A Witch's Instructional

This is what it means to be La Bruja, the witch--
(swab honey on your ears before I speak, or they will curl like dry leaves.) 
It isn't like people think,
from storybooks and bullshit they've heard.
It's like this--
a candleflame-colored Moon rising 
through dreams and trees
into night sky, and not nearly so distant as it seems.

If you are La Bruja, you must barter with every wild thing-- 
taking some of each, as they keep some of you.
Sorters appear,
you know the ones...
made of hair spray and bibles, scared of the dark,
rattling on about their birth right.
You will kill them,
whether you choose to or not; whether you feel good about it or not.
Ah well.

There will be those who come into the trees,
even into your dreams,
to avenge what you've done while you were sleeping, 
walking the stick path,
or baying at the moon.
All I can tell you is, wear a long cloak,
keep moving to the stone-feather pulse inside you,
and know the Moon saves her favor for you, not dwarves or fools. 
______

What I'm Made Of

Sugar and spice
and all things nice;
red strawberries and
shards of ice.

North wind, south wind,
night bird's call;
prayer and peaches and
folderol.

Some from the heart and
some for show;
wouldn't you, honey,
just love to know.
______

for "I Am Made Of..." at Toads.

Minutes of The Marvell-Herrick Society

Everybody talks about
miasma
buboes
mass death
like it's a bad thing.

Gray skies are gonna clear up--
put on a bird-mask face
with roses 
under your noses--
yeah that's the way.

Everybody talks about
crops
cows
heads with crowns
like that shit really matters.

Kiss me, honey,
Old Time is still a-flying.
It's not love
but it's not bad,
and what's the dif if we're dying?
_______

Gathering rosebuds while I may, for Mama Zen's "Words Count." And yes, I really drew the Death card. You expected I would get the six of cups?

 

 

Bell The Cat

Bell the cat, bolt the door, burn the welcome mat.
Shade the sun, don't tell anyone, and when you're done with that,
 
 
Tongue the bell as magpies coin the language she'd have licked
the honey from, til day is done and drowsed and silly and sick;

 
Promise her you love her more than Terpsichore and then
her fading scent will pay the rent when she has gone again.
______

 

 

 

Emilie Sagee's Complaint

I was framed.
I don't care what fifty people said--
that I marched right up to the pulpit and kissed the priest;
then laid one on the nun as well.

I skipped Mass that day and took a nap.
Why do people lie?
Besides, no twin would bother 
aping one so very dull as I. 
_________

for flash 55. 

 

The Ambitious Waste Basket

The ambitious waste basket perhaps read too much into it
when it was given a clean white scented trash bag to wear.

"He's going to marry me!" thought the waste basket, mistakenly.

Instead, every time he filled her, he emptied her.
He attached a miniature basketball hoop and did not desire
her molded plastic body at all.

The ambitious waste basket grew bitter,
and took to leaving itself in the hall and on the stairs.
Finally, her anger set her waste paper contents ablaze.

Her prince arrived and, calling out the most endearing obscenities,
splooshed a bunch of white foam into her, delighting her.
"He wants me to have his child," she concluded, erroneously.

Her heart and body melted, the ambitious waste basket could not even react
when she found herself inside a larger container and felt them both being rolled to the curb.
The trash truck arrived and she fell into it without a thought, because

The trash truck clearly wanted her, and held her tight,
though he smelled pretty bad and didn't talk much.
"It's just l'amour fou!" said the ambitious waste basket, quite correctly this time. 
________

My Other Hand

They tell me--I mean the throat clearers in their white coats--
that my extra hand is a blighted twin,
and that its presence on the right side of my back is not threatening.

The fools.
Hungering for love like anyone else, I gave in
to someone's touch. In mid-declaration, he found the hand
and jumped away as if electrocuted when he saw what he'd touched.

In church, wearing my customary black,
I pray, and in my prayer, I lie, giving thanks.
The horrid hand crosses itself at the moment of deceit,
and my skin crawls so badly that I nearly scream right there in the pew.

The worst part is that I can't really see it.
I twist painfully, my back to the mirror, but it curls away 
like some unholy creature avoiding teeth, or fire.
I curse it, sobbing with frustration, the hand mirror smashed.

At night, the hand traces letters against the skin of my back,
but the language makes no sense except to devils and Gypsies.
My mother brought the doctor, then the priest, upon finding me
blood-drenched and wheezing on the floor in the morning.

Who could blame me, for the knife?
Who could forecast that the thing would defend itself,
at cost of three fingers, one of them mine?

The same doctors performed surgery that afternoon,
pronounced the thing removed and benign,
but I know better, and carry the scars to prove it.
______

for my own Fireblossom Friday challenge at Real Toads: "It's Only A Paper Moon."