Sign of the Rising House...

Your Rising Sign is Aries

You're full of energy - and people look to you to get the party started. Confident and honest, you'll be the one to say what everyone is thinking. You are easily bored, and you always find unique ways to do things. You don't just dream it, you do it. And that's why you're so successful. Too intense for some, often times people are intimidated by you. But you're usually smart enough to charm them anyway!

What is Your Rising Sign?

Names for All Occasions

Mandala Reina's Aliases

Your movie star name: White Chocolate Francis

Your fashion designer name is Mandala Barcelona

Your socialite name is Queen Of The Fairies Madrid

Your fly girl / guy name is M Wil

Your detective name is Leopard Suffern

Your barfly name is Pizzelle Bailey's

Your soap opera name is Eve Edgebrook

Your rock star name is Peppermint Jet

Your star wars name is Amafru Wilhec

Your punk rock band name is The Distraught Fire

The Amazing Meganame Generator

Vertebrae

You are so lovely when breaking.

I see a demon's year of pretending to heal
in the shallow curves of your lips.
Ugly stories you tell so studiously off-hand,
divorced from the vibrations of vocal chords.

Your collarbones twitch out a dance,
moles on your skin forming words.
Patterns shift between each vertebra
parts of your design I must study.

Here is my guilty little daydream:
my touch sliding down your arm,
linking our bony fingers together.
Our hands pressed back to back.

I will apologize for the shocking
temperature of my simple caress.
You may slap me for my carelessness.
But you will use the other palm.

We are a joyously dirty pair.
Who sensed it first? The fates? The muses?
Even with detachment as our motto,
we somehow connect, fit atom into atom.

By 'connect' I mean, not that we two
are complimentary halves of one
gloriously elusive, mythic whole.
Keys to locks and corks to bottles.

We are instead the same half,
If you line us up, hip to defiant hip,
and examine our sullen silhouettes,
you will see our identical jagged cuts.

We can compare whose grooves run deeper,
cut to disguise our fear with bravado.
We face down our demons by fleeing,
playing blindman's bluff on a cliff.

Sweeping our limbs with casual airs,
we reach to burn the sins right off,
remove our cancerous memories by
making love to the greedy sun.

Eyes slitted with pleasure-burn,we
blind-skip over that seductive edge
proving that heavy souls must fall
stripped of all but skeletal hope.

As we lie here, licking our many wounds,
re-feathering wings and sharpening claws,
watching our lover leave us for the sea,
I confess I want you most when breaking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shiver me allegories! <-- More Rhymes

And I am...

I want this swiftly brought to an end,
all this awkward fumbling, trying to
fit together puzzle pieces of flesh.
When this is done, and you moan,
you shudder, give a kiss, and sleep,
I can finish counting your scars in peace.

Give thanks for unobservant lovers.
Only those who desire and obsess
but will never possess can truly see.
I keep molded pouts and smiles in my pocket.
Seduction is built into everything I do.
And I am so fucking beautiful.

All the time, even cold and marbleized,
violent with barely bridled rage,
hiding under the guise of dreaming,
giddy within this carefully cultivated,
oddly poisonous illusion of love.
Even my flaws are bewitchingly made.

It amuses me that mankind believes
I can be caught, can ever be claimed.
I am the spirit that drives men mad,
undulating at the edges of their vision.
I am a siren, casting my hungry net
over the sea, breaking suitors against the rocks.

I am both unicorn-tamer and monster,
savagely defending my freedom
Wild and unafraid as I run the fields,
slinking and terrible as I hunt the forests
I am pleased you have learned to avoid my gaze
as you fall into place, down on your knees.

I am not on a pedestal; I was born above you
and I am in the heart of first woman.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Word Association is Your Friend. <-- More Poetry

STOP

It's really not hard. I am not asking you to love your neighbour as you love yourself. I am not telling you to devote your life to working with charities. I am not requesting that you leave all your worldly possessions behind and become a prophet.

I just want the world to stop.

Though there is no such thing as a completely innocent soul, there are good people in this world.

I have a wish. I wish you could feel what the victims of your acts of violence suffer at your hands. The intense physical and emotional pain of these victims, of their families. I wish you could see their faces in your dreams, hear their names in the pounding of your heart.

