ALL RESPONSES |
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I did not ask for this.
We were once innocent children,
when nakedness was harmless.
It is not our choice.
One day, we may wake up,
and no longer have each other.
No one else knows.
There is no one we can tell,
for fear it would hurt them.
You were so gracious.
Was it easy to forget,
as if it never happened?
It's time now for this to end.
So let's say goodbye, forever,
again. |
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A Cinderella wind blows through the woods.
A night burned to soot. The picnic, in shreds.
An overcooked woman pulls her hair. Birch
trees shriek their silent screams. And the man?
He holds his head together with ashen hands.
One wants to help, step in, give all the wrong
advice, a stream of American can-do’s.
Button up. Buck up. Use your brain. Take what
you like and leave the rest. Offering a kind cup
of tea might be more sane. Quick, it’s getting cold.
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His eyes go cloudy
You know that motion
when a woman is walking,
reaches casually
Here, his own hands rise
catches her hair
in both hands,
twists it up…
All one movement
so lovely…
Hands and jaw drop,
and he is with her on the street,
newly anointed
benediction, supplication,
the white undersides of her uplifted arms
Oh, what I could do
with a man like that.
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Before Leaving
He
stayed with her
longer this time,
his mind and body.
Landscape alluvial
In the new country
between them.
She remembers
his voice, a blue haze.
Desire
curls in her. It sings
with no instrument,
the voice out of focus
but still fresh
like the eroding cliff
grieving for the taste
of him, for the darkness
he pushed through her.
Betrayed by age
but alive in the land they lost,
passion still in her,
a great wind where gulls curl
and lapse then return
to the dreaming shore.
She lives on the tremors
of their time together.
Goodby
she says as he turns from her.
It comes out hoarse
a squawk of surprise
or dismay
at the fault line between them.
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Night sparks and flies away ashes.
Morning approaches bone cold
in waning firelight.
Agnes bends over the grate,
starts her lady’s flame rushing.
She’ll have to mind this fire for a while
before able to rest again.
On silk sheets, her mistress dreams,
snoring out open air
her insensible demands.
At the windowsill, shy light
hesitates, then slips in stealthy,
flushing out the waiting shadows
softening Agnes’ look. Her age
now apparent in geometry
drawn around mouth and eyes.
Agnes has seen too much of time
awake most of the night.
But in a moment, Agnes will drift
off in chair next to the fire,
letting the world buy her
safe passage into dreams.
On the windowpane,
frozen rain splats ice,
fogging the glass
to see in, but not out.
Delicate designs form,
swirling circles all over
in no particular pattern
with no beginning or end.
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(i)
If this woman be avian,
up on thin legs, fanning
her tail feathers
like the main of a sail,
searching for wind
her wings begging,
her tongue a sharp
thorn, she be a ghost
ship by morning,
deathly still
my own tongue a twig
in my throat, she
a seeker of nest
(ii)
If this woman be rain,
she would first wash
my upturned face,
and finally with fluid
fingers, she would,
in tears, caress my pain
If this woman be rain,
she would fall into my life
as small drops, perhaps pool
as my wife & fill my years
with liquid dreams
(iii)
If this woman be ashes,
she would smolder gray
smoke in the morning
having shed earrings, hair
strands, undergarments
in her personal pyre,
her body an evening
sacrifice, leaving me
with a turned head,
sobbing in ecstasy
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On the edge of wooded peril
old Gustav,
widowed these many years
and not since awake to the world,
finds his clouded gaze straying
resting on the rising bosom
of his motherless child.
As if for the first time
the old man sees a
stranger dancing
where once his little Freya played.
Entranced by the maiden’s
unguarded allure
he is drawn,
failing in his wishfulness
to recognize her
as his own.
But she, knowing no
such breach of conscience
shrieks at this ungodly suitor
fending off
his lecherous advance.
Disheveled and
frightened.
The old man
himself repulsed
his heart yet entwined
in chestnut tangles of hair
knows in this dismal moment
he will die alone
with no remembrance
of the warmth once his.
Only stone cold ashes
to strew about his life
collapsing now
beneath the weight
of human weakness.
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I am the dagger of this montage
I am the twist of the shifting
I am the bearer of the space
which is condensed
in my hands
for the wonder of time
This lady
at birth
as child
made merry to burn
Unsettled in hoping screams
Fraught with the fear of shadows
Eyelids pressed tight
at the looking hours
The palaces of youth returned
at once
for unyielding consequences
demanding it be so
The purity of young flesh – stained
Even quiet moments locked in restlessness
CRIES;
the truth telling variants of the soul
Mouth agape
Demons!
horror’d lessons in vision
Demons! By Demons!
Blood the same
Blood transferring from youth to adulthood
where the mysteries erode
I question what I fear
in the understanding of her
But, as there is no honor in chosen blindness
and you cannot feel what you cannot retain
I question
If the question is honest, it will answer itself
I, to prepare a decision
or shoulder a fall
either way it is righteous undoing
A lesser heart would forgo
to tender touchings
and willful pleasures
The corpse of the wedding
ran its anger by decision
Left blood marks
on the bridal veil
on the pews
traced in the wedding cake
The corpse of the wedding
counted the seconds
until the ceremony would end
made an attempt at purpose
through silence
silence silence
or
her screams
or
her violence
or
her murders like pleasant dreams
or
her withering
Nevermore so vile and bitter
the tongue and eyes of this… wife
A charm blasphemed by her beauty
A division mapped upon a bed
scorched in the blood of matrimony
Twilight tells a story that
in this life
there is no easier hanging
than that by jealousy
I, willing to make beauty obsolete
if it meant cursing the days of her life
As long as that curse
spanned all but
my antiquity
“You and I then
to sing less heavenly of things
ending each day with
glories unfulfilled”
Bath
She smiles
and rinses her hair
I am the dagger of this montage
I am the twist of the shifting
In winter with its dying days
voicing an archaic promise of spring
I heard the blasphemous whisper of her name
while all along through grace and thicket
the storied echo was mine
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Soft moss beneath our shoes
Scent of decaying pine needles
on ancient forest floor
Beginnings of winter, cool
wind between trees
We see deer run uphill.
They, afraid of our ways,
seek shelter from us.
Should I run, too? |
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