Hush

HUSH

 hush . . .

the touch has broken tips

it looses what in unfeigned hours

thirsted for luxuriant flowers

lingering in tumescent air

immaculate the time we share--

so no more of your luring lips

just hush . . .

concupiscence entombed in need

the bones I break to satisfy

we born to wing are damned to fly

while soulless, starless in the dust

impossible suns ignite, combust

so none of this; we are agreed

now hush . . .

a moment locked in diary

the pillars of our fevered minds

like curls of hair unwave, unwind

in one-two-three the braided guilt

unfastens while the seconds tilt

so know me now, your devotee

and hush . . .

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/haunting-vintage-rose-flower-jennie-marie-schell.jpg

The Monster's Sweet Farewell

THE MONSTER'S SWEET FAREWELL

cold in guise, inflamed in eye, 

so stalks the child of the night

boundaries unbound in flesh repressed

unnatural nature, anomalous fright

opal cheek ensanguined 

ruby red, so move the dead

their heads, inbred, the porcelain bite—

the blood enthralled, forever fled

now run the veins of our desires; 

nocturnal creatures lap them free

in deep abyss of dark concave 

the harvest moon creates its slaves 

inspires children lost in lore 

a breath on necks bent back for more

and when the dark of churches' bells 

a-ring in spells occult and swells

of craving, not of saving, 

one who wants the misbehaving

here the white against your night  

here the monster's sweet farewell

https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/4CC1CNES4xAetTwyA5RnYOPavXs=/420x240/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/real-life-vampires-of-new-england-and-abroad-631.jpg

Pre-Game

PRE-GAME

shy and shadow, bric-a-brac

crafty cues the master makes

latent once, now lightning cracks

beneath a skin the toucher wakes

pull a string

they’ll go ‘round in rings

tap a tune

their heads’ll balloon

above, below confetti bits

parade the pawns of foregone games

master crowned in crystal sits

where no one knows each other’s names

turn a key

for the repartee

twist a tongue

the pre-game’s done

https://travelblurbs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/MarionettePuppets.jpg

Curtain’s Call

CURTAIN’S CALL 

Quirk of contortion, a portion 

of what's recalled and what fits, 

what we bind into bits.

Arms extending, bones a’bending, 

amortized ends 

of wasted beginnings.

We don’t belong here, bodies wrong here, 

xanthic shapes 

all sound birdsong here.

Hungry undertakers wait for mishaps, 

ate what perhaps was never meant 

for this nor that.

We glow, we spin; we flow, we sin; 

we are, we won’t; 

we scar, we don’t.

Encyclicals of all amiss, 

why feign lost stars 

when sunsets kiss?

Acrobats all, through fires we fall—

drowning in rivers 

at curtain’s call.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnk8svyC1T1ya8c_9zAoH67KCkdUXsm_gx1w&usqp=CAU

Gnomes

GNOMES

here’s what happened

fog and brain, ribs and rain

I moved apart from winter but found snow and ash

in hideaways where reddish

gnomes mined for fragments

of fractured illusions

the mirrors of my haunted corners

cracked in angles only 

they could read, the maps of our indiscretions

oh, suspicion

my arrows aimed for buttercups but

pricked the shades we crafted

and shone light in turn refracted

spilling bits for reddish 

gnomes to claim as theirs

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdl52d3MN8qY86inH7XzQKuoJ95RUSD_J5FuIqz8Z7YTjRbSSq6sQeHZYAwMZUNDAPOWZvAsc-D1xEqgWciC_f3W4p8q7gopDhyjzJ4w2TUHkVxYKDGtrNsMuH5XP0t5dXMLtxivl9MEQ/s1600/gnome+pic+closeup.jpg

 

Life Perplexed

 LIFE PERPLEXED

burdened little heart

you speak through gleaming wires

encumbered by chrysanthemum scents, spare parts

I celebrate how intricate your style

 

through eyes evangelized

whose cinders welcome fires

emerge the visions better off left fossilized

I agitate the delicatest wiles

 

life perplexed, a multi-verse

a bloom submerged in briars

designing with their tiny claws a rudimentary curse

I hesitate, in triplicate beguiled

https://nicolettalolli.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/amy-friend-the-passenger-times-00.jpg?w=584

She and Him

SHE AND HIM

in white she moves in shrift she sighs
the carroller of homicide

engaged in rage while thought is caged

and all around her rebels lie

regale the brute bewail the saint

no argument for conscience faint

reviled, defiled, the ghostly child

has moved her mumbled mouth too straight

she makes the light; he courts the dark

rememberers of ancient arts

what's been goes grinning 'cross their skin

the past evinces grimmer arcs

a shadow gorging blacker things

he breeds what's always tied his wings

provoking then revoking 

all the chaos desperation brings 

https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/light-gif-1.gif

Troubadour

TROUBADOUR

star-lit fragile gateway, suspended, a hatch that flashes open, shut

in, out—the troubadours tell tales of all its meaning

the dusty corpses of our lovely corruptions hang limpid,

awaiting reanimation after years, days of gestation . . . the nascent life.

bones accumulating, organs palpitating though softer, yes—so soft

the eiderdown its shroud, its gown and muffles the murmuring voice

but certain, while the ballads brim forever in exordium

it moves in gentle terror of what’s to come

http://www.morgangaynin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/AA-0294-wolf-sheep-guitar-music-trick-spooky.jpg

Wee Tinies

WEE TINIES

 Little spider twee and trim,

corners keep you locked and limn

the shinies of your eyes

with dingy pools. 