I just want these senseless acts, these violent attacks, the wasting of lives, to stop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deepest sympathies to those who have suffered in London today, in the past, and will continue to feel this pain in the future.

Rekindled, Strengthened, and Made

Happiness never came this easily to me before. Two important factors are behind my current good mood.

First, I have sorted out some worries and found what may be the answer to my discomfort in certain situations, and some difficulties I have in relating to people. Could I be any more deliberately vague? Try me.

Second, and most recent, I have rekindled an old friendship, made a new, incredibly deep connection with an acquantaince turned friend, and, within the past few days, strengthened a tenuous connection with a delightful person.

Even with the damper put on my joy by outside influence and recent events, and by my own cynicism, I remain upbeat, even elated with these new connections.

Temporary Soundtrack: "Help Me", Joan Osborne's version off of Relish. "Put on your nightshirt, baby; hand me my morning gown..."
Quote Trapped in My Head: "Comparte tus sueños de agua con el sediento peregrino. Largo y culebrero es el camino sin tu cariño." "El peregrino" from Contacto by Andres Cabas.

Unicorn Bones

You say I gleam
like unicorn bones
in moonlight.
Eerie and cloud-white.

Mercury creaking in my veins
makes me terribly sane.
Pitch me cruelest harmony,
pinch me to sleep.
Beloved wants to see me weep.

Pain is my somnambulist,
devil's a sandman
slinking along the keep.
You can keep me but not alive.
Pandora is my lover,
panic my middle name.

She breathes in my ear
the sweetest of broken promises,
as I grin and swallow
your husband's latent shame
late-blooming like nightshade, whispering
Love is just an extinct game.

Electricity tickles the atmosphere
when the barometer's falling, snowbell's calling,
tolling out: Hear! Hark! Watch and weep.
Let the appalled audience see me
devour the writhing moon, so dim
in comparison to my radiance.

I admit it, I shine.
I try so hard not to,
with sullied mind,
dirty heart, dust-covered skin.
Can you sully the reputation
of a child of ill-repute?

You must know, all bets are off
the scale, the charts, the cuff,
when I glow supernova-bright like an
acid-tripping firefly even in daylight.
I blind, refract the tide.

Do I still shine?
Emanate light?
Imitate life?
Rip off my horn.

~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~
No one ever said living life ab ovo would be easy! <-- More Poetry

Licorice

I feel like licorice, the way
my ribs rub together when I bend.
Stinging and fierce
in your throat, but too limp
to struggle for release.
God, does the friction
of bone on bone
ever hurt.

For so long I lacked the words
to give life
to my suspicions about dead things.
Before, mania held my hand,
tugging always to
pull me forward
reaching behind my neck
to drag me on.

I made of my mind a slippery, blank canvas
from first heated glance to last moan.
Yet something always stood
around the corner,
hidden in the cracks of the
next sidewalk square,
waiting for me in the depths
of tomorrow's sleep.

All the while
I kept moving so swiftly,
regrets harmlessly
striking my flanks,
sliding off me like mouthless remoras.
No rough grooves or wrinkles
on my perfect mask
for them to grasp.

I refuse to let you watch
the cracks spreading
beneath the icing,
striking to the filling, to the
burnt layer stuck to the pan,
scrubbed and worried at for hours,
freed from filth
only to be thrown away.

I move the heavens to keep you
innocent of the strangeness
lurking in my material.
I will not bind
your sympathy to my arm
wear it into battle
against my past.
Through sacrifice, I spare your virtue.

Even when alone
I feel like licorice, with
ridges shifting below my skin.
I can not settle
into this twisted body
the curves do not
fit their spaces
my tendons are too long for their bones.

The clenching of muscles
holds me hard
even when I do not dream.
So I shift my ribs, press on a bruise,
attempt to mutate
to the will of the world.
It hurts, doesn't it,
this friction of bone on bone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flurry of Letters

*Surveys posts over the past week with amazement. Gives semi-sheepish laugh.*

Remember how I said I was going to be lax with my posting from now on? Apparently not. Not that any of the poems or anything I'm putting out are any good - yet. *Winks* I've taking to putting up more raw material and re-working it over and over again, until I never want to read the words and I dream about them and they float through my mind at inappropriate times, and I shove them away, only to have them echo in my head much later on, at which point, once I hear the echo, I know I have something.

