a Mesopotamian king who ruled over the land of Sumer close to four thousand years ago. The poem seems to be part of a rite, probably performed each year, known as the "sacred marriage" or "divine marriage, " in which the king would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, mate with her, and so ensure fertility and prosperity for the coming year. The king would accomplish this amazing feat by marrying and/or having *** with a priestess or votary of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and war. Her Akkadian name was Istar/Ishtar, and she was also known as Astarte. Whichever her name, she was the most prominent Mesopotamian female goddess. Inanna's primary temple was the Eanna, located in Uruk. But there were many other temples dedicated to her worship. The high priestess would choose a young man who represented the shepherd Dumuzid, the consort of Inanna, in a hieros gamos or sacred marriage, celebrated during the annual Akitu (New Year)ceremony, at the spring Equinox. The name Inanna derives from the Sumerian words for "Lady of Heaven." She was associated with the lion-a symbol of power-and was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her symbol was an eight-pointed star or a rosette. Like other female love and fertility goddesses, she was associated with the planet Venus. The Enlil mentioned was Inanna's father, the Sumerian storm god, who controlled the wind and rain. (According to some god/goddess genealogies, Enlil was her grandfather.)In an often-parched land, the rain god would be ultra-important, and it appears that one of the objects of the "divine marriage" was to please Enlil and encourage him to send rain rather than destructive storms! Enlil was similar to the Bible's Jehovah, in that he was the supreme deity, and sometimes sent rain and plenty, but at other times sent war and destruction. Certain passages of the Bible appear to have been "borrowed" by the ancient Hebrews from much older Sumerian texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Such accounts include the creation myth, the Garden of Eden myth, and the myth of the Great Flood and a mankind-saving ark. However, the Hebrew scribes modified the accounts to suit their theology, so in the Bible there is only one "god" who controls everything, and thus behaves like an angel at times and like a demon at others. And that is understandable if one posits that one god controls the weather, since earth's weather is unpredictable and at times seems like a blessing and at other times like a curse.

Keywords/Tags: Enheduanna, Poetess, Sumer, Sumerian, Akkad, Akkadian, Saragon, Ur, High Priestess, Hymn, Hymns, Hymnist, Psalm, Psalms, Psalmist, Prayer, Prayers, Lament, Lamentations, Goddess, Nanna, Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Sauska, Ornament of Heaven, mrbtr, mrbtran, mrbhymn

i don't want to sleep
because i don't want to wake up
and be the same person

i feel ugly, repulsive, disgusting
your words were like venom
and i spit them right back

this hatred is controlling me
and i don't want it to,
i don't want to be like this

i fear that things
will never be okay with us,
i fear that i really am the problem

Where the lines blur, and pages end
where I cannot see a future anymore
for us
where the light and darkness come
and pass as time, here it is only grey
inside

There used to be a window where
a sparrow hid at light-crack by the sill
and sang
shrilly in the morning, he would sing
calling in the light of God, he’d sing
for us

The silence has grown thick, shaved ragged
potential, daydreams posed as promises
sharp was the resonation of our love
sharp are vile weapons and words drawn
between us now

Betrayal finds its way upon my tongue
I’d spit it out before it turns to venom
I’d have to say you’re poison to me now
left with nothing but constriction and a
failing heart

Were you my elixir, but a count of days before?
How sweet the lily of the valley’s scent
how pure is her white compilation of
forever restfulness, the peaceful trickery
and death

I’d say it’s time to lay this love to rest
Place flowers at the feet of mounds of earth
seal the wound of expecting hearts, we were
bleeding fluid prayers upon the stones
Attempting to bring the dead
Back to life

Drink the wild air
with me. ****** me
with your devil's eyes.
     Fill my veins with your
     lovely venom tonight
     and make me your slave.
I won't even mind if you
sink in your **** fangs
and drink out of the fountain
     of pain flowing in my
     every vein. All I know
     is that I crave you from
     the skin to the bone* ~

Leashed by loves lynch till I’m dropped by my lack of respect for the beauty’s presence
Thank god she wasn’t curbside taking tips with perked lips for a stranger’s ****** fix,
But I needed to feel the evidence that the pieces fit,
That’s why this is about me and a barstool princess

Getting close enough to taste the moans of *****’s venom
Get close enough so I can know my needs can be fulfilled

Like a lunar eclipse this species keeps grinding its teeth when teased
Time and time again we’ve been taunted by,
The mistress our ancestors once described as the serpent of Eve,  
When procreation was preached as an STD

Yet we’ve been perpetually pivoting,
To defy the chastity of a species

Grandfathered misconceptions relating to why you and I exist  
As wickedness warms in the covers of the lustfully parallel
So let’s drown in this bliss,

From head to toe, eye caught, grazes at the nose,
From the bar stool to a lonely man’s home,
From one dollar tips for two *** and cokes
To the bedroom of this writing,
The nights like this, that remind me I am alone

But this isn’t about me loathing the fact that I won’t hear her whispering for more body warmth,
Nor am I looking for you to pity me because I’ll be sleeping solo
Enough is enough since we are humans seeking ****** catacombs

I’ll try to be an adult about how the human molds but it started me at childhood,
When those that conceptualized love gave me this world,
And now I no longer have to listen to what I’ve been told

This is about how to perceive something we can never truly control,
Lucky enough to avoid a contraceptive despite unable to remember the doctor’s pull,
Its night’s like this I get to question,
When will my sheets meet the perfect fit?
When will this be more than just a humanizing fix?

Words you promised never to speak
Drip from your toxic lips
Venom to freeze my veins
An ice queen I've become
Cold like your heart

Sad to say
Hope wasn't enough,
there was a thousand words battling in her mind
but her tongue remained numb
Deep into the late night hours
She hugs her pillows
and paint them wet
Realizing her existence in this world is inane and all her ways are complexed
Yet,
She was forged this way
An unbalanced scale of life
She was forced to stay
Agony of her loneliness brought penetrating pain
She cried even through the sunshine
Lived depressed during the rain
Whips from life's battles instilled on her frame
Perfectly tattooed on her skin
Innocence robbed from her before the age of ten
Those hands exploring her body never got approved
Scars and words of abuse was all she was accustomed to
From minds of the ones she loved
Grew extreme curious
Too see what lies inside of a woman for deliverance
Nights she cried tears that refuse to come
Glands denying the tears and sufferings that attempted to form
Rejected
The torture and sorrow in the glass of her reflection
Taught her venom which she perpetually spat at the girl in the mirror
Her thoughts was her MRSA, constantly eating her away
Rug burns implanted on her knees from all the nights that she prayed
Her life felt more painful than being engulfed into flames
Disgust boiled in the bottom of her stomach, just from hearing her name
No one* understood her pain
No one even knew
Of all the dirt and infidelity her poor soul was drug through
Knives met her hands
Many nights she felt tempted but was too weak to stand
She'd rather fall
Full possession of her extremities but,
She rather crawl
into a deep dark cave
Than to reside in this World and become its slave
She was just a little girl
Dwelling in purity
A lost wandering soul
No form of security
For those who are believers and have even only a mustard seed of faith
Please
Pretty please
Remember her in your hearts
When you go to God and pray



                             Copy Right 2013
                                    ©Patty Ann

day 1 (uno) that we talked you tried to whisper the clothes off my body and told me you wanted to see the folds of your fingers inside of me (as if it was nothing) and while I rejected he formulated and cracked a new plan — to tell me thats all he wanted to hear, and demanded self respect while pushing for lack of self respect.
His eyes couldn’t lie but when I tried to locate them, he carried me away in his personal blue seas (this is a cliche) and made me taste the waters (I got addicted as a result) and I guess that even my logic obsessed self couldn’t make out what was right and wrong anymore, so I drowned myself and floated in his rivers

Proceed to day 34 (teintra y cuatro) where you admitted under a drunken spell that you loved me all along and wanted a future. Phase 1: Terrified. Phase 2: Relief. Relieved that my love was not only mine, but ours. Relieved that I could drink from those waters forever. But terrified, so, so terrified of the mess I made from the man who only wanted to have my naked body and infect it. I had only shown a glimpse of my skin around my lower back, and you could only demand more while judging my self respect (or lack thereof). My logical self had decided that this behavior was him at his finest he was just setting me up and wanted to invade my skin. My loving self was convinced that he was acting out on his newly found addiction. Since I had just fed him the same venom he poisoned my body with.

In the end, it was all just a test of my self respect.
Or lack thereof.

Accept my pity, ye tormented souls unable to raise and dazzle
all I did was earn my keep and walked in sunshine from the soul
but
When men are full of envy they disparage everything,
whether it be good or bad.

Now I know some minds never grow and thrive only in envy
For Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit;
like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.

