The Rout of the Season

Daniel in exquisite style –
cut coat, silk vest, breeches mama called
unseemly –
reaches out an elegant hand,
never soft,
always ready,
a blatant invitation
to dance.

Palm down, chin up –
I know what they said of me,
vowed to embrace it –
my fingers brush his
with memory and promise
as I glide,
the height of fashion,
the envy of glassy-eyed ladies,
in a decadent waltz.

Musicians tremble
as we slowly promenade
past the fine, down-slumping citizens
who failed to recognize
the cost of a social slight.

We allow the orchestra to flee,
then bar the doors
and contemplate
the remaining few.

Apostate

They thought that by giving me

Time out in a naked room

I would emerge contrite

Obedient

Shamed

Under the gaze of a saint.

The quiet space

Lit with images of grace

Gave me strength

Purpose

Determination

To see the world not as instructed

But in the way I was meant to

Beautiful

Somber

Complex.

Years later,

The sacred walls crumbling,

I came to remember

And took the window with me

When I left.

Photo: Gregory McStraw Photography

Fresh Start

Do as you’re taught.
Do as you’re told.
Don’t look too hard
at the things that you hold.

Mind the condition
of soft oiled hide.
Keep sticky fingers
apart and aside.

These things we carry
are precious and few.
The ashes behind us,
ahead all is new;
no one will speak of
the deeds that were done
to you, me, and mama
under guise of ‘just fun’.

But I will remember
weak morning light,
soft squish of footprints,
remainders of night,
and chunky cold meat
that littered the floor
as we tanned him, left him,
and closed the back door.

Apostate

Stitches for the bigger lines
vining pink now that the blossoms
have been washed off,
running brown down the drain to disappear
in streams of crusted lifesblood,
promising scars much deeper
than a knife could go.

Plasters over nicks and scrapes,
mere reminders of the feel –
his hands on my nape, hers on my back
where welts now fade
to mottled yellow with a purple center,
another flower for the flower of my youth
crushed callously under heel
because I would not.

They call me heretic
when my only sin
was hearing the voice
of a god not their own.

Handicap

Our jockeys wear white.
Theirs dress all in black.
Ours ride without heads.
Theirs hands lack.
‘Round they go on proscribed track,
desperate for place and position.

Your jockeys wear black.
Ours shine in white.
Ours ride disarmed.
Yours lack for sight.
In mud and blood
they slog and fight,
with neither side prevailing.

From My perch in the stands
I see them all –
the headless, the handless,
the inevitable Fall.
With gashes and trickles
and foam-flecked mounts,
bursts and spurts,
yet never a doubt
that they are Chosen,
the others be Damned.

Eternal strife courts the fall of Man.

Dining In?

The waitress,
duotone hair, lavender eye-shadow,
sat us by
a Mexican family,
grim, save children
playing pat-a-cake, unaware.

Unusually tall,
a Black man apologized
to his lady,
bleach-dead locks, tan face-paint,
for asinine remarks
overheard by a corpulent couple
whose skin no longer fit.

Hannah and I,
road-weary, bemused
by disco soundtrack
and “new” items –
avocado garnish, iced coffee –
attempted to read recent tattoos
on each staff member’s forearms
and failed, unfocused.

Sensing hostility,
Hannah begged to leave.
Outside,
a pungent smoker
with skeletal grin,
sent us scurrying.

Quick search
reveals the Heavenly Café
never reopened
after mass-murder
in 1978.

Wed

She arrived on the tide,
his Irish bride,
with her too-bright hair
and her soft green eyes
alight with love.

Her gloved hand paused on the door
of his coach and four, as she skipped
the creaky step as though she knew
it made the sound of dead things.

I’ll wager he never told her
how that came to be,
the things he’d done to me
not so long ago
when I was pretty.

She will learn, tonight,
of his unnatural appetite
for terrible tangles
of flesh and fear.

His desire satisfied,
she will fly from him.

Straight to me.

__________________
Apparently, this never posted, though it was written well over a year ago.

Honor (On Her)

Her night with Sir Knight went as planned:
sweet words, strong wine, the dance of the damned.
His horse wuffled softly outside the tent.
Inside delicate fabric was rent.
Blood spilled on the field his calling card,
a fine knight in sooth, a better one hard,
stripped of armor, scars revealed,
darkness hiding wounds yet unhealed.
His imposing lance seemed hale enough
but buried inside was deadly stuff
which years untended had brought to this state
and passed there to her, sealing her fate.

Trundling, weakened, disgraced by sick blood,
goes the once-lovely girl who thought noble meant good.

_________________
My entry for the new Prediction!
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