So, if any of you lovely people actually read the poems on The Poetry Monster post, you'll notice that they change. A lot. Some of them get longer, some shorter, some go in completely different directions than the original. The date on these posts, by the by, is only a date of first publication. I should really put the date updated next to these poems instead...

On the news front: I've been tinkering with several chapters to Animated at once, and the prologue has been growing like a wordy chia pet, along with the plot. However, new chapters will be slow in coming, since I have taken to reading about Game Design in books borrowed from all over several towns. Isn't that neat, the way these library systems work nowadays?

P.S. We have a new fridge! Yay!
P.P.S. Tomorrow is going to rock!.

Temporary Soundtrack: "Untouchable" by Garbage off of Beautiful Garbage.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "And your hands are really shakin’ somethin’ awful // As your worries climb around inside your clothes // Oh, how long will you be sittin’ in the darkness // Heaven knows..." "Crazy Baby" by Joan Osborne, off of Relish.

Empty Mirrors

You are a
most ineffectual light,                
aching to shine your
glass heart out.              I would worship you but
In a world filled
with white-hot                you are blind to me.
brilliant suns,
you are a flicker.

You are a
desolate hallway                       
lined solely
with empty mirrors.           I would fill you but
You clean this
reflective skin               you spit me out.
every night with a
toxic solution.

You want to wear
that symbolic ring.
Throwing yourself
at the whoring moon,          I would hold you but
willing to lick
the sweat off his feet        you despise my touch.
and let him
use you as a throne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My friends occasionally inspire me to write poems about them, their situations, their attitudes, etc. To date, seven poems on this site have been nudged into my consciousness through interactions or observations of them. When I say inspired, I mean just that, only inspired. Nothing ever stays true to life for long, especially in my poems.

This is one of those poems. I dislike all but the last stanza. So, I'll keep working on it. Because I love torture.

Navigation

Through lowered lashes
I try to picture you
as a topographical map.
Layers of skin translating to
black circles measuring
height and depth.

I study you openly
and struggle to draw the
planes of your body,
mutable as the shore; but you
refuse to dissolve
into angles and curves.

I attempt to navigate you
in a paper boat with angry folds
and ripped sails, charting the
wrinkled edges of your smile.
Somehow you have become
both my compass and my North.

You are the only thing,
living or still, that I
cannot seem to disassemble.
To break mountains and seas
into easy-to-swallow
pieces of heart and soul.

~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~

Psst! Don't look now, but your iambic pentameter is showing. <--More Poems

Hurt

You want it to hurt.
If there is pain
you can pretend
you suffered
through such torture.
But you never can
fool yourself completely
silence the voices -
hateful, mocking, vile -
nipping from inside.

So you make it hurt
mix pleasure with pain
until it's all you need
and the only way you feel.
If guilt were matches,
baby, you'd be a bonfire
and light yourself aflame.
It burns when you stop
and you never could say no.

Want hurt
pretend suffering
fool silence
voices mocking
inside screaming

pleasure pain
need away
guilty matches
baby aflame
never stop

~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~

Yes, I'd like the baked ode with cyclic sauce. Can I get a side of octaves with that? <-- More Poetry

Tidal Spin

Making the world spin.

My Name

I want my name
to Roar in your ears
Thunder over your thoughts
a roller coaster's circuitous journey
restless and insatiable
to Thrum in your heart
the manipulating Beat of a bass drum
Leaving behind its echo
an insidious wriggle
in your ears

I want my name
to vivisect your soul
Carve its sultry letters
into the soft underside of your skin
to Spill reluctant blood
from blushing scars
to Sting as the juice of oranges
Slipping into fresh wounds
Every scar you see
will make you flinch

I want my name
to cling to your tongue
make you swallow your bitter words
each letter burning a trail on its way down.
To knot your insides together
until you heave in self-disgust
When you lick your lips, bite your cheek
My sacred name will be
the only thing you taste

I want my name
to Burn you as a brand
elicit a delicious pain-sharp hiss
as flesh touched to sun-boiled metal
your traitorous body will Recoil
giving your cowardice away.
Fill your nostrils
with the cloying perfume of rotting flesh
its foul air invading your mind
you would rather suffocate
than Breathe it in.