These wretched starved toxic souls, only see a man with plenty
The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.
I did not countenance that faces are pale because they lacked
just thought that was the Creator's work on days when brown
and yellow, swarty, ivory and tan paints ran out

I knew a lot hated this insipid opaque pale colouring, but at least
they have beautiful hair and lucky ones have pearly white teeth
but unbeknown to me, real envy resides in them and blinds them and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

Oh dearie me, our pale brothers and sisters die inside their souls
And age so quickly, radiant in bloom one day, grey and wrinkled
in the morrow like a wilted rose devoid of water and light
Their pain and envy, their self-loathing, their insecurities ravages
Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks, dear friends.

For you see, God's truth judges created things out of love,
and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape,
it would be the shape of a boomerang.

I fear not and now understand why you envy and hate me
I can appreciate the bile and venom for Fools may our scorn,
not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.





When people envy someone else, they want what that person possesses. As time passes, they develop hostile feelings towards that person, and eventually begin to hate that person because of their possessions and the unrequited desire to obtain those possessions.

once again,
curved fists and clenched eyebrows and your words are venom in my mouth
MY LIPS ARE BLEEDING, BROKEN THAT I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP
little baby, little boy curled up in your accusations
he reaches a single finger, gnarled and unsure
your violence and insults and broken hands are turning him from boy to
m o n s t e r.

"you're the only one who understands me"
watch as my heart crumbles and falls into the ocean  in every single
way i've ever wanted to save you

i'm sorry
the telescope lens is still cloudy
i have to cut my knees and crawl back through the ******* dungeon
find my way through the bramble and glass and barbed wire
I'M TIRED OF GOING BACK GOING BACK GOING BACK
i want the safety
of the muted nest and momma's lemon tree
i promise
i won't eat all the broccoli
if you'll let me come home.

Caught the vampire's failing smile,
cracked by teeth & venom,
wind-walking among the trees,
talking to the vipers
& the rats & the bats & the
men of the old bonetown.

Mr Mann had the right idea,
burn your books & get the hell outta Dodge.
Do not pass go & do not stop,
do NOT make out in the back of a beat-up old auto
parked next to the hypermarket on Dawn & Vine.

Mr Mann up front,
peering through the cracks in the windscreen,
the cracks in reality.
He can see the vampire's slow smile,
the shadows passing across the face of the TV screen,
& hear the old ghost voices,
the old radio voices, the 1949 voices.

Blood on leather,
black roots rising,
saliva on after-effects & after-echoes,
the apocalypse riders chasing the moon up the old dark valley,
the moon chasing the apocalypse riders right back
down the old dark valley to whatever hell they came from.

The vampires! The vampires!
Children beat hasty retreats,
hide under the boxes back of the laundromat,
not daring to peek
as black boots crunch gravel.

Mr Mann has the right surmise,
get outta the books & into guns,
get into heavy metal & iron drag,
get into lead & something magickal,
long forgotten lore & hoodoo voodoo
from years & years ago.

The vampire's smile turns awful yellow,
fades as the stars wheel & that tired old sun begins its ascent,
fades as the dawn breaks over the desert winds & cacti
& the lovers wake in their motel room in the back of beyond
& fumble for their stakes & knives & garlic *****.

Easy now for Mr Mann in the sun-kissed big blue.
Hunt it down in the tumbledowns & old desert towns.
Kick off the jams, break open the locks.
Hose it down with oil & strike a match.
Burn the reality right off that face
& that face right off reality

Splat on the sand. Grue on the sand. Black on the sand.
Mr Mann walking back to the autombile, back to happiness,
radio playing a little something from 92,
or was it 93, he really can't remember now.

Your stare is a diamond-cutter
Your hair smells better than
Hair that smells good.
Namely, I like you better than
People with hair that smells good.

And I wonder at your personhood
For you are made of *** and *****
Your mouth is filled with gold and snakes
And trickles rapturous winding rivers
of *** and venom.

Your sharp teeth have purpose
And your softness only seems
To heighten their resolve.
When you open up to me
I better than dissolve.
I become aware for the first time
in a week.

A man at my local zoo
Once showed me how snake venom
Effected human blood.
While dripping a drop of the acrid mess with one hand,
He held a small container of life in the other
And with a drop and a swirl of his wrist,
The blood was coagulated
And obviously unable to flow.
In that moment I knew
That love
Was the venom
And I
Was the blood,
Slowly congealing and
Falling at my only purpose:
Staying alive.

