Seeping Through

Image Source: Mykukla

Defining Cleopatra

Glory of her father Princess Goddess who loves her father Pharaoh Mistress of Caesar Whore Eternal love of Marc Antony Beloved Enemy of Octavian Foe

Framed by the men in your life You are seen most clearly in the Cobra you pressed to Your breast To escape them.

-Skye

Image credit: Stephen Shames, Asleep in Car, from series Outside the Dream Child Poverty in America, c.1985 Source: letaobloquista

American Dreamer

The mist on windows hides the grubby face Lit softly in some dream

Big dreams Among the brown bags And beer cans

The rusty sagging car A leaky vessel For anyone’s dreams Big or small

I turn my head Going by.

-Skye

On the Platform

I saw you in the train window

I saw her too

You saw nothing your eyes were closed her fingers tangled in your hair

The train pulled free

The sway and screech receding down the line

I stood stolid on the platform forgotten coffee in my hand

Looking at the hole that had been your train

Wondering how long you have been gone.

Source: meryweird77

Hysteria

Straight Narrow Laced Up Tight

Bound by Respectability, domesticity, Mild virtuous Wife, mother, nothing more

Reflect, reflect Only wholesome Womanly airs

Do only proper Womanly things

Calling cards Genteel teas Birthing children Serving your Husband Father Brother

Reflect, reflect Only what is desired By others

But when you look in The mirror You see Your eternity and begin To scream

-Skye

Image: “Horizons” by Armando Veve   Source: Inland-delta

Viridius

Vigorous with damp And rot Life comes through me

Even yours

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Death and Life Life and Death

Seasons and circles Moon coming and going

Men tremble and fear

Crops fail to come Babies sicken and die Game is spare And the winter long

Men see little

Know less Than I

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Worship how you will It makes no difference to me.

-Skye

On Loving a Poet

A poet speaks Imprecisely

Leaves room between words

Your voice so exacting in your desire terrifies her

As if you would pin her meanings to the pages

Turning wonder Into dead butterflies

You love her but cannot fathom her language

You drown in it Reaching for her

Placid on the far shore She throws pages and pages

Written for you Into the wind

-Skye

Mrs. Robinson

Mrs. Robinson

I noticed her reclining in the shadows at the back of room gazing at me

Beware they said she is older than you think

Concerned

She might quiet her gnarled desires with my flesh

I gazed at her in repose

The white flesh heavy in its powder The tinge of desperation Pooled in the corner of her eye

Curious

I wanted her anyway

-Skye

René Gruau

Sacrament of the Sick

Somewhere north of midnight the priest’s prayers flicker through the hall a verse for each bead on the rosary twisted in your fingers a forgiveness for each sin real and imagined 

I have morphine and lorazepam I have a few precious minutes to wait with you

Yet It’s the priest with tired old prayers and absolutions in pleasing baritone that stills your thrashing that quiets your moans 

I don’t understand this young man in the cassock who will never wear a wedding ring bathing you in ancient words perfect in their cadence never straying from the book held absently

When you join him your weak voice dragged up from ether

I mouth quietly The relic of childhood Effortlessly bubbling up to join you

Yea though I walk through the valley of death…  -Skye

Source: magnificent-winged-beast

Nyx

Look at you carrying around night in jar Daughter of Chaos

Empty your vessel as the sun retreats And let me sleep under the liquid deep

Endless Ocean Of universe Sprinkled With stars.

-Skye

Image:The New Bedford Orpheum Theater, Massachusetts Photographer:Frank Grace Source:Ruinationstation

Elegy for the New Bedford Orpheum Theater

The Titanic sank The day you opened

Your gilt was fresh and tableaus bright

It was April 15, 1912 World war had not come Flu had not come World war had not come again

Merry patrons settled into indigo velvet

900 miles east northeast The cold water swallowed thousands While a different band played

Your opulence faded fast Dust caked, peeling, Stripped mostly Bare

You were sold and sold again

The rain came in leaving Plaster puckers, mildew stains, Mushy boards

For-sale sign clouded by rust You are eternally empty

Swallowed whole I tread gently on your aching abandoned bones Lighting candles And singing For the dead.