micro-poem 1

I'm never more lonely
Than when I'm with you.

nurse bear

Threadbare in spots? Certainly,
Since nurse bear has been on duty
For nearly 40 years.
That's a lot of wear on the fluff.

Offering kapok cuddles,
Soft tear-absorbant face-burying fur,
Love, no judgement, no recrimination.
Nurse bear has tended all comers
With equal gentle care.

Nurse bear, when do you lock the bathroom door,
Toss down some valium and soak in scented bubbles?
Buy yourself flowers, jewellery, Chinese silk pillows?
When do you have time to think your secret thoughts,
Crewel stitch your love onto a shield
You can use to repel the constant onslaught of others' need?

processed self in modern times

I am one pixel deep but as wide as a lake.
I am made of cork and mirrors and outtakes.

I barely exist except in a dimension of need
and facade.
My batteries are failing, my usb corrupted but
I have to go now, the 'Applause' sign is flashing and
That's my cue.

Quick, someone take a picture of a cat
With a Hitler moustache,
Show me the grotesqueries and pantomime of
So-called stars with no careers
Show me the human burlesque parade and teach
Me to contort my wants and speaking paths to
Fit in this digital box.

In the sternly seething flesh world --IRL LOL--
I am not your princess. I am not your slave.
We do not exist as these people. I do not
Know you, really.

Circuitry isn't even an analogy now, it is all
Post-concrete, post-threedee.
Tactility is so 2008.

We live in flashing lights, we live in TSX sound.

In the cave where my meditating body dwells, a
Rat gnaws my bones.

Process take one

Here it is raw, off the tip of my brain. I will percolate today. This format may be too restrictive for what I'm doing. It's not there yet.

The first sip from his amber eyes
was intoxicating, heat spread through her
And she wanted
More

Months in, drinking in his wit
And winning ways added sparkle,
And joy to her
Days

Months passed and the times between
The redhot joy spread like
Grey; Each hit still great, but not
Enough.

Soon, too soon, she trembled
In his absence, tried to recreate
A brittle flirtation with a
Substitute.

She wept to know his power,
And he, drunk with it, withheld
His caress to watch her
Beg.

All the sunshine fled her and
The dark clouds that flowed
In were more like
Smog

Finally, prostrated and empty,
She crawled away, beyond
Desire for escape, seeking
Ending.

Friends found the shell
Her once-bright eyes dulled
Propped against a tree
Lost.

Deprogramming, and withdrawal were
Long but at the end,
Harder, sadder, she was
Saved.

Mess? I? Ah.

Nothing about this hangs together yet, I'm still stretching for it instead of writing from within it. Damn you, WordsWorth, for making me think about process!! *shakes fist*


It will come.


****
I was a free woman when I walked in this place,
Worshipping only my independent will,
A woman of means, never mind how I got it,
Serving my own sweet whims, subject
To no man’s demands.

I entered as he was telling some tale,
Bullshit about water turning to whiskey, and
How women followed him, seeking his touch
To heal their ailing hearts. Libidos, I snorted,
Sailing past, still thinking I belonged to
Myself.

At the table, a friend introduced us.
I am not sure whether it started
When he first touched my hand or
When I looked up and got lost in his eyes, but
Suddenly broadsided by tenderness and
Unable to swallow for wanting to touch
His lips, I was lost.

The stories he tells, son of a god
Are they real? Is that his magic? I don’t
Know if he can raise the dead, except when
His amp is too loud, but he can perform miracles.
Why else do I find myself washing his feet
With my hair?

harmonize

He is disappointed that I won't
Harmonize, he
Waits at the backup vocals for
Me to chime in
But
I won't.

I won't harmonize until I
Float into his dark pupils and
Know that no sea monster awaits,
Know that I can show my
Heart and the beating
Will not cause a squall.

I rest mute.
I will not harmonize
Till I hear clearly
A voice with no lies,
Till I see
No harm
In his eyes.

The Merman

She fell in love with a merman,
It was foolish, she knows that now.
She was at first just captivated by his long green hair,
His noble brow.

He had every appearance of a man,
A fine man, above the water.
Below, his cold-blooded churning tail, his
Mystery was what caught her.

Day after day, to the shore she'd go,
And he would swim in to meet her.
They'd race, each in his element, and
Because the water made him fleeter
He'd often beat her,
And then feel bad, and
Treat her sweeter.

She listened, enthralled to all his tales
Of life as a prince of the ocean,
And if, when she spoke of life on land,
He seemed to recede farther from the sand,
She didn't catch the motion,
And she moved from infatuation to love,
And he accepted her promotion.

Of course, warm-blooded mammal she was,
She dreamt of lying in his arms,
And though her friend raised alarms,
Certain this would to lead harm,
All their warnings she did not heed
Blinded by her passion's need.

One day, they met at the usual rock,
And she, overwrought with longing,
As she had already drowned in his green eyes,
Dove in the deep water with a sense of belonging.

He shrugged and pulled her near to him,
And here, we must not judge, it seems to me.
He knew only that it was his birthright to swim
And his father was a cold-blooded creature of the sea.

He dove, with his love pulled tight to his chest, his
Powerful fin kicking behind,
And she, breathless in love and blind
Already, barely noticed the thickening gloom,
The pressure building in her lungs,
His bed would be her tomb, and yet
She inhaled the salt with no regret.

He was saddened, in his man-heart, but
Felt not a thing in his fishier parts.

Such a story needs a moral, and yet
I don't know what to say,
She knew what she was doing when she dove that day.
Perhaps the lesson is simply this,
Know he's a merman before you kiss.