A Tribute

A king takes supper on a creaking deathbed. Featureless, winged creatures zoom by the dark condensed windows. Micro parasites build adobe headquarters in his soft tissue. Reaching for a plate,    he groans the terabyting howl that’s prescribed with chemotherapy. Qwerty and light from the drugs, he stares at the apple on his tray. Lost in its curves, he finds himself trapped in a safari of memories. A dream devolves upon his downtrodden mind….

The canopy is populated with twittering, angry birds. Pools of social blood attract flies to the googolplex degree. He stumbles through the dell, suspicious forest while a tremulous, fiery fox stalks behind his echoing footfalls. Pixar apes swing from trees chased by grisly, disney men with guns and trucks. A large eye tunes the darkness and blinks red upon an aging mountain lion in shadow’s brush.



The sony rays belight foliage in auspicious, plaid-orange hues. This amazon of experience plugs the wanderer into a hard drive of intelligence – a gateway to an encyclopedia of wikis and browsers, expanse enough for any backdrop rooftop audience to be faux-enthralled and eager. There are grumblings in the distance of another engine tromping the scope in search of something new and useless. A rumorous bat upsets the plagiarizing tide of the Atlantic Pea Sea. A snake slinks out of the blossoms clinging to the vines among a macintosh tree and bites the salty flier of the washboard night; cyber venom invades his veins.

The average, homeless, bounding, warrior awakens to find a cold supper on his lap and another syringe in his arm. His remaining gums support his teeth as they bite into the apple. He swallows, sighs, and rests his balding, crescent, once-handsome head on the white pillow.  The green fruit tumbles gently out of bed and mutely rolls to the floor.
With that, Steve Jobs is dead.

When I look at myself, I am not beautiful.
My feet are twisted and gnarled like the wood of an old tree.
My limbs are gangly and thin.
My eyes are too large,
My hair is too straight and too dark,
And my ******* are too small.
In the mirror each day, I cannot tell myself I am a radiant woman.
But when the music starts, I shine.

The notes hit me like rays of the setting sun, and every hue of grace and passion is splayed across
The folds of my dress,
The arch of my back,
The curve of my ankle,
The stretch of my throat.
Each harmony, each crest and fall of sound and feeling
Is a wave that breaks over me,
And I am lost.
I drown in emotion, in the distinct expression of self that only movement can allow,
And in that moment, I forget beauty.

I forget love and hatred and pain and joy, and as I forget I am freed.
I forget because they no longer belong to me.
I have given them to the melody,
To the dance which draws them out of me like venom-
The next move, fraught with the tension of 'goodbye forever',
The next turn, spun by the unraveling of my heart,
The next leap, lent weightless wings by the joy of a first kiss,
The next slow reach carved from the desperation of 'it's all my fault'.
As they leave me, they become me, crashing down on the audience I've also forgotten, burning the bright after-image of my soul into the shadows of theirs.

I have never seen myself beautiful.
I have never looked. I have forgotten to look.
For when the music hits me, it turns me in on myself, and I can see nothing but my own spirit- a shower white hot of sparks-
And the cascade of the notes in folds of velvet against my mind.

I have never seen beautiful, but I have felt it.
It feels like a smooth silk shoe and blisters on my feet,
It feels like the trickle of sweat along my brow and the stab of muscle cramps in my legs, and the scrape of hairpins and sequins.
It feels like breathlessness when the curtains open.
It feels like the worn wooden stage upon which my heart may bleed all it wants.
For it does, it gushes, and it is the ugliness of passion.
It is terrifying, it is raw, it is light-starved and beaten, it is all I have.
And when I get up on a stage, people call it beauty.

fangs dripping
poison—dripping with
death.
yellow eyes slither stalking,
so hypnotic in their convincing;
in pursuit, our every step
pressured into flight’s direction.

a nightmare’s seed
planted beneath pillow,
following into dream.
the serpent’s coil riding
headrest’s rooting *******—
even slumber thought safety
infected.

a viper of self-consciousness, the
familiar of societal impositions
fuelling reflection’s hostility;
its venom—an injection of insecurity.
fangs dripping poison—
fangs dripping with
dishonesty.

that perfectly shaped bone,
i can see it right through
your tender and thin
skin,
it is visible when you
breathe and swallow
my taste,
my venom.