I want my name to be...
the first word you Say every morning
what you Moan while dreaming
what you Cry while begging
to ring through your mind
the last Sound you will ever hear
the last Thought you will ever have
all you will ever know.
~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~

Animated - A Novella

Click on a link to see a chapter of my ongoing story, Animated. Original fantasy fiction. Could be considered young adult, but will have dark themes.

Prologue: Long Lost Rubber Ducks
I: Breaking the Moon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All material copyright AEW 2007.

Animated - Prologue

So begins Animated.

Prologue: Long-Lost Rubber Ducks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just an ordinary rubber duck. That's all it was.

Or so Holly told herself as Mae nonchalantly placed it on the resort's guest services counter, directly in line with the hostess' watery, swamp-brown eyes. Its vapid grin of black paint seemed to challenge the uniformed female behind the counter even as her nasal voice droned out instructions.

"Now if you would just leave your keys-"

"There's also this." Mae cut in smoothly.

With a soft 'squeech-y', Marlow the duck's plastic yellow underside touched down on the splintered wooden desk.

The hostess swallowed the last part of her sentence, startled eyes flying from a point just over Holly's shoulder to meet Marlow's lifeless pupils. The elaborate, teased hairstyle stopped bobbing, the doughy face underneath freezing halfway through a polite smile.

"You can return him to the room now. Number 475, if you please. Though, I'm sure he wouldn't object to a change of scenery."

Mae patted the duck fondly. Marlow gave a firm 'squich-ah' as if in agreement.

"Whadda ya mean?" The hapless employee shifted her questioning look away from Mae to the other half of the duo. Unfortunately, she wouldn't get much help there. Holly had wandered away at the start of the conversation, injecting her perusal of the resort’s breakfast menu with a nonchalant air. Face deliberately turned away from the scene, she was biting her lip, desperately trying not to laugh at the woman's baffled tone.

"He just had something he wanted to see out here." Mae shrugged. "So I agreed to take him to the main lodge for a short outing."

Holly studiously kept her gaze fastened on a painting nailed to the lodge's almond-colored wall. A mountaineering man stood proudly against a field of white snow, his rifle-bearing arm flung back at an impossibly macho angle. An odd shaft of morning sunlight reclined across the glass frame, cutting his body off at mid-thigh. This gave him the appearance of wearing hot shorts, a detail that somewhat ruined his majestic pose.

Mae's reddish-brown curls leaned forward conspiratorially. "I think he was looking for his brother, Wade, but I didn't want to pry."

More silence. At least, Holly reflected, the employee hadn't called for her equally vacant-minded manager. And wouldn't that make a fine mess first thing in the morning?

"Go on, Marlow. No, no, glad to be of service, no worries. Well, thank you." Mae continued on, blissfully unaware - or unheeding - of the odd tableau the three humans and one bath toy made. She had Marlow carefully cupped in one palm and was holding him out for Teased Hair to take.

A navy-clad arm reached hesitantly over the counter and accepted the duck. Marlow squawked "chee-ya", which to Holly could have meant anything from "good-bye" to "help!" or possibly even "I love puddles!" Mae seemed unconcerned, though, so Holly took that as a cue to grab her sister's duffel and head for the glass doors.

"Would it kill you just once to lie and say you wanted to swipe it, but decided to put it back?" Holly hissed to her younger sibling.

"You'd rather I come across as a thief?" Mae countered as the two made a beeline for their car.

"Well, then, that it somehow got in your luggage, and you found it while rooting about for the room key?" Holly opened the trunk and threw all her bags in with one vicious motion.

"Marlow wasn't ashamed, and he was the one who had to subject to being manhandled by that desk clerk. Why do you get so upset over what people think of you?" Mae sighed, climbing into the passenger’s seat.

Holly launched herself angrily behind the steering wheel, buckling her belt and anxiously checking the mirrors. "Because what the world thinks of you can make or break you! You can’t just traipse merrily along, pretending everything is lovely and copasetic, when everyone you talk to thinks you’re stark raving mad!"

