Monday, March 28, 2011

Communal Sight #5: New Growth

Turn inward
  You are not what you were
I look at familiar hands
  and see cold stranger teeth
Who’s changed?

I am not a vine
  green-tentacled, wide-leafed
  turning and twisting my sticky-sapped leaves
  to follow the glowing fire of your sun.
Who’s changed?

What if you too are the same
  could I have walked wisdom with you
  and not known?
Even the greenest plant
may nurture, tenderly, a festering sore.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Communal Sight #4: Prophecy

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20

The words are small black spirals
delicate and strong
pegged up neatly on clothesline
like dead birds in a witch’s angry spell
they move no more
cold, dead, bitter, strange
their luminescence has drained out
long fingers pluck their flesh
they are empty hulls
  waiting
  fill them
invisible liquid soaks their cracked cold skin
they bulge, fill, flatten, bloat
soft curves become taut points
Each knife thrust bends
they are strung out in black, familiar patterns
they are still strange.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Communal Sight #3: Valse Triste

I have waltzed for a long time
spinning in emerald circles across the floor
my skirts stand out, my jewels shine
I have danced too long.

The world tips sideways
the music shifts
now I am dancing death
in geometrical, poison-green patterns.

my hands wither
my jewels cloud
my hair dulls
my flesh dries

"come, who will dance?"
join me in my crazy circles
patterns of a maddened mind
music from twisted strings

we all dance here
some are more shadows
some less flesh
we are caught in a skewed pattern

Monday, March 7, 2011

Communal Sight #2: Scherenschnitte

I have silver scissors
delicate as wire
sharp as ice
I cut careful circles and perfect squares
neat
geometric
separated
I cut out all the words you ever spoke
I cut out all the portraits of your face
I cut out all the moving scenes of action
            all the tears
            all the drama
            all the scripts
When they are all cut out
I will drop them into the deepest deep
and watch them float away like birds

  Then I will smile and smile at you
  and never say a word.

Note: Scherenschnitte is the German term for the art of paper cutting