2024-01-04

poetry/c/cameron.txt

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+Cameron
+2023-05-09
+
+***
+
+Artist date
+by mandate
+of the book whose morning pages I hate.
+I picked the library
+because there's naught else to do
+in this town so sleepy and dimmed of hue.
+Angel numbers follow me,
+companionship, matrimony,
+"happy couple" pair I drew
+from the deck earlier this week
+in divining
+the vibe.
+Will you forgive me, Jett,
+if I can't live up to my promises?
+If I've got no place exciting
+to choose for these weekly outings?
+
+"I was hoping you'd pick
+the library
+anyway.
+I'm not a fan of crowds or noise blankets."
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/carmine.txt

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+Carmine Red
+2022-03-06
+
+***
+
+March is Women's History
+Month. Time to sit
+down and reflect on all the shit
+my ancestors went through
+so that I could be
+here today, collapsed in bed,
+distressed,
+wracked with anxiety,
+in desperate need to be exhumed
+from this disintegrating body.
+
+I'm forgetting my own herstory.
+Past entries in my journals
+are becoming letters from foreign countries,
+the other timelines where I am well,
+doing well,
+not at the bottom of a well.
+The other timelines where I am making things
+of worldwide importance,
+where on my childhood detractors
+I've gotten revenge.
+Not wishing I was a bird
+like those outside that now return
+in preparation for spring.
+
+It could have been so much worse.
+Straitjacket, locked up, never heard
+from again. Maybe lobotomized.
+How many geniuses have met their demise
+at the hands of a crude scalpel,
+I wonder? And I, here,
+how could I in this day or now convince
+the padded-wall jailers
+that the other soul that resides in me means well?
+"She has dominion over 
+every part of me,
+but *noli timere*: I have no desire
+to harm my family."
+Who would lis-
+ten, not lock me up for ten
+days, weeks, months, years
+until I renounced this world within me so dear?
+
+Tell me, can you hear the screams
+from behind
+tied-
+on masks plastered with smiles
+for the crime
+of omitting domestic servitude from one's dreams?
+Can you feel on your hands the blood spilled
+from God's unwanted "blessing" that might instead kill
+when it comes to term, woman coming to terms
+that the Son who bled with promise to save
+won't give her better than wires with which to lacerate?
+
+Can you see how bright is
+the future we might have had
+if every woman brilliance
+was not snubbed out at every chance?
+
+The sheer weight
+is enough to make
+anyone go insane.
+
+I'm forgetting my own herstory.
+It seems some days
+that things have forever been this way,
+each day bleeding into the next,
+record on repeat.
+The slightest bit of thawing heat
+feels like a bitter attack:
+how dare I be reminded that
+this isn't all I've ever had.
+
+How dare anything have the audacity to remind
+that one day I won't anymore be able to hide.
+
+There will come a day when the sky
+breaks and lets in cleansing sunshine.
+And I'll have to look my mother in the face.
+And I'll have to tell her that when I die
+I'm going to a completely different place
+than Heaven or Hell.
+I'm going to remember the hell
+that the men of all history have inflicted
+and make a new world where to be what I am
+is not a sin, not gravely iniquitous.
+And she'll have to confer with Father and decide
+if what I've done
+is grave enough
+to warrant the psych ward's involuntary hold.
+
+This is my birthright as a female, isn't it?
+The padded room's blistering cold.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/choco.txt

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+That Ain't Chocolate, Son
+2020-11-15
+
+***
+
+There are nine hedgehogs
+in my house. I have nothing
+to do with them because, every time
+my mother or my brothers
+hold one in their hands,
+the tiny creature immediately
+sets to work
+shitting out a log.
+
+I may be evil
+and belonging to foreign lands,
+but I abhor having
+such filth
+on my hands.
+
+So tell me, mother,
+why do you hate that I
+always close my door
+when you act as if
+everything of mine
+is actually yours?
+
+My pad of art paper,
+saved for stormy weather,
+gone one day
+into the paper shredder
+
+to serve as bedding
+for ungrateful creatures
+who couldn't tell the difference
+between a slaughter
+and a wedding.
+
+"I don't care
+that you're busy having fun
+with your brother you usually torment.
+That's not the purpose
+for which you are meant.
+Be a good girl and help him take
+the hedgehog wheels upstairs."
+
+How delicious it is to say
+that actually I don't have to spend any pains
+on those who rob me of the sun:
+"Not my pet, not my problem."
+
+Because of them, I have to
+live in a house full of
+poop and paper shreds and
+shit-covered wheels that squeal
+at all hours of the night.
+
+Somehow, I don't believe
+you're half as "low-income"
+as you claim to be.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/chow_locales.txt

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+Chow Locales
+2023-03-02
+
+***
+
+Last night to myself I thought
+in midst of writing drought
+while laying myself down in bed,
+"When will I ever feel better again?"
+
+Swinging on the crests of zig-zag Sowelo,
+landing on all fours as low
+as they'll go,
+close to the ground.
+I wake up at midnight in a sweat.
+"Just a dream; no need to fret."
+Crawled out of bed
+on dog hair-frosted floor
+with thrashing hunger too loud to ignore.
+My brain'd make me eat an entire damn pizza
+if I weren't too much of a coward
+to operate the oven at this ungodly hour,
+and even then, when all's said'n'done
+and I've been abandoned by feral fervor,
+my stomach would probably either vomit all out or rupture.
+
+Lover takes in her hands my jaw,
+peels back my lips to see my fangs long.
+My fingers around her wrists, trembles.
+Pinpricks of pupils. Fear of going feral.
+"Desperate devouring is a fashion you wear well."
+
+Jormungandr and Ouroboros,
+masters of yoga, flexible enough to hold the pose
+of curling around to bite their own tails.
+I'd maybe get halfway there and fail,
+collapse in a crumpled heap on the ground.
+There are easier ways to have my foot in my mouth.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/clocktower.txt

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+Clocktower Blitz
+2022-04-06
+
+***
+
+Please, my love, come home unharmed.
+It's been almost a month since I
+found you injured, limping, on a farm
+half-familiar, glowing hearth.
+We've been here before- or, at least, I have,
+wandering in sprawling fields
+trying to find homebound path.
+
+Because isn't that
+what this is all about?
+Trying to find the way back home
+despite all those who've declared
+themselves roadblocks, obstacles.
+Each of us condemned to roam,
+sometimes aimless, usually on our own,
+no one to ask us how we fare.
+
+The bloodlust of my youth has faded away.
+I've grown sick of conflict, of battles, of war.
+How can anyone think cold-blooded murder holds glamour?
+I'm sick as an invalid
+two steps in the grave
+of every moment worrying if you're okay.
+
+"If there was a path
+out of this heartbreak
+without suffering any pain,
+believe me,
+Lethe,
+I'd take it in a single breath."
+
+I'd rather die
+than live a thousand lives
+safe but absent from your light.
+But there's nothing I can do
+as you ascend the campus clock tower
+with staff in hand,
+ready and prepared to make a last stand.
+"I need you to know I feel the same.
+Truth be told, I always have.
+I've got a bad limp, but if I get my way,
+you won't have to wait
+much longer."
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/comer-beber.txt

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+comer / beber
+2020-02-11
+
+***
+
+eat up, drink up, my children
+are starving for sustenance
+eyes rolling like a madman
+trapped in endless raving trance
+
+don't let it all consume you
+like your ancestors have before
+you despise walking on other's footsteps
+stopping short of the golden door
+
+save some for the little kids crawling in the back
+they've been waiting for eternity
+and will have to wait millennia more
+for their turn to hear and see
+
+call me when the roast is done
+and I'll bring a hose with me
+your flowers are at the verge of wilting
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/confectionery-contempt.txt

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+confectionery contempt
+2016-04-28
+
+***
+
+one of these days in the summer heat
+your sweet sugar will rot my teeth
+planting a seed inside my chest
+and growing a candy cane forest
+
+the last I remember of you
+your skin felt like peppermint stew
+with a dash of cotton candy here and there
+leaving finely spun strands everywhere
+
+every night for my dessert
+you’d melt into me along with the hurt
+like you dumped sour worms into my wounds
+the chocolate bubbling on the stove will be ready soon
+
+your presence won’t disappear from this house
+like the licorice stolen by that one mouse
+sticky blue handprints left on the walls
+elongating as my “lollipop” falls
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/corner-witch-2.txt

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+CORNER WITCH II
+2020-12-07
+
+***
+
+what would you lack
+had you a magic cloak
+that, come three twirls,
+would turn you into a bird black?
+
+the whole world would become my nest,
+and I would roam the world,
+never returning home,
+not even at parents' behest
+
+I wish that I could say
+that that would be the end of my problems,
+gaining mobility,
+that everything would then turn out okay:
+
+but I have not yet come to terms
+with the fact I have too much baggage,
+too many trinkets I would need to bring along,
+unless I wanted to shrink my whole world down to a single worm
+
+and while inside I may be an animal,
+divine creature begging to break through my skin,
+I must treat this body as human,
+lest I break down and become unwell
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/corner-witch.txt

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+CORNER WITCH
+2020-04-06
+
+***
+
+what would you do
+with a magic cloak
+that come three twirls
+would turn you into a bird blue?
+
+I'd escape out my bedroom window
+and let the wind take me where it will
+whether past the horizon or back to my windowsill
+to watch the sky's fiery chariot plunge down low
+
+but there's nowhere far I could go
+no hope of bringing along my things
+with legs like easily-snapped twigs
+that bleed lost promises into the snow
+
+and Pernicious does not as much sway
+as the wind tousling the trees' hair
+to convince me to abandon everything
+and seek her bosom in hopes all will turn out okay
+
+and what would Eternal Mother say when
+I turn up at her door not to sing of her animals,
+but to come one forevermore?
+to abandon my voice, a sin
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/crescendo.txt

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+crescendo
+2016-03-12
+
+***
+
+sweetness never stays.
+no horizon is worth chasing relentlessly
+ambition fades into obsession
+and crescendos in devastation
+
+a delicate ball of pure glass
+wound out of the finest sands
+twice shattered and once glued
+can never be truly put back together
+
+sticks and stones
+may break people’s bones
+but scars dug deep enough
+never truly heal
+
+where is the peace I paid for?
+surely my childhood doesn't hold a monopoly
+although countless summer afternoons spent poring over
+paper money counts in some convoluted way
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/cultivator.txt

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+Cultivator
+2022-05-20
+
+***
+
+We're coming up on the end of the Eschaton, you and I,
+and for almost a year I've planned for next month to die.
+But it's impossible to plan for every contingency.
+What are we to do if May passes and I'm still living?
+
+I've kept this faith secret in me, learned every way to hide
+and still let through a sliver of this lightning kept inside.
+There's so much love you've planted in this garden that's my body
+that perhaps, if I stand still enough, others will see my wings.
+
+In the birds that convened outside my window
+gathered in a flock until they took flight,
+in the blackened tree branches that scraped
+against an ashen gray sky,
+in the first blooms and blossoms
+of my garden in birthing spring:
+if it was good and beautiful, I saw you in everything.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/c/the_clitbone.txt

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+the clitbone
+2023-03-09
+
+***
+
+mother handed me a wishbone
+jeered at me in mocking tone
+i could only see the bliss
+inhabiting the space in your hips
+and heart panged with longing for home
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander