I crunch
on the swath
of crisp cool air
that cuts
chilled and invigorating
through the swamp of my despair.
dust of leaves
coat my tongue
as I masticate
crow pie
long past
it’s sell-by date
I spit
breathe
the oak floating
reminders
humid cling of miasma
is not the haven
it self-proclaims
I built them myself
these walls
that circumscribe me
\hem my hagridden heart\
‘round me
safe and alone
bricked with mortal mortar
\angst echo chamber\
impervious to pounding pestle.
fingertips mangle
in the raucous
clawing
to breach
a bloody gap.
I just wish I hadn’t
scrawled such grotesque
graffiti
the carpet writhes underfoot
teeming with the detritus
of a thousand lurking
cocooned selves.
what say you
gritted, behind furred teeth
in the soiled stomp of a footless sock?
do you revel in my eye roll
as befits your snakebelly
stature?
I read the note you left me
scrawled in wet mayhem
\and you giggle as I trip\
you sketch me
a blood lipped evil queen
while you hashtag
#self-destruct
napalm all your bridges.
I hold a flame
‘neath the lemon-juiced shreds
decipher the heartsore longing
hurled in domestic anarchy.
I dream of a leaf in vein
a tree of fitful leavings
the veins plumb blue black
with the claret of my desires.
the legacy of leavings drops
\sanguine crusted\
strewn careless aground.
in the smoted eye
of a rabid fawn
I glimpse the future
as we conspire.
despite the tea leaved
clouds
we scuttle upon shooting stars
and tighten
our wounded thighs
as we Picasso
purple the heavens
so you want to poach me
turn my guts runny
on the burn of your well blown
hot air
crack my shell and
drizzle my acquiescence
over the callous crusts
of your self-satisfaction?
I decline, sir
your nauseating offer
despite mottled past
I exude no sulfurous odors
and my shell is impervious
to narcissistic fumblings
you think you can peel me away
denude my autonomy
as you bake puffed up
pastries
decorated with the fruits
of others’ labors
while you fancy yourself
a suave modern day Khan?
I am fruit
no more than fowl
and I hear the four and twenty
blackbirds singing
lo! to your base perfidy
you have conjured yourself king
bishop and knave
manipulating pawns
in your checkered rivalry
imagine me
accommodating accoutrement
on your phantom battlefield
I have fought for my place
stomach no puppet master
win your twisted game
as I deign not
to offer a response
Check and Mate
that t there
yep, I crossed it
those i’s
all duly dotted
sticky notes paper my desk
reminders scrawled
in inks of many colors
attention grabbing hues
I list like a realtor of to-dos
my calendar chimes
who what where and when.
I have a head for details
the memory of an elephant
and keep going and going and going
Energizer bunny
in gym shoes with my skirt
the better to keep on runnin.’
more competent than most
I know what I know
suffer few fools
speak my mind with authority
until my OCD
does a dirty tango
with principal-office fear
I was never called
and I am wearing ill-fitting plaid
eyes downcast, shuffling
catapulted through decades
to Catholic school girl
shame
it is rather herding cats
this marshalling of my forces
from among their separate spinning
manic super collider orbits
where meltdowns
\dripping uranium (or wax)\
feel the lesser mount.
they scratch and hiss
these feral festerings of the past
shabby black- tabby
pets of my much touted
witchery.
I have no bags in which to drown them
\all my rivers have run dry\
so I give frenzied chase
and they scatter as I scramble
to gather them together
these mistresses d’ fate.
I have fur balls in my coiffure
with catnip accoutrements
\harried housewifely ‘do\
and my fever is ballooning
as crises are wont to do.
but I need them on my journey
\these testaments in tattered fur\
so I cajole, corral and conquer
snarling cougar to prancing puss
and onward, shambles,
we meander
all my lives
and I
it is a cat-scratch in the arch of my tenderfoot
this swelling, welling in my soul
back arched and forehead burning
I hiss
at the brush of your outstretched paw.
hairs upended and mewling
black yesterdays slink under ladders
splattered in the shabby patina
of abandoned masterpieces.
steeped in antiquated ammonia
vintage carpets curl in threadbare sedition
I weep
silent rivers of involuntary revulsion
swiped away with defiant wrist wipes
these salted choleric commentaries, unleashed
lest you read weakness in the tracks
overlaid in the dust of my disgust.
i know the rules to this game
as I clamber broken rungs, clattering
upward
upward and away from the furballs
you hock up by the scores, licking
yourself in depraved self- gratification.
your nine lives evaporate, evanescent
and vitreous, recalled by the fiends
that birthed them. i humor you
and watch you disintegrate
vanishing
(This piece was prompted by today’s NaPoWriMo prompt, using Adrienne Rich’s “What Kind of Times Are These” as my inspiration)
in winter, trees are stark naked, like my truths
when they creak and groan in the howling wind
your ears prick up, fixated and keen
living under them, as you do.
I know my truths are hushed, silenced and quashed
shriveled scarlet maple leaves, flaming in shame
peeking, hide and seeking, from their burial spots –
hidden ‘neath the blizzard banks, ‘tween I can’t tell and you won’t ask.
it’s funny how I disappear a little more each day
in this wasteland of muzzled testimony,
gagging on marinated bear paws, downed with guzzled vodka
as I wonder how I landed in this Siberia of veritas, right here at home.
I am a shadow of myself, disappeared with my truths
lost, until I stumble upon the gathering place, brimming
with diademed women – walkers of the shadowed roads – who conjure
now the midday sun, glittering experiential jewels, scattered in hilltop shouts.
“things will be so much better then”
proclaimed the dying sage
her declaration sure and certain
\how strong the words\
belying the papery thinness
of her withering husk.
her whispers rattled as I
read them, steadying my shaky
heart, rapt across the miles.
i swiped backhanded at doubts
\dripping wayward tears\
mortified at my wet-noodled spine
she is tranquil in contemplation
of her death (permanent)
while i am moldering
\rank and stagnant\
in the aftermath of mine
(though my death was the temporary kind)
on that steel stool
in my concrete cage
better was beyond the ken
a theoretical construct
\like relativity or the Big Bang\
which i believe exists on an astral plane
other than where i reside, somewhere
(though let me tell you about a Big ass Bang!)
yet she averred to me
\hope and constancy\
this woman wise and warm
from the glowing embers
of her fading days
upon my flagging spirit
so i tucked her prophecy
\folded and tattered\
between my fraying ventricles
staining it with each bloodied beat
as i crawled from then
now i catch a glimpse of better
\from time to time\
guttering in the distance
a candle buffeted
Arisen from the Conflagraton 