Strange Diet

He speaks a crude language, one of rocks and paper
One of frangible ego, always needing some honey
To lick the wounds closed. And so I come here.
He cleared these woods; he built nothing in return.
I asked for something because I can't walk the emptiness.
This bench is a full stop, a fool's stop, perhaps.

I don't mention the wolf, closer every day.
I bring a book and read; ants crawl beside me,
Dust blows in the sunlight like curtains, billowing.
His mansion is emptiness.
The wolf runs the ragged edges until I come.
I read the book until he's close and then
I open the newspaper and read him blood.

It's a strange diet, this meat of human cruelty.
And yet, it satisfies him. I read myself empty
And walk home.

Sharing the above with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United for their Sunday poetry rounds. I've been catching up on my notes this week and hoping that--at some future point--they will coalesce into something rich and strange. Or at least something with a beginning, middle, and end. I hope this week finds you well and your reading & writing ready to hand. :) 

-- chrissa 

Click

It's an easy removal, the soul from the skin
Just as you shift from one thing to another
That old soul, the innocent one, the mean one
The one that stayed up waiting out a friend's
Grief. Just gone with a click and a hiss.

There's the seed of the new one, writhing
Like a hangover flying from your backbone.
And you know they'll take that one, too.
There's always some line for you to cross,
There at the flashpoint, where all the suns

Rise, explode, and set at once. There--
Eternity fixed to the universal emptiness
Edging sight: the black, the afterimage
Of all the souls you've raised in the belly
Of your life, swallowed and swimming.

Okay, to be honest...this image just creeps me out. So, perfect choice. :) And thanks to The Sunday Muse for providing the inspiration and to Poets and Storytellers United for providing a Sunday morning full of poetry. This weekend is a recharge for me, so I'm working through my stack of graphic novels, one supermarket romance, one literary analysis (for research), one book on the awesomeness of libraries. Which, of course they are. Hopefully, next week will find me back on the project track--although, to be honest, I'm still going to be working through that reading list. :) 

Best wishes for a week full of words! 

-- Chrissa

Tundra Borealis

I would not tell you a lie, only a tale
Turning from moon and sun,
There is a light in a cave in a frozen sea
And if the world is breaking into pieces
We will drift there on this last sheet.
Lay still, the waters rocking underneath
Are chaos blue, radiation-fired, deep;
They will carry us to where they sleep,
Where brighter light, ice-sheathed
Never dares, in sun's despite, retreat.
This will form our dawn, beneath.

Yes, it's a weird, rhyming invitation from one polar bear to another to a polar wonderland, somewhere underneath the rapidly retreating ice. There, the fish swim in streams down the veins of glaciers to pools to clear to be distinguished from the air, all of which glows with the blue of a cavernous ice-sun that refuses to melt more than is necessary for the glacier to slumber...perhaps it's an ice giant that dreams a tundra borealis of creatures blinking up at the ever colder night. 

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United and The Sunday Muse as part of Sunday's great poetry whirl. :) Anyway...hope everyone is having a great week! 

-- Chrissa

It Was a Joke

Oh, it was a joke that afternoon. We were singing
About our tombs, the way you do, go along with whatever
Fizzes through the radio. Our tombs and who
Would come with keys. And Ann laid down,
And Beth laid down, and Carol, stumbling, after.

Wisdom croaks with keys, he sang
As we lay on the pavement
Axles passed and the ground shook
As we lay in amazement--

Oh, it was a joke that afternoon. We four, shopping.
Ravens were already calling as we were singing along.
I fell asleep on that asphalt, tarry and warming
We were still humming and the words echoed
Our names. He said the keys were coming!
Ann, Beth, Carol and I, cast fast in our sunning.

Sharing with The Sunday Muse and with Poets and Storytellers, where one can find weekly poetry goodness!

So, setting an unreasonable set of writing goals in lieu of New Year's Resolutions. :) There's a local author event coming up (in May) and I'm determined to have three additional books ready by then (one poetry book, one novella, one novel) that respond to three writing goals (one standalone poetry chapbook, actually finishing a story begun several years ago, and finally getting a book done in the fantasy world in which I've been noodling). Goals, right? 

Hope you're having a wonderful week! 

-- Chrissa