it's true
the revolution will not be televised
but the fascist revival premiered
on all the major networks' corporate channels
in 1080p HD at prime-time hours

with perfect clarity
viewers could see
an oompa loompa
with an orange toupee
a xenophobe
spewing violence and vitriol
peddling snake oil while spitting venom
stirring a bubbling cauldron
spilling over in fear-mongering demagoguery
served like crack candy to the Republican elite
reveling in their privilege
cheering white supremacy

a tyrant
tirading behind a polished wooden podium
flanked by hues of red white blue and gilded gold
like some comic strip super-villain
but this obtuse excuse for human refuse
is not some Saturday morning cartoon
defeated by the heroes after 30 minutes
of selfless feats and epic deeds
a death dirge plays on repeat in the background

you can't always get what you want

meanwhile
we're holding silent vigils back home
carving the sigil of Orlando's skyline into our skin
while a snake slithers into a City Beautiful
bedecked in her $3k pressed pant-suit
leering wolfishly at a local club for LGBTQ+ youth
the downtown heartbeat
of outcasts and misfits
a Pulse
that bigotry and self-hatred couldn't *****

but tragedies are converted to cheap currencies
in the clawed hands of dynastic oligarchs
sporting the support of billionaires and super-PACs
she knows the Establishment has got her back
she'll shed crocodile tears
just in time for the photo-ops

violence begets violence begets violence
humanity's universal language
a tongue shared by despots and presidents
in the wake of stolen sanctuaries
she'll justify razing Syrian children
beneath a barrage of hellfire missiles
and predator drones targeting cell-phone signals
under the pretense of bringing the terrorists
to some sycophantic mirage of justice

we're manufacturing new soldiers
for the Caliphate to brainwash with promises
of dead gods and seventy-two virgins
machine-fed by automatic weapons
to the toothy jaws
that bottomless maw
of endless ******* war
which always vaunts
profit over people

the conceptual construct of gender binarism
becomes an imperceptible selling point
in the incomprehensible and reprehensible rhetoric
issuing from either side of the political aisle
but what will it matter
either way
an egoistic megalomaniac
has his or her finger poised over the trigger
a neoliberal warmonger and hypocritical fraud
or a reality TV star who lauds the KKK on Twitter

our only hope is found in the streets
unchained by compassion's transformative capacity
freed to utilize our minds
humanity's indomitable faculty
nurturing a community that seizes life
in anthems of liberty equality and solidarity
anarchic manifestoes penned in lines
of red and black ink

progressives will insist otherwise
they'll declare emphatically that our only choice
lies in selecting the lesser of two evils
to lead us to the brink of oblivion
but Orwell wrote the future of humanity
looked like a boot crushing our heads
that either way we'd all be dead
and the harsh reality is that the soot-stained sole
curb-stomping this country
fits both the left and right foot

I do not like this scene
or this chapter in my book
My fingers have failed me
as my thoughts evade me
I can’t write this for you
though you’ve done so much
You’ve written me into existence
and I want to edit myself out
It’s easier to put words
on a page that you can rip out
than to speak them to you
and watch the venom bleed
through the cracks of your tired skin
I’m so hurtful, like the edges
of dry, fresh cut paper—
sharp enough to cut,
too dull to scar—
only ever thumbed through
never perused—yearning to
be read and understood
and remembered

It lays amongst an earthy mound
sweet venom rests on top
Strange figures pass without a glance
Until those old days stop

With not a whip it rests and hums
Lets out one desperate sigh
But petals hide it's secret dream
To make an easier fall and die

To be killed for a small misdeed of another
Must be an awful way to live  
But to you, a precious little flower
Is all that you can give

Sands traverse oceans to envelop me
within the coercion of a dream of Egypt
as I search the turquoise of the medallion in my hands
to match the gray-blue of his eyes.

Too long have I willed for him
to sail the Atlantic,
stride through the door,
and sweep me from haunting this view of London.
But for now I am left
to my own image and a pane,
so I muster the meat of my palm
within this sleeve of lace
to brush it across the glass for a clearer look,
yet my efforts have revealed
no more than engorged eyelids reflected…
manacles of me.

Behest of self,
maniacal I am slated
to perform involuntary tedium,
hopeful to unlock deeper meaning
within each hieroglyph,
once so purposefully etched in a semblance of bronze.

I long to surrender
to the warmth of the taste of iron
caught in his sights over a tomb blanketed in gold.

I will come for you, Daughter of Heaven and Earth.

Spontaneous peristalsis of phrase
connects with the drop
gurgling through the candid quiet
and I wonder
if the image that now reflects would indulge him,
or if he might ****** the lock of dark hair
that he cropped from my neck with the skill of an assassin
when our paths first crossed in Cairo.

