Her day lies in your night.
Destructive Creativity
What words did our fathers break to undermine
the natural selection of intelligent design?
What They Want Seen
What’s this on my thigh, they want to know. A cut,
that’s what.
They make me strip and show. Yes ma’am, it’s new.
They want you
to be told if it. Am I supposed to grow up to be
you? To see
like you, to look like you? No. That’s not me.
They don’t give a damn about who you and I are.
All they want you to look at’s another scar.
That’s what they want you to see.
Unrede Triolet
You pretend no harm meant.
Although your words attack,
you act as if goddess-sent.
You pretend no harm meant
as if ill will could be bent
inside out, through and back.
You pretend no harm meant
although your words attack.
Sunset Shot
My horizon will turn
away from your sun.
Do I never learn?
My horizon will turn
only after deep burn
drives by hit-and-run.
My horizon will turn
away from your sun.
No Heir Apparently
<draft>
I’m freshly all out of heirs,
heirs having gone out of vogue,
unwelcome among mine and theirs.
[Notes: with vague ideas toward working on some terza rima exercises given to me by Maggie (or a terzanelle! far from my reach), this possible start inspired by some notes left to us by my mother, after they took me from her. —AY]
</draft>
Got My Keys
Got my keys.
Taking the dog out,
to see if he pees.
Got my keys
(see here?–these
are them, no doubt).
Got my keys.
Taking the dog out.
Took the dog out.
Remembered my keys
so I’d not have to shout,
“Took the dog out,
now am wandering about,
wanting in. Help, please!”
Took the dog out.
Remembered my keys.
Slugabed
Due to a conflict, I must recuse myself from today.
Tutelage
Although each lover lays me down, I choose
my mother’s bed to find my sleep.
Ag made me a home I’ll never lose
and showed me how and what to keep.
As driven as a violent winter storm,
my mother’s songs still carry me.
Sara taught me appreciation of form
and rhyming sounds unwound, set free.
With proven skills in ancient arts of war,
my mother’s hand meets mine.
Eric opened doors to metaphor
and when my struggle to resign.
Our coming and our going in moonlight
reflect creation’s sacred dance.
Maggie shared the shadows of her night
to weave in me her magic chants.
I stand above the black hole where was laid
my mother’s last breath’s holy writ.
Adrien revealed how love is made
and how if true it doesn’t quit.
Eldritch Haunt
When what’s created comes from what’s unseen
inside dead silent screams that shriek in hushed
depictions of a body mangled, crushed
by heavy night blackened dark as gangrene
with jaundiced edges, breaking dawn’s unclean
eidola raking skin torn ragged, brushed
away like bitter poison wrapped in rushed
denoument of what’s taken to demean,
conception will corrupt each tender welt
with briny potpourri of unknown sounds
and unfamiliar scents and touch unfelt,
a breath as ethereal as winter’s wraith
sucked through the chasm of our ancient faith,
the hole from which my mother’s shade rebounds.
malices 