Vox Humana

 

My voice slipped out as I slept,

taking the path between rows of white narcissus

to the upturned boat, just port side and starboard side,

no deck, no keel, with the world below and beyond.

It had normally slept in the blanket of my throat,

silent, cupped in a chrysalis.

Now it went up and down upon the earth

filterless, making many enemies, there when I awoke.

I hid my voice inside a bell, but it was only louder.

I stuffed it in the pages of a newspaper, but caged birds repeated everything.

I set it in the hands of my lover, and my lover left, cursing.

I hid it in the sound hole of a guitar and it spoke in every language.

I taught it manners and it died of boredom.

I taught it doublespeak and it ran for high office.

I taught it sanctimony and it attracted a congregation.

I taught it flattery and it was beloved. 

Desperate, I taught it poetry and it lay down again in my throat

where my bones fell in love with it.

A doctor diagnosed the shaking as palsy

and prescribed a pilgrimage to Branson or Las Vegas.

_________

for Challenge #1 Desperate Poetry. 

Music: Leonard Cohen A Singer Must Die

Anodyne

Our Lady of the Blackberry Vine

reads Rilke for the thorn-caught ghosts,

herself their only anodyne.

With sugar cane and turpentine

she paints their lonely coffin-boats,

Our Lady of the Blackberry Vine.

She makes for them the Holy Sign

her foxfire flock in rotted clothes,

herself their only anodyne.

Willow wafer, cypress wine,

saint cards she sews in pocket-coats,

Our Lady of the Blackberry Vine. 

Her hair is braided serpentine

to be for them a woven host

herself their only anodyne.

No Diocese need her assign

to wash the feet that need it most;

Our Lady of the Blackberry Vine

herself their only anodyne.

________

for day 19, ever so slightly early.

I have never had any success trying to write a villanelle. The only one I ever managed to finish was a light-hearted one about my dog. But I thought I would try again, and this is the result. Thanks again to my BFF hedgewitch for the forms she recommended at my request.

My Consultant

My Consultant says you suck and that I was right all along.
Oh gosh,
I really like My Consultant.

When you are talking, knotting together all of your opinions
into a rope ladder to nowhere,
My Consultant jabbers pleasantly in my ear, thank God.

At Area 51,
My Consultant was there.
In the Bonnie & Clyde death car,
My Consultant was there,
in the chamber of his heart, in the untouched beauty of her hair.

What? What?
Are you still talking? I'm sorry.
My Consultant is telling me about how to get rid of aphids.

You may think I'm nuts.
You may think a lot of things, and blab about each one until Jesus pukes.
Kiss my ass and watch it pass, I'm on my way to sweeter things.

If there's anything else,
go to the house where we first met, curl up as small as you can get,
and take it up with My Defender,
My Cat-Faced Commander from Outer Space. 

Accept her mercy.
Be humble, my froward shithead. 
Be silent and receive her grace.
________

Image at top is Cristina Scabbia.