Mask Of Aphrodite

 

 

 

 

 

Mask Of Aphrodite

 

"There is no cure for love other than marriage." 

~Irish proverb 

 

 

Love's an old wolf who howls when she pleases,

her black lips drawn back in mock of a grin.

She's made me her meat for chancers and losers,

to open the locks and let anyone in.

 

Her yellow teeth are blunted with winters

but her fevers burn hot as melted brass.

Her eyes are flat-white as Attic marble

rolling behind Aphrodite's mask.

Her promises drift like leaves in October.

Her vows of fidelity make the stones laugh.

There's never been one she ever was true to

except the ones who died too fast.

Since I was that child who was used as a woman

since I was that woman who thinks like a child

I've run with her pack. The crows find my dinner;

there's a price to pay for being born wild.

I never whore for playthings or money

but three times it saved my life.

I never lie for the sake of loving,

only to play at being a wife.

I never was called to be a drunkard,

but I've been every drunkard's best friend,

to drop the mask when I see it coming;

 

the black-lipped

bitter end.

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Illicit Encounters

at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Wolves, © Andrew Wyeth

Head of Aphrodite, via Brittanica

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret

 

No one told the owls

still they flew all night through

the moon-radiant snow, claws

cold as promises, to my white crib.

 

We cannot save you, they said.

We can only know you. Bald

blind medusas with all

their snakes hidden

 

behind their lips

will raise you.

All around you

will be

the petty pecking 

of bitter-braided bitches who

never caught a mouse.

 

Who, who, said the owls

will you be then, the dove

who tastes of midnight

 

or the bear who

sleeps the cold away

until the honey flows?

 

 

April 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Wordlist 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Owl at Window, Artist unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Black Magic, 1934, ©Rene Magritte   Fair Use

The Bear, ©Michael Sowa     Fair Use

 

Fairy Tale

 

 

 Fairy Tale

Princess Moonzumi and Prince Heart-of-Ash

were betrothed as children through a looking glass.

She never knew him. He never saw her,

just a shadow that moved in the mirror's blur.

Prince Heart-of-Ash learned bard song and sword,

to jest with a blade and kill with a word.

Princess Moonzumi went out every day

to dance with the Sidhe where the dogwoggles play

 

down in the mud, up in the scud,

around the green tree that sheds no blood.

She knew every fae in the wild dark wood

and they taught her to fear the evil in good.

 

Princess Moonzumi and Prince Heart-of-Ash

were married in autumn when the east winds thrash

as the leaves fell like fire on earth's mirror-face,

and they loved each other for a year and a day.

 

Then Prince Heart-of-Ash took his sharp bright blade

down to the wood where the dogwoggles played.

The princess died like a mouse in the leaves

for a lie in the heart only ash could believe.

 

 

September 2022

posted for earthweal's

Ekphrasis Earth

 

 

 

and 

 

 

 

dVerse Poets'

Poetics: The Good and the Evil

Sidhe/SHē/noun, plural noun: Sidhe: the fairy people of Irish folklore, said to live beneath the hills and often identified as the remnant of the ancient Tuatha Dé Danann.

Note: I wrote the seed of this poem while running a fever a few weeks ago, but the prompts shaped it to final form. Apologies if I have stretched the boundaries a bit on what was requested.

 

 

Images: Mammal in Leaves, author unknown, courtesy of earthweal   Fair Use

They went hand in hand in the country that smells of appleblossoms and honey,  © Arthur Rackham, Irish Fairy Tales

 Fair Use

Aubade Of The Scorpions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aubade Of The Scorpions

 

 

 

At night the little scorpions come down

to watch us playing at our poison kisses

to study from the dustbath where we drown

 

the sting that sinks the deepest when it misses.

I found flowers once where you had touched me;

black poppies sown in moon-distempered hisses.

 

Now the sun is crawling through the ivy,

its dawn a flickered fire burning wishes.

You're a green ghost spitting from a tree;

 

promises float away like silver fishes

and Love's a child who suddenly confesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  April 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets:

Meeting The Bar: Aubade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Crustaceans c.1873 ©Raimundo Petraroja    Fair Use

The Evening Gown, 1954, ©Rene Magritte     Fair Use

 

Dionysia

 

 

 

 

 

 Dionysia

 

 

In another century

I was a girl of a certain flavor

grown to twist and pruned to bear

a fruit never eaten, only pressed.

 

You were the satyr,

the goat-song in the convent, a

dovecote of vestals who cooed as you

taught them to break their glass vows.

 

At the bacchanal we all danced

indifferent to stares of the Keres. You stole

the god's thyrsos and wound it with lamb's ear,

soft and treacle sweet as your smile.

 

That cup that was

filled then to overflowing

is broken now, but too late, I think

for those who've already drunk.

 

 

 

 

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 and

earthweal's Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thyrsos:  a staff or wand of fennel used in Hellenic ceremonies, espec. Dionysius ~wikipedia

Keres:  female death spirits who roamed freely during the yearly Athenian festival of  Anthestria .~wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Wine glasses, author unknown, via Sunday Muse  Fair Use

Marble relief of a maenad and two satyrs in a Bacchic procession. AD 100, British Museum Public Domain

Flash Fiction 55 Special April Edition #2

Since April is still poetry month as long as there are poets to celebrate it, here is the second special April edition of the 55 for all who are still valiantly writing daily, or for those who just wish to practice the form. Grab your pen, your paper, your keyboard, your crayons or whatever suits your fancy, and write 55 words, no more, no less, of poetry, prose-poetry or flash fiction, and post the link to your results in the comments below.

The prompt will be live from Friday midnight to Sunday at 4 PM.

~*~

Here is my 55:

Masque

"..and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
― Edgar Allen Poe

You, two

beats behind the living morning.

I, the rusted

 cutthroat knife flower.

You, in

 the scorpion cave torn, and

I,

anchoress in the black bower.

We dance

a chanted nightmare leaking fire

masked with

green locusts buzzing desire.

Outside, we

think the red death passes blind

these chambers

where our bones will rest entwined.

April 2020







with a nod to Imaginary Gardens with Real ToadsFriday April 10 Play it Again: Odilon Redon

Image: Photo, author unknown   via internet   Fair Use

The Masque of The Red Death, © Odilon Redon, 1883  Public Domain

Ember's Midwife

Ember's Midwife

Who is this bitch

but ember's midwife?

Mother of smoke over ash

though she may dress in pearl fog,

moonlight, bribe rain on smooth stones

to oversee the buttoning

of her crucibled corset,

it only covers the clockwork, 

belts in the fire that heats

her Stygian reduction

of breathing ringed growth

to a handful of charry lumps.

Who but this bitch puts

black stumps in green grass skirts,

firedanced from large

to small, wet to dead,

from something like this

to nothing like that.

With her maenad eyes

and her syrup of poppies trickling

down my throat 

as I burn in labor for

each puling day, she works

and twists, an impatient midwife

who plunges in quick bloody fingers,

pulling, turning the breechborn,

yanking the leg of the void.

~April 2017

linked to Bjorn's Physics

Images: Flaming Giraffe, © Salvador Dali
Chici y Perro, © Juan Carlos Castagnino
Fair Use