Hither hider, sleek and slim.

Warner peeps through blocks bedimmed

with whiny little flies--

the mingy fools.

Brittle slider preened and prim,

horror sleeps in hemlock, hymns

the spiny paradise

in wintry spools.

Withering viper, deep you swim.

Mortar keeps the bedrock trim.

Wee tinies galvanize

a flinty fuel.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT1OanMc3wONiwAyCi5xyYtyu8YGlUUwoptCw&usqp=CAU

Psalm 88

PSALM 88

Darkness is my closest friend. 

He step ahead forever moves--

Ne'er by my side where sorrows wend.

Darkness is my closest friend.

Delight is his when joy's at end.

In pain does God his glory prove?

Darkness is my closest friend.

He step ahead forever moves.

https://reluctantmom.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/154836_6_800.jpeg?w=584

Shake the Room

SHAKE THE ROOM

it enters on a whim (let it in in in)--

it knocks upon our doors with its phantom limbs

and it rushes in white horses makes the Nevers well-of-courses

turns a tipSy tOpsy all the rules 

we thought we had adorned as jEwels 

of what was hard and what was pRecious (never get us! no confesses)

 

time to get it out—it’s time— 

but parasites breed in the rhyMe

BalOOning and mushrOoMing

LittLe WiCKed wormY thEENGs

liTTel LYMEE lookeenG WeenGS.

In THAIR fetid FAYREE ReeNGs

self-decapitation ends it,

somEtimes, though, it fast befriends it

shake the room—shake SHAKE the room!

the house of our convictions doomed

Ooo-Oooming and Ooo-Oooling it is looming it is drooling

parasite of false proportions 

you unwelcome, freak distortion

over-stayed you guest this host

Gonna get you ouT . . . . almost. 

https://i.imgur.com/6UsS7jw.gif

A Dream Played Twin

A DREAM PLAYED TWIN

a dream played twin to daybright thought, erred only in the afterward

portent bred in burdened air, anchored ardor, fevered touch

gymnasium of torpor

acrobatics languid, lingering trails in the dampened thick

hope held in, sweetest twin

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/c7/86/48c786efda687885248d673ff1d5b3dd.jpg

Strange Geometry

STRANGE GEOMETRY

 Fingers cold and skin a-shiver

Nights like these bring days like those

Days when all the points are falling

When our verses slump to prose

Nights like these bring days like those

Visions of diverging dawn

Warmth upon a latent shoulder

Dew in cubes upon the lawn

Visions of diverging dawn

Strangers move in spheres and lines

Regal perpendiculars

Irradiate our simple shrines

Strangers move in spheres and lines

They meet in strange geometry

Curt inflection, intersecting

Problems solved in repartee

https://www.arrowexterminators.com/assets/istock-1000112674_98bBjYo.jpg

Come Undone

COME UNDONE

filtered soft, downy dimming

here, where all the world is spinning

time suspended in the dark

cats in absence, smiles grinning

ambled down a path alluring

creatures hidden, deeply purring

knot into the second act

implication slipped and blurring

come undone, euphoric sun

glimmer in the distance warming

arms enfold a youth once cold

an inflorescent bloom transforming

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c4/b0/64/c4b0644d7edc2592672f14c9e2b579d1.jpg

To Minos, with Love

TO MINOS, WITH LOVE

 Shade One

In life I travelled far and wide

With bags of trinkets by my side.

I claimed that each a saint had blessed

And those who bought one passed God’s test.

So peddling wares of merit false

Bought me this end, this devil’s waltz.

Shade Two

I never moved myself to try.

I did but nothing till I died.

No stand against another took

Nor did promote the Holy Book.

I never made to move a thumb

And now await what is to come.

Shade Three

“Who are these fools who blind believe 

In souls and such? They are deceived.”

So said I when earth I walked

And never thought I’d know the shock 

of being wrong, yet here am I

To witness what I thought were lies.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRy8wp6JVoKZwlqv5eS_6oPXzSo0Q87aTQEKw&usqp=CAU

Barsabbas

BARSABBAS

Barsabbas, did you feel it?

Winds shifting, lots cast. What was it—

Thirteen not to be, not for you?

Barsabbas, did you earn it?

Not good enough, no better than

One spitting silver as he hanged?

Barsabbas, did you want it?

The traitor’s place, it simmering

While another gained by luck?

Barsabbas, did you grudge it?

He, you’d die for, He you loved—

He who left you for a fledgling?

Feel it, earn it, want it, grudge it—

Matters not what men may show.

Soul immortal—mind the portal.

What they are aren’t what we know.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ce/2b/13/ce2b1371e720ba8bc7d04cae444869e4.jpg

Dark House

DARK HOUSE

satin spire above the blue

earthbound star of hope anew

once a sign of haven

crusted spike upon the sea

crumbling stone now travesty

fear of all the craven

formed a fossil on the shore

relic lost and now ignored

time its only mate

silent rests the warn of fog

defunct bulb and broken cog

given oe’r to fate

pasture once the land around

now in patches burnt and browned

extant, none for miles

ages pass and ages prey

web the brick with salt and spray

life once lived ensiled

nights in enigmatic dream

remain so, no fulgent beam

to guide a wan’drer home

but beneath the sedentary

moves a mote involuntary

murmurs weave a change

ripening until its hour

lying latent in its tower

catacomb deranged

last one day of dew and haze

enkindles deep within the maze

flame in monochrome

gold not this one, bright not so,

this in negative it glows

creeps outward, seeking veins

reaches to the spire’s core

up it races, void abhorred

swells with stuff inane

writhing worm of hollow star

coils, waits in broken jar

prophesies its birth

nascent once, now perfected

punctures sky and light infected

crackles in its mirth

bar of absence, shaft of shade

adumbrate the glen and glade

phantoms glide within

paradox of time and space

bleak antithesis of grace

living’s end begins 

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/94/28/33/942833fb99a31696ec5024fefd0ab79d.jpg

The Magic Shop

THE MAGIC SHOP

corridors strange and ways aslant

the magic shop is still

orbs and crystals, dolls a-nest

dust eating the windowsill

who knows where it goes

and what noses it growses

the whips and whims ensnare

they watch what they want

and wants what they hunts

they find themselves down there

covetous corners where black is born

trinkets glint in the gloom

tricks and glitter, strings atwist

the fragile centers bloom

come in now, the puppets

here sweets is; here treats is

no wicked, no no, not that here

we sell and we sold,

we have and we hold,

and never a screak or a tear

bumbering, fumbering, tumbering child

alone and lost is it

precious, the one who goes astray

whose magical mouths is split

https://live.staticflickr.com/5516/10542501974_43bc2bea0a_b.jpg

Beastie

BEASTIE

Who brands the beast a beast? A swine

A swine? We sat, us sat alone,

Alone in our laze, our lumbering wattles,

Waddling and wallowing, wasting the day—

Daydreams daubing our dusky eyes,

Eyes darkly dissecting us, dim all the while

While whispering wildly their witless sounds,

Sounds that were stamping us, splitting our skin.

Skin and scale, rolling skeins of flesh,

Flesh that they felt was foul and strange.

Strangers they stayed, no sentiment,

Meant poison and pain, their plans for the free.

Free of fear, us frittered on the lake-stones.

“Lake of the luses, those lost and turbulent.”

Turbulent were our tusks; torpid were our ways--

Our ways damned in the dawn, we deemed the waters wrong.

Wrong the arrow winged that wounded our heart,

Heartless were he who heaved our body

Bodily to the beach, having breached our hope.

Hope in our heft was hooked by the stabbing blades;

Blades and their boar-spears broke us--the wave-rider.

Riding our ruin, the rivals called to battle,

Battle horns blowing, boasting their hero

Heroically hellward, hurtled into the mere.

Mere mercy a mummery, removed from our home,

Home not here, we “horror” gone, we “horror” bled.

https://ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/iku-turso-a-malevolent-sea-monster-in-finnish-mythology-mentioned-in-the-finnish-national-epic-kalevala.jpg?w=584

The Seed

THE SEED 
Within its shell, it’s clasped, caressed, so delicate--
The world it knows the press of warming palms,
And nowhere in itself, devotion intricate,
 
Does hope inspire more than it embalms,
For when it breathes, it resonates an undue hymn
While waves above dissemble erring calm.
 
Oh, wraith conceived so many ways, so dim,
What primal play intended is at hand?
A thimble o’erflows, its burdened brim
 
Turned topside-down for all its penitence unplanned.   
The seed, it sleeps, will thrive in counterfeit,
Will flourish darkly, secrets kept in wooded land.

https://www.nybg.org/blogs/plant-talk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Radish309-6896-X2.jpg

Perfect Self

 PERFECT SELF

curl into a perfect self

take and dust it from the shelf

mortal, moral, minced and fed

thought it all was left for dead

here a posey, there a rosey

ne’er a nosey brain has bled

it fled . . . . . .

it fled.

unpredicted, undefiled

answers questions once gone wild

perfect self, it’s tender, mild

whittled from adult to child

thought it grown, thought it gone

ne’er right but always wrong

so long . . . . . .

so long.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15909630/2019/10/Creepy-Doll-exhibit-2.jpg