Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Tell Me Everything

"Tell me everything," you said.
"Let's have no secrets between us."
Then you sent your ten sorceresses--
four around the hill, with one at the crest,
three together in the garden at rest,
and two down into the valley. Such beautiful dancers, these.

My name is Melusine,
a love letter written on wine-dark pages,
sealed in a jewelry box with a serpent in gold at the edges.
You were a spilled apple bushel,
not realizing that it is the seed, not the fruit that matters.
What was it in the one thing I asked you not to do,
not to know,
that made you so keen and cruel to know?

Not cruel to me, though I am angry; though I am gone.
You undid yourself, making me the instrument of it.
Don't you get it?
I asked only to be left alone at my bath,
that I might bobble the skulls of all my old loves
and wind around them in clumsy recompense.

The next time you come to a locked door, remember me.
Wind a grape vine around your hair,
wind the hemp and kick the chair,
do anything to give yourself a moment to think--
then, my used-to-be darling,
open that idiot mouth of yours
and swallow that forged metal apple, the key.
_______

For Magpie #258.

Thank you to Hedgewitch, for making me think of Melusine. 

31 comments:

  1. A little bitter but a good read.

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  2. Goes so well with the photo--and the rancor so clear and well spelled out. Palpable, k.

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  3. The next time you come to a locked door, remember me.

    That grabs you by the throat. It's so perfectly placed.

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  4. I just love the mix of coversational and incantation in this Shay, and you know Melusine is perpetual favorite of mine--such a symbol of the violated feminine--anyway, I especially love the first stanza, and these lines:
    "..I asked only to be left alone at my bath,
    that I might bobble the skulls of all my old loves
    and wind around them in clumsy recompense..."
    Tags are masterly on this as well.

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  5. Perhaps not the most poetic, my favourite lines are:
    "then, my used-to-be darling,
    open that idiot mouth of yours"
    Made my day, Shay!

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  6. Nice Magpie take. My favorite lines:
    You were a spilled apple bushel,
    not realizing that it is the seed, not the fruit that matters.

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  7. Wonderful stuff, and those final three lines- venomous!

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  8. Silence is often weaved in cloven tongues... Had to look up Melusine.. there are some great mythology to learn...

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  9. She's trouble before her coffee :)

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  10. "a love letter written on wine-dark pages,
    sealed in a jewelry box with a serpent in gold at the edges.
    You were a spilled apple bushel,
    not realizing that it is the seed, not the fruit that matters."

    Of course the whole poem sings, but these were my favorite lines...

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  11. oooh, so creepy and intriguing. I love it.

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  12. These are the finest lines I've read in a long time:

    I asked only to be left alone at my bath,
    that I might bobble the skulls of all my old loves

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  13. But now,

    weeding through my words,
    I'm stung by what's taken root -

    Honest, painful, brilliant.

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  14. So powerful. I especially liked the lines Sioux quoted.

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  15. A bit chilling! And I know Melusine from one of the Phillipa Gregory books.

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  16. Call me a masochist, but I really want to meet the person to whom you're speaking.

    That second stanza sent me over the moon.

    And this was a killer couplet:
    "Wind a grape vine around your hair,
    wind the hemp and kick the chair"

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  17. Some people never learn and never listen.....love the intense feeling in this Shay....a warning done in prose poetry....amazing! :-)

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  18. a dark and interesting secret behind that door.

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  19. That old curiosity again. I just adore that last stanza!

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  20. Ooh! A shuddery retelling of the Melusine myth - I like!

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  21. I'm in the last stanza fan club, too! Nice work...

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  22. mysterious narrative interesting gripping till the ending

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  23. She, you have the perfect key! Hanging word by word, perfectly.

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  24. too many fucking brilliant lines to quote! and "peez shut big fat mouf" made me laugh out loud!

    love this, SP!

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?