Time has softened the image I hold of him;
his eyes are satin,
burning like a flag still waving
as his army advances over our forbidden dig.

There is something
sensation-like in downfall…
copious saline embodies the fractal curve.

I found no scrolls of the Book of the Dead.

Here in my olive skin I rot like a peach
that’s been left in a satchel
forgotten to dust of the ages
disturbed by picks and axes
that strike with the determination of discovery.
A peach, never to be savored;
never to nourish or to pleasure,
or be trampled by insects
and carried off in pieces
to the hollow of the ant queen.

My eyelids are hard to turn like wet pages
forced to envision a river that is not the Nile
where I am held within the binds of propriety,
corsetted, bustled, and locked out of Egypt
dammed from the salvation
of even an intermittent Dutchman’s finger
by dunes and shores and footfalls
to find words that stream in liquid resonance
where firm succumbs to self and
I can feel passion writhing through my intangibles.

Thusly, clouds form over a city that blackens and distorts
the way a river's reflection of my face
would ripple from the plunging body of a dove,
belly-up, encased in wings,
and two thousand miles from him.

Arousal is a moccasin seethed in spasms
of peristalsis and musculature
toward the beckoning pulse of breast.

Any hope for contact collapses into flesh,
venom sheathes each corpuscle,
and a woken neck flails in judgment
before the truth in his eyes
under the shadow of the Great Pyramid
where Ramses II lies supine
across the Turin Papyrus.

I imagine the other side of me
and where she might reflect when
all that there is in such a study
contributes to my wanting
to wreak my bellied freedom
beneath crevices that sink as crevices do
in downward angled layers
to withstand the ages.

Dark hair gleams in contrast,
more for strip of scalp
than the trickle of red down my back.

Breached like sugar that candid—
starburst wings of Monarchs dripping ancient like sunsets
over magenta and milky mauve in the reeds—
my ankles revealed and inverted to the sky they glean, yet...

his arrival is delayed
when the pistol ***** three times.
The still of my breast compounds
with the steady union of the dark, and
somewhere denial flows with the sands.

So cycles change, like a fable for Eternal.

“Daughter of Heaven and Earth,” written by Dionne Charlet, appears in print in Cairo by Gaslight, the second anthology in the By Gaslight Series from New Orleans small press Black Tome Books.  Books in the series include New Orleans by Gaslight (ISBN 9780615801186) and Cairo by Gaslight (ISBN 9781516961528).  Both collections feature poetry by Charlet, under the pseudonym Dionne Cherie. Look for the upcoming anthology Paris by Gaslight, which will feature a poem of the same title by Dionne.

1
Her thick  dark eyebrows did cast a spell first,
they are stuck there like vampire bats,
they both symbolize  a sinister plot, kept secret,
with a 'come hither' prompt, none can resist.

She attracted artists in hordes, crazy moths,
never did they look above her face,the serpents,
lay tangled and acted as if it's smooth coiffure.
Wicked lust,aroused by bitter past,
                                    made her move with keen  intent
an invisible net she carried behind her back.
She attacked at opportune moments, pretending
she is a lover, with insatiable lust in boil.
2
All crafted lies, simultaneously,she artfully solicited,
       colored moths, in her slow fire, they burned, one by one,
but one remained stuck there for life, fearing rejection every moment.
A crop of heads she reaped , wherever she went,
a kite was ever ready to fly her victim-hood colors higher and higher,
that made admirers **** in their breath and stoop,
before her to her advantage, she had no dearth for volunteers any time.
Burning words made her chants fly like fire works,
her collection of heads turned stones by admiring her
increased, as a huntress she was an ace
stuffed in her cubbyhole of a heart, heads of stone languished.
3
Medusa,you don't have sisters,
I count it the luck of those  unborn
how beautiful, you once were I still remember,
though no sun visited the north you spent your childhood.
Run, run my feared beauty, to the sun, before your heart
get charred by the heat of hatred, you bear in the  Gothic interiors.

4
I hate Perseus, don't you fear your Nemesis?
Every Athena you wrongly think your foe  and fight,
all your hair turned serpents, still I thought, love would work,
without  coming upfront, I kept my flame burning,
but all in vein, you could never love anyone, legitimately or otherwise.
Your blood, all of it, has turned venom, you spit it, slowly
its beauty amazes, even  the victims on the line next...