Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Undead

Oh, don't look so stunned,
as if you'd found a snaky stowaway in your yarn basket--
my crazy green skin hiding in your orderly museum of every shade of gray.

Love is a beautiful emotion.
I know,
I saw it depicted on television when I was ten.
On a black and white screen in my aunt and uncle's basement,
a raven beauty of a Vampire Queen
made something turn deliciously over inside of me,
easy as cow-tipping,
cheesy,
thrilling,
the way it would always be from then on,
with every woman I loved.

I am the package you didn't order,
the garden you started, then regretted,
and the riddle you'll never answer.

So, why do I keep turning back to see you,
still holding up your cross,
casting its shadow on the very blood in my veins
that I can never get far enough away from to deny?
_________

for Get Listed at Real Toads. I used ten of the words: yarn, stunned, garden, package, cow-tipping, stowaway, riddle, crazy, and television.

23 comments:

  1. Scary... the idea of a soul understanding love (sexual love, it seems) at age ten. Not the part about knowing about sex at such a young age--hey, some of us grew up in farms, right? The scary bit is that this "undead" being continues to measure love with the same "black and white" stick found by a child.

    Now write the novel. I want to read it!

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  2. I really like the way you take your reader back and forth through time in this narrative: now, then and what will (or maybe won't) be happening next. I read it as a journey of self-discovery and also as a challenge to the object of affection. The behind all this is your excellent use of the words - they seem as if made only for this poem, so original.

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  3. easy as cow-tipping. loved that.

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  4. Love that scaly green jumping out from the fibrous gray...

    Have to laugh, we used the tele in a similar fashion...even paired the same word with it! :)

    I LOVE the "I am the package you didn't order" stanza!

    Excellent use of the words, thank you for the challenge, Shay! :)

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  5. Are we meant to accept the packages we didn't order, maintain our gardens, search for answers to life's riddles? You have me pondering this morning.

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  6. Self-realization seems to bring both freedom and loss, knowing what one loves and knowing it is not changeable regardless of whether it works or doesn't...I love the middle stanza, so full of the symbols of being rejected, and the end, with the image of the being one who can't love but who yet controls one's reactions, one's sense of self, down to the very 'blood in the veins.'

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  7. PS fingers got ahead of sense--that last line should read image of the Undead being-one who etc..."

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  8. Your package reference speaks strongly to me. Many of my most precious experiences arrived as such.

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  9. I love the crazy green skin in all the gray, the cow-tipping, the package never ordered, and the imprinting of the raven-haired beauty at age ten who will forever be your muse........loved it.

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  10. This poem, this image and quotes, is so fitting for a friend. I will share, thank you and keep the soul sister connection thing going with your gift, gf.

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  11. This is perfection in its details and heartbreaking in its truth.

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  12. You had me at cow-tipping...anyone who can make that work in prose or a poem deserves a standing ovation! You are awesome Shay! Your talent always amazes me! :-)

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  13. Love is difficult to find and difficult to forget.

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  14. mmmm, cause that's just the way it is.

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  15. Filled with passion - your words.

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  16. You had me at crazy green! It has the snake charm appeal rippling through out- Wonderful!

    (It reminded me of Penny Dreadful)
    a show on Showtime-creepy good!

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  17. You had me at crazy green! It has the snake charm appeal rippling through out- Wonderful!

    (It reminded me of Penny Dreadful)
    a show on Showtime-creepy good!

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  18. I remember those early stirrings and their imprint on future encounters...

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  19. The imagery here is so vibrant. I especially love the first and third stanzas--short and compelling.

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  20. This leaves me with such a feeling of senseless loss and tragedy. So hard to be rejected.

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  21. "I saw it depicted on television when I was ten."

    and, OF COURSE, that was realistic!

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  22. Wonderful the way these odd moments /memories pop up and shape is and we don't quite know how but cannot deny it. K.

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?