Her words shimmered alongside the fire,
rippling with life and light,
and in that moment, I wanted nothing more
than to sit there and allow her sweet words
to nourish me ’til the end of my days.
My eyes were weighed down by the night,
but her voice, like a star rising
from the sea,
possessed my ears and quenched my lethargy-
flooding my mind with her melody.
She speaks softly, yet louder than a siren.
She speaks cooly, yet warmer than a flame.
How her lips mold to stories
is magnificent to me-
and I hope that this tale she weaves
never ends.
The rain drowned their songs
and filled their boots with water,
cold as a dead man’s bath.
Braced on horseback they rounded
a hill webbed in weeds,
and suddenly the land unfolded before them-
a tower, standing solid and stout,
like an iron coffin;
a village, sunken in mud,
with long abandoned fields rolling across
the flattened land,
like brown patchwork on a falling apart quilt.
And beyond the empty pastures,
past the cold walls that threatened to scrape the sky-
was blackened land,
torn up by spiny weeds and husks of trees.
The sky was neither cloudy nor clear;
but a shimmering mist swelled the rain.
Some remembered this land,
and their breath hitched in their throats
as they pulled back the reins.
A gust of wind,
the flapping of cloaks,
raindrops clinging to eyelashes-
this was not the land they once knew.
This land was dying,
its fields spotted in flood water
and farms bare of cattle and mountain sheep,
with thatched roofs caving in,
and bone trees snaring the land-
they could almost see the ghosts
that, pale as fish,
dragged their feet across the earth,
acting through their endless day.
“How could this happen?”
they asked.
There was no answer, of course.
They dug their heels into their steeds,
and then reared onward,
as the wind bit their necks.
I extracted this piece from my current work in progress, and tweaked it into a poem. It might seem kind of lazy, but I’ve been overwhelmingly busy lately, and I did have some fun adapting it.
We can paint a field brilliant red,
streaked in tar and bile and bits,
but when the sky tears itself to shreds
and releases its fury in torrents and fits-
the evidence is drained.
When it rains.
We can ripen our quarrels for years on end
with hot irons and sharpening stones,
but it’ll all mean nothing when the floods descend
to quench our fury with thunderous moans-
there’s nothing more to show.
Will these chilling encumbrances never cease?
I am haunted by want, my soul turns to desolation.
Desire ruthlessly burns a forbidden path,
a flaming stepping stone along sets my fate.
But I can never be free from rejection,
never retire from this incessant burden.
It is who I am.
They call me parasite,
they say I am a leech adhered at the heel;
determined, stubborn, indignant.
I will suck you dry until you are a mere shell,
but what will you get in return?
A hopeless dream of chances yet unheard?
A faithful drone by your side eternally?
I would laugh, because you should know:
That is not who I am.
Today I was sifting through the dusty labyrinth of my computer archives, and found this poem. It’s from a few years back, when I was taking a course on American Literature. I wrote it in response to the character Lily Bart from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.
In The House of Mirth, Lily’s a beautiful, young socialite in 1905 New York, whose biggest character flaw is her pride. In the poem (which is written from Lily’s perspective), I aimed to get across her desperate desire for financial security. When she turns to a married man for support, though, he asks for more from her-more than she is willing to give. In the end, Lily may be a ‘gold-digger’, but she isn’t willing to sacrifice herself.
Your words are foul,
both birdlike and base,
and the fury that swarms me
when you speak
is a frightening thing.
Your voice digs into my skin,
fierce as a crow’s squawk
and sharper than its talons,
and though you have done me no wrong
but to poison the air with your tongue,
it is animus that ignites me.
I have no right to hate,
I have no right to wish your lips still
or dream of my ears falling off
so that I should never
be filled with your foul words again.
My anger astounds me,
my animus alarms me.
Raven shrieks
and yowls of beasts
would be harmonious in place
of your toxic breath.
If only you’d quiet,
if only you’d listen,
if only you’d realize your rancid words.
Then perhaps I would be relieved of
animus.
This poem ended up going a bit differently than I originally planned. Its structure’s a bit iffy, so I might come back to it later to iron out some kinks. The narrator of this poem is a pretty messed-up original character of mine, in case you were wondering.
“The Examination of a Witch” by Thompkins H. Matteson
Funny, how ironic it is that a fire can start at the
flick of a switch
at the snap of a spark
at the twitch of a twig
And that blaze- how it burns with a lusting flame
how the fire consumes
oh, watch it rage
Odd, how it takes but one pesky rumor
one curdling lie
one itching trick
to instigate a craze
Once born it rips through life like a merciless flame
that swallows up innocents
and spits them out chafed
an anger
a fervor
a blind, spinning plate
that grows in a flash
and dies in a gaze
Funny, how ironic it is that restless school girls
have the power to start
a war of the gods
a fight of the faith
a panic of fools
Funny, how irony has the power to kill
I wrote this abstract free-verse two years ago for an assignment on The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The play is set in 1692, Salem, Massachusetts, and is about the witch hunts (which, according to Miller, were instigated by the carelessness of a few schoolgirls). Much like a fire can start from a measly spark, a panic can erupt with just one lie or trick. Though it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I recommend reading (or even seeing) the play to anyone.
When I was first crowned in ivory
I assumed that knowledge
would come with the jewels
and the servants
and the velvet throne.
The pearl scepter they placed
in my hand
would surely wield power
and turn the tides to justice.
There was no wrong to be done
with a crown atop my head.
When I was first crowned in ivory
it didn’t once cross my mind
that simply smiling and stamping scrolls
in the back of court wasn’t enough
to preserve the peace.
Sitting upon a throne
did not render me all-knowing,
and the scepter I waved
was no more than a sumptuous stick.
There were too many arrogant thoughts to be filled
with a crown atop my head.
“The horizon is my
final destination,”
I said
when they asked where I
was planning to go.
“Where the earth crumbles off
in an eternal cliff,
where the sky stretches so thin
that there’s no wind to blow,
where the trees forget to stop growing
and the stars swallow the sea.
I go where time ends,
and also where it begins-
the horizon is where I flee.”
When pressed with the question
about my intentions,
I laughed and replied,
“There is no reason why.
I want to see everything
on my way to nothing,
for before I dive off the end
I must swim through the beginning.”
They deemed me a case
and snickered, “Farewell!”
as I fastened my cloak and commenced
my migration.
But I do not care; I won’t see them again,
for the horizon is my
final destination.
Alone. I batter blades in a sea of
mimics, all raging the same roar,
all singing the same steel.
Alone.
“I fight for my family’s freedom,”
three hundred cry.
“I bleed for the blessing of the divines,”
six hundred more squall.
“I perish for power,”
they all moan.
I stand with my sword swinging at my side,
silent, without anything to fight for,
to bleed for,
to die for.
Alone.
Stellular Scribe 