In Bohemia

 

In Bohemia, where the Moldau

flows and hollyhocks rise beside the cottages,

I went, as a child, into the dark woods to escape 

the terrors of the monster behind the door of mine.

At night in Bohemia, where the wolves

go and the moon rises over the trees beyond the cottages,

I rose with it in the night to escape nightmares

as the wolves sang to me like imaginary mothers.

In Bohemia there are hands, and cookies shaped like hands

full of sugar and poison. In the mornings the monster

fed me hate because I was a mirror, but the wolves

told me I was a lake and a home for the wandering moon.

In Bohemia, there are little girls carrying wicker baskets

beside the shores of the Moldau, where the rooks rise.

The rooks are born from ice in the blood of monsters

and they say, "we are the rooks, we love you," as they peck.

In Bohemia, by the shores of the Moldau, many children

disappear, into forests, or ovens, where monsters sent them.

The wolves heard of this and began to follow ceaselessly,

so closely that I became them, and they became me.

In Bohemia, where the Moldau 

flows and hollyhocks rise beside the cottages,

a Gypsy girl and her wolves shrank a monster

who starved on its own poison cookies.

So I ask you now, Sir or Madame come down the lane,

to my fairy cottage by a lake beneath a golden moon,

looking for love and loaves and a soft situation,

do you really want to fuck with me and my wolves?

Better you should go, and take your monsters with you.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #189, where I am hosting. 

Debutantes

It's like a telephone call from the bones,

a song that sings you, whether you love it or hate it,

persistent as a blow to the head.

While all this is going on, you must smile,

set the table properly, oyster fork to the far right.

Lay a linen napkin across the mocking lie.

Walk through the funhouse to your job, 

your marriage, the gibbet of your identifying papers.

Become an object of hilarity if you finally birth yourself.

In short, do anything but this, and then

cut a rug, or your wrists, when all other options expire.

We are the girls half gone by the time we start,

Brave, gorgeous, cursed, strangers even to ourselves.

Wounded Deer

Quincy Washington "Emperor of Dawn"

I carry the dead with me and they are never silent.
When I whisper in your ear, listen for the echo of the dead,
those riders screaming.

Every moment spent forgetting
has been a revelation of peace.
But still, the dead, on the end of a chain, grin and wait.

You admire me, all the things I have done,
all the dragons in ditches by the roadside.
The dead take the teeth and stuff their yapping mouths,

Slurring that I'll never make it,
never be worth their spit,
never take another step,

But I do, and they are shamed with every movement,
my life a pulsing illustration
that the wounded deer runs fastest after all.
_________ 

for Real Toads Art Flash. I chose symbolic.