It was an old argument, never quite put to rest by all the years they spent trying to walk in each other's shoes. Holly's cheeks would burn red, half in anger at the attitude of those that labeled Mae as crazy, half in embarrassment at her sibling's attention-drawing antics. Mae would try to distract her, or tell her that no stranger's opinion mattered, least of all the fry clerk at that greasy fast food restaurant. And why that IQ-challenged jerk had such a problem with letting Violet the alien share a bag with Elvira the cow still mystified her...

A lock of reed-straight light brown hair fell into Holly's mouth as she suddenly turned to her younger sister, scrutinizing her suspiciously. "You didn’t happen to--tell me you didn’t--"

"Duck got your tongue?"

"Tell me you took no other prisoners from the resort, Mae."

Mae ignored her companion and got out the directions that would, hopefully, with a minimum of wrong turns and incorrect mileage markers, get them home.

At some point, Mae had erected a wall between them, the darker side to her power - and all the havoc it wreaked inside her - buried beneath layers of mirrored glass. Mae’s need to keep her out burned at least as strong as Holly’s desire to take the blockade apart, layer by layer. She could feel the other woman circling the outside of the metaphysical fortress. Sometimes tapping gently with carefully chosen words, as if seeking admittance, other times silently stroking the surface, searching for a weak spot. More often than not, Holly ended up hurling whatever she had in her formidable arsenal at the offending barrier.

"Maeve?"

"They're not prisoners if they ask to come along, now are they?"

The redhead mused over how long she should let Holly sweat, finally taking pity on her poor sibling when the other woman seemed likely to burst a blood vessel. Plus, she was using Mae's full name, a sure sign that lava was about to erupt from the fuming woman to her left.

“No, Mother, I was a good girl this time. I even remembered to wash behind my ears and not steal animated objects.”

Holly breathed a quick sigh of relief as their green sedan pulled out of the resort driveway and onto the highway.

“Just Ford, Marlow’s cousin. And, of course, Jane. She's a paper doll who got folded one too many times and needs...”

“Mae!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All material copyright AEW, 2005. Stay tuned for Chapter I.

The Here And Now of Posting

So, I have not been posting as much as normal, and no new poems for almost a week now (oh, the horror!), because I've been working on something new. It's a novella that just will not leave me alone. I came up with the concept this weekend, sat down to work on another full-length novel that I've been working on, and remembered this idea instead. From then on, the prologue came pouring out of my brain, along with, oddly enough, what will probably become chapter III. It's all coming out in bits and pieces, but flowing remarkably well. It's been ages since I've written any piece of fiction in prose form, so I'm amazed at my ability to actually get my ideas down on (digital) paper.

Also, I've been hanging out with my friends and Emblem, all the while enjoying the feel of an empty house. I'm such a jungle cat, I swear - so territorial and antisocial some times.

On the long-term future note, I'm looking into doing this program: Masters Degree in Design and Technology, a two-year graduate degree program, with a concentration in Game Design. My major hurdles: lack of a coherent portfolio, no experience in either design or programming, no letters of recommendation, it's a really expensive program, and my own biggest fear.

However, I can take care of the letters and portfolio (hopefully) by taking night courses at a local college. As far as money goes, loans and scholarships are my friends.

All in all, it's been a strange yet peaceful week. Besides the refridgerator breaking and getting mold in everything. And my favorite aunt permanently moving to Virginia. And the hectic plans we have for this weekend.

Well, whatever gets you through.

P.S. Can't wait to see Sar-Sar and Cult Steve this weekend! And our party planned for July 2nd is going to be epic!

Temporary Soundtrack: Open Up from Dispatch.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "Mae patted the duck fondly. Marlow gave a firm 'squich-ah' as if in agreement." ~ from my new story.

Knowing What You're Missing

Sometimes you have to move heaven and earth to see for yourself what you've been missing.

I only had to travel to a family reunion in West Virginia to see what I'd been missing, family-wise, all these years.

Precious little.

Don't get me wrong, family is great, but I guess I just hoped they would be a bit more friendly, a bit more eager to get to know us, their distant cousins. The last time Emblem and I saw them, we were small children, and they were recently married or graduated from college.

We don't have any close relatives on my dad's side, so we were included in this reunion in a kind of pity-based invitation. After two days of West Virginia mountains, attempting to converse with complete strangers who share barely-related DNA, and Family Olympics, we took the 8-hour drive back to NY.

The most in-depth conversation I had the whole time involved me getting advice that could be taken at best as highly insulting or at worst as prejudiced. From someone I did not know, and who knew me not at all.

I was exceedingly underwhelmed by the whole ordeal. However, now I knew.

I had nothing to worry about. There was no great family love, no exciting stories, no sharing of instant connections. No comraderie under the family crest. All of these years, seeing only my mother's family, not knowing my cousins from Adam, didn't matter.

I missed nothing. Nothing that I didn't have with my sister, my little cousins, my friends, my life. Disappointing, but relieving at the same time. I don't have to love these people. I don't have to like them. I don't have to worry about them, any more than I worry about the welfare of the rest of the world.

I wouldn't say the trip was a complete catastrophe, nor was it a total letdown. The 7.00 parking fee we paid on our detour to Hershey Park was worth it to get a tour/ride of chocolate-making, to laugh ourselves silly at our confused antics, and to get stuck in the parking lot, driving in cirlces until we figure out there was an automatic sensor on the Exit gate. Even if we didn't get bears that smelled like chocolate to replace the ones we got as children.

Temporary Soundtrack: Float On by Modest Mouse.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "There were so many fewer questions // when stars were still just the holes to heaven..."
Holes to Heaven by Jack Johnson.

Xanthous

This is something he used to do
He would climb the wayward trees
pretending he was anything but human
breaking hearts but never his own
being anything but a well-adjusted child

This is someone he used to love
how her eyes shined like black opals
she used to glow with warmth
his white skin luminescent next to hers
and there was sweat and a trundle bed

This is somewhere I used to go
pacing the ends of piers with splintered feet
dancing between the squares of marble
wandering the wrinkles in my own brain
So fey, such a fickle, violent child.

This is something I used to be
cold and aloof in my own skin
a wicked and capricious deity on a throne
marking my territory with words and glares
Feared and consequently adored against my will

But This...
This is something new.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ain't no rhyme like an approximate rhyme. <-- Poems Abound

This Heaviest of Freedoms

I. Walkabout

I removed the gold chain from around my neck. The one that holds
an inscribed half-heart and a ring.

How many times have I traced the jagged edge of that divided charm?

I seem to have swallowed all the bitter words
I never got a chance to throw at you.

I have them sitting in my stomach, a dense mass of letters
flavored with an angry tone.

I hear every sound from the distance of the top of a high dive.
But I've already plunged, so it must be the water that clogs my ears.

I smile and make dinner, I laugh and play the part.

I am either the world's best actress, the world's coldest lover, or the world's biggest fool.

Then again, maybe it's the way I'm screaming inside, so loudly,
that makes everything echo from far away.

I know I'm crazy.

I may call you again. I may love you again.

It was your turn to chase me. (The way it always will be.) Maybe I finally tired you out. Maybe I finally drove you away.

And to think, I was holding back.

I don't feel any of that lightness I thought I would feel, bubbling up inside me, lifting my burden.

I was probably wrong.

I am definitely cruel.

I am too strong for my own good.

I think you got off easy. I think you're the lucky one.
I think I let fear call the shots. (I thought too much.)

I twisted the passages from my heart to my mind one too many times.
They are the thinnest of straws leaking precious emotion.

I think this may be as happy as I get.

Why am I so weighed down by this heaviest of freedoms?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

II. Boomerang

You made sure your mother called
to tell me about the emergency.

The medium is in the hospital. The one who talks to ghosts,
who said I was beautiful outside and in.

(You see why I was skeptical?)

I did the unthinkable - ran away. But you didn't even know
I had left you.

I am torn between frustration and relief.

It's the little things that always pull you back, the
gossamer-thin spider webs that we have erected between us.

I hate the distance, those glorious mountains and the oceans laced with salt.

I hate the unfairness inherent in the distribution of resources.

More than anything, I hate my fickle, cold-blooded heart.

The same one that catches in my throat when I reach for my necklace
and find only unbroken skin.

Thin strands of gold lie in a resentful pile on my dresser.
We never did write our names on the back of that charm.

I called you. Dodged your lazy bullet questions.

I gave you an in.

I both hope and dread you will take it.

I could never sell my soul for a kiss, but I'd buy yours.

Keep it in a vial around my neck.

Wear it as a shawl, a blanket, to save myself from the frost.
(How do you stay so warm?)

Run it up a flagpole, sew it into my pocket, prick it, cure it, love it, destroy it.

Melt it and mold it into a key for these fetters.

Open me up again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~AEW~~~~~
Words are kisses are swords, striking from within... <-- More Poetry

Amazonian Phrases

Have you noticed that the SIPs (or Search-Inside Phrases) Amazon.com uses can often double as poems? Two word phrases, some unique to a particular book, which show up underneath the author name and description.

The Hounds of the Mórrigan, in which Pat O'Shea has created an incredibly poetic story in its own right, has the following SIPs:

little brown duck
glasshouse door
swapping sweets
old angler, hev bin
one with the hat
tall thin people
table landscape
metal man
new mare

You can see how this could easily be arranged to form a noun-based poem.

Under Owl Service by Alan Garner:

peat road
cold kippers
hen hut
pebble dash
marsh gas

This one is even close to rhyming. So I wondered if I could write a poem in SIPs. I came fairly close with List_serv:UNREADY (so called due to its bizarre resemblance to failed e-mails being sent out by a list_serv I was on, and which really needs a new name, but I digress...), but I included verbs and prepositional phrases, so I don't think it counts.

What say you?

Temporary Soundtrack: I Am the Sun from The Ben Taylor Band.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "And I'm making up my mind to shine // instead of letting the evening keep // I am the sun // That's all I've ever been since I've begun..." - see above.

Update on Two Stupid Things

Colossally idiotic Thing the first done? Check.
Colossally idiotic Thing the second done? Check.

Mission: As far from accomplished as I can get.

All I have to ask myself is...why? I must love the torture. Both of myself and others. Literally, it makes me smile.

Temporary Soundtrack: The sweet music of sobs. Sigh.
Quote Trapped in My Head: "This is somewhere I used to go // pacing the ends of piers with splintered feet // dancing between the squares of marble // wandering the wrinkles in my own brain" - Quote from a soon-to-be-cannibalized poem I'm working on.

Ace? Ace!

You Belong in Australia

Ace! Sunny, upbeat, and cute You make the perfect surf bum Now stop hogging the vegemite!

What English Speaking Country Do You Belong In?

Temporary Soundtrack:
Quote Trapped in My Head:

The Left-Right Mix

You Are 40% Left Brained, 60% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

Song of the Virginal Jezebel

Have you seen that girl?
The one whose eyes weave a spell so strong
tiny worlds masquerading
as organs of sight;
Lit with moonlight or ember-flecked fire
or even the heat-pregnant sun?

She with the silken needle-hairs
you wish would split your skin,
burrow as iridescent ticks,
curl around your bones
and replace your snappish ligaments.
Fill the hollow of your need.

Have you felt the force of her
pheromone musk pull you in,
bending the laws
of gravity and magnetism?
Her heady scent will
twist your organs into a feral smile.

When she frees the rhythm of her hips,
does your slow-flowing blood
rise to your cheeks
or drift lower to your quivering legs,
awakening the urge
in even the oldest and deaddest flesh?

Has that apathetic whore led you on?
Driven the very beat of your heart
with a knowing smile?
Only to spin away, destroy you,
with a careless shake of her head,
freeing her white-dove hands?

Have you kissed her honey-poison lips?
Felt the world tilt, drunk on paper stilts.
It moved you, how it broke you,
O how viciously that fleeting touch
shattered, rebuilt you.
A tongueless statue aching to taste the moon.

Did she create a tangle of limbs
for even one night in that merciless bed?
Did she let you sink in,
between her flirtatious thighs
and let you grow fat
on her scripted promises?

I am not jealous. I am livid with envy.

Have you sought that woman?
Devoured the annals of history,
churned even the earth of graveyards,
screamed her blasphemous name
until your spit foamed red
and salt dried on your fevered face?

She is a muzzled, bridled siren,
a most considerate temptress.
She will glove the hand
that makes your prostrate form stand.
She refuses to feed your addiction
and keeps her accursed distance.

~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~

Victory Through Verse: Alliteration Saves Lives. <-- More Poems