Artifice
"Theres no art to find the minds construction in the face."
Macbeth 1.4.13-14
Its not that crows
and orioles might take us
all; not that they will
set upon us in terrible clouds,
ripping into our carpentry
until brood and queen lay ruined
all because the drones
who guard this hive are stingless.
Its not that Im quick
to throw off the last of my time
when still some gathering is left
for me. Its not any of that.
The drones way does not fail
so that I must lift myself
yellow-masked into his life,
leaving others to live my own.
Neither deception nor insight,
there is o
you were an island
mountainous & volcanic
fire coursing through you
even in dormancy
unyielding
and surrounded by ash
i am the sea
a tumultuous expanse
giving way
even as i crashed against you
as prone to storms
as placidity
you had risen up as a breaker to my tides
and i wanted only to curl myself around you
sluicing through the sharpness of you unharmed
but you took my embrace as a threat of drowning
cotillion II: devotion by 007-seriously-serial, literature
Literature
cotillion II: devotion
the house grew up around us.
older than me, mother, brother
combined, older than conflicts that kept father away.
practicing style my mother laid a bacchanal;
flowers de-lis’ing above thresholds
velvet crushed her dusky den.
i attendant to her lacquered branches, polished
pressed cherry tops. i angled brass limbs
and aching vases, open for any stems,
empty and begging to hold
something that might die in the mouth.
everything leaned in for the first move
to be made, for the mad wick to flame.
everything cradled its fullness
and avoided the gleