national gallery, west wing by atelene, literature
Literature
national gallery, west wing
dungeons of wood. regal oak; mahogany catacombs. suit of armor cerberuses guarding each room, coming to life at a transgression. each doorway a dynamic frame into the adjoining cavern, sometimes a doorjamb sliver, sometimes a hungry quadrilateral and a jaw full of strangers.
paintings: a string of one-way windows that transcend space, time, walls. they hinge to life, to mortality, to dead but seeing eyes. a camera does not steal a soul - it is paintings that do. they have grown into the walls; watered by gazes, seasoned by talk.
every measure in talk,
you stir
no dust when
you strut, pinned and suited and
painting
cobwebs with ash
and smoke, a rose
procured like a dove from dandy
fingers;
face a powder mask, eyes
stream-limpid,
straight-breasted, smirk
hefted -
boyish, almost, in the cock of your
chin, as you pocketsquare away
every sigh tossed to you
Grab a net.
Let's go catch some dragonflies.
Dragonfly,
the rain-diviner.
Dragonfly,
the low-flier.
Dragonfly,
the jewel helicopter.
They are every child's favorite toy.
You can even catch some, easy,
with a honey-stick.
You can clip their wings
to control their flight.
You can tag them with friends,
race your craft.
Dragonfly.
Tear off its wings.
Now it's
a cricket.
Tear off its legs.
Now it's
a persimmon pit.
God made you
a serpent of the limbs; upheaval
in your scales.
for a day you were His favorite.
a skeptic from the start, you voiced
your forked doubts in tongues of silver.
for a day you were punishment -
you sought truths through striking glories,
vicious as you please.
He used you to demonstrate
His magnanimity.
then came dangling ripe red fruit boasting
knowledge beyond compare.
it taunted you upon that tree.
it taunted you among the leaves.
you didn't eat the apple
(why would you when you doubted?)
but you peddled.
furious. God
was so furious --
He made shed your silk,
then God spun it back to skin;
He dulled your dagger tongue
and
willed myself
into existence the minute i could fend.
or ran from home, house strapped
on back, and lighter by two parents.
instruments of their death sit polished
in the sink. you'd swear no one bled.
no sands of broken glass line
corners, and no ovens fume smoke.
no windowless photo frames
of ghosts and pedigrees on cured oak.
no extra plates laid like china
fireworks on the table to missile overhead.
now you can't place me on a shelf
or in a trophy case. i am no mothers' dreams;
my providence, my tragedy
all my own doing; i have no fathers' genes.
chicken or egg? what a mystery! to be
swaddled, coddled, smothered, washed, fed.
because
strange communion (or, Sylvia) by atelene, literature
Literature
strange communion (or, Sylvia)
She cut herself
on his razored chin.
(That was his first taste of her.)
She poured a glass
of wine for him.
A glass of blood,
a cut of bread.
She shrank down light, by
sip and sip.
(I think he may have savored her.)
At dinner, forks
and knives would sit.
She'd speak no more.
(She whispered it.)
Today, she's gone. No
husk, no shell.
(I think he may have eaten her.)
i.
The first I saw you in your starch white dress,
I knew you were an angel of death.
You brought me flowers, so very red,
They matched the hair upon your head.
They bloomed upon my window side
And kept me company through the night
A year, enduring, in moonlight.
"Come," I said, my cheeks still red,
"And cut my nails off from their beds."
And you took the clippers to my bed
And one by one, they shed -
My ten nails, once crescent moons,
Now all pared down to their roots.
Ten red buds of satin skin
Fell away to reveal bare shoots.
ii.
Paltry cure, then palliative care,
After which you fed me Wonder bread.
I grew white, though I never bled
national gallery, west wing by atelene, literature
Literature
national gallery, west wing
dungeons of wood. regal oak; mahogany catacombs. suit of armor cerberuses guarding each room, coming to life at a transgression. each doorway a dynamic frame into the adjoining cavern, sometimes a doorjamb sliver, sometimes a hungry quadrilateral and a jaw full of strangers.
paintings: a string of one-way windows that transcend space, time, walls. they hinge to life, to mortality, to dead but seeing eyes. a camera does not steal a soul - it is paintings that do. they have grown into the walls; watered by gazes, seasoned by talk.
every measure in talk,
you stir
no dust when
you strut, pinned and suited and
painting
cobwebs with ash
and smoke, a rose
procured like a dove from dandy
fingers;
face a powder mask, eyes
stream-limpid,
straight-breasted, smirk
hefted -
boyish, almost, in the cock of your
chin, as you pocketsquare away
every sigh tossed to you
Grab a net.
Let's go catch some dragonflies.
Dragonfly,
the rain-diviner.
Dragonfly,
the low-flier.
Dragonfly,
the jewel helicopter.
They are every child's favorite toy.
You can even catch some, easy,
with a honey-stick.
You can clip their wings
to control their flight.
You can tag them with friends,
race your craft.
Dragonfly.
Tear off its wings.
Now it's
a cricket.
Tear off its legs.
Now it's
a persimmon pit.
God made you
a serpent of the limbs; upheaval
in your scales.
for a day you were His favorite.
a skeptic from the start, you voiced
your forked doubts in tongues of silver.
for a day you were punishment -
you sought truths through striking glories,
vicious as you please.
He used you to demonstrate
His magnanimity.
then came dangling ripe red fruit boasting
knowledge beyond compare.
it taunted you upon that tree.
it taunted you among the leaves.
you didn't eat the apple
(why would you when you doubted?)
but you peddled.
furious. God
was so furious --
He made shed your silk,
then God spun it back to skin;
He dulled your dagger tongue
and
willed myself
into existence the minute i could fend.
or ran from home, house strapped
on back, and lighter by two parents.
instruments of their death sit polished
in the sink. you'd swear no one bled.
no sands of broken glass line
corners, and no ovens fume smoke.
no windowless photo frames
of ghosts and pedigrees on cured oak.
no extra plates laid like china
fireworks on the table to missile overhead.
now you can't place me on a shelf
or in a trophy case. i am no mothers' dreams;
my providence, my tragedy
all my own doing; i have no fathers' genes.
chicken or egg? what a mystery! to be
swaddled, coddled, smothered, washed, fed.
because
strange communion (or, Sylvia) by atelene, literature
Literature
strange communion (or, Sylvia)
She cut herself
on his razored chin.
(That was his first taste of her.)
She poured a glass
of wine for him.
A glass of blood,
a cut of bread.
She shrank down light, by
sip and sip.
(I think he may have savored her.)
At dinner, forks
and knives would sit.
She'd speak no more.
(She whispered it.)
Today, she's gone. No
husk, no shell.
(I think he may have eaten her.)
i.
The first I saw you in your starch white dress,
I knew you were an angel of death.
You brought me flowers, so very red,
They matched the hair upon your head.
They bloomed upon my window side
And kept me company through the night
A year, enduring, in moonlight.
"Come," I said, my cheeks still red,
"And cut my nails off from their beds."
And you took the clippers to my bed
And one by one, they shed -
My ten nails, once crescent moons,
Now all pared down to their roots.
Ten red buds of satin skin
Fell away to reveal bare shoots.
ii.
Paltry cure, then palliative care,
After which you fed me Wonder bread.
I grew white, though I never bled
It is Akhet, the season of sorrow and silt, and Set
must tense his sandbreath against the slick of wet
once more. It's always the same: though he's unsure
who started the game, or whose face he wears,
he knows he must prepare for the beginning of the end,
the bite of night and all the slippages in the inbetween.
And he swore he'd bait their breath,
but they'd rather choose death than fear,
with their tombstone legs, arms pegged
in sockets and their locked ears,
burying themselves beneath blocks
built to the sun. They outrun him, every time.
It's a crime. He remembers what his mother said:
do what you're able to keep them faithful
the upright nail i can sometimes be
waits for you
to love me back to life,
for your weight
to find its patient
and overgrown position
as you navigate a demolition of years
we'd often rather forget
find me in the arguments
trapped in discarded baseboards
under layers of paint
in the conversation of ghosts
gnawed into their grain
find my invisible needle
in the black thatch of night
when alone closes in and you realize
just how far from civilization
you had to go, to forget
you've never fallen from the tree
remember the future
half-buried in dreamceiling
lowering its calcified storyboard panels
of skull and iconry
and how
So, I'm lost again in Bohemia
with my French cuffs
still dragging
through the wine;
but they say my slippers
are quite elegant,
a statement in
Italian leather
(or a letter from my lover)
and I smoke a gold tipped
cigar
like
a duchess
or a greedy centipede -
my hands all gesturing at
once,
sucking conversation from the thieves and courtesans
drowning
in my bed.
I was once a painting -
something borrowed from Gainsborough
(or Sargent)
and my legs
are the late
My mother's corals
won't serve me for my
obsession
with hangman's nooses.
She's tired of them,
I know,
but she left her scent on them
gentle
against the paper skin
of my still,
cold
chest.
Inside Every Fat Woman by ThornyEnglishRose, literature
Literature
Inside Every Fat Woman
And one day there was a mass breakout of thin women.
In shops, on street corners,
Yes it was hard work, but no pain no gain.
Skirts were shorter, tops were tighter,
Nights were longer, voices were louder,
Men were shallower, but more frequent.
Confident? Yes, but
What had they done with my fat friends?
These werent the same women.
They talked of my friends as jailers,
Jailers who were fat, and nothing else, keeping them at bay.
My friends were never smug,
They were never loud or abrasive,
They didnt believe that looks were all and,
Most important, they never put me down.
A couple of months of rigid dieting will soo
a feel of free falling off a bleak tone
the test results from unblinking cell phones
to know that nothing is certain, to bar
the bond between, keeping vigil afar
offered in service to me all the same
to give in sacrifice, stern by its name
how I'm moved to tears, and foolish I am
in sorrow, the fears, the wolf to the lamb
you still judge me not, yet shame me instead
beauty to care shushes me when I dread
I can't share beauty by deathwatch's light
in hospital's gloom mirroring only its blight
I'd rather you see a radiance shone
of Winter's moon or golden afternoon
not in a wheelchair so soon is my plight
but lift me, carry me where e
on the walls in the third stall by successwithhonor, literature
Literature
on the walls in the third stall
this crowded mausoleum,
say willy & tyler & matt & jeremy & ian
and look at how their names become a song
see: boy stomaches an entire medicine cabinet to fill himself
see: boy becomes asteroid and lands, face first, on the interstate
see: boy origami folds his car around a tree in the forest,
or, boy is the tree and falls to the floor of a concrete jungle
and makes a sound. every time.
see how i’m the unaffected third party.
perhaps i killed them with my silence,
see this smoking barrel of a tongue
say nothing about what i have seen
though nowadays funerals all feel like reunions
except in black and without the dancing.
see all th
felling family trees. by comatose-comet, literature
Literature
felling family trees.
Autumn tastes like his name across the syrup of my tongue, his eyes held in the curl of every fallen maple leaf. He told me he had grown up as a lumberjack in a family of carpenters, born to fell his own family tree. It happened when he was sixteen, woke up one day with the axe in his hand, pine heart warped by snow-melt, eyes that couldn’t cry. He knew what he had to do.
His parents, father just a voice on the phone, mother a collection of frayed nerves, a creature of routine and neglect, four brothers of varying heights fashioning crooked branches into something beautiful, something vulnerable, easily eroded. And him, the lumberjack
the semi-setting of several souls by creativelycliche, literature
Literature
the semi-setting of several souls
haunted soul, you forgot me in the shallowness
of your eyes, the veneer that smelled of paint and vinegar,
of how the blood that never ran from my feet into my heart
could never go farther than that, and yet;
the smiling sun of bad recreation,
the sordid thoughts of being unable to break
through your mistakes -
citrus light, warmer than it should be,
while the world simmers, cools
and you are white, blinding white.
strange communion (or, Sylvia) by atelene, literature
Literature
strange communion (or, Sylvia)
She cut herself
on his razored chin.
(That was his first taste of her.)
She poured a glass
of wine for him.
A glass of blood,
a cut of bread.
She shrank down light, by
sip and sip.
(I think he may have savored her.)
At dinner, forks
and knives would sit.
She'd speak no more.
(She whispered it.)
Today, she's gone. No
husk, no shell.
(I think he may have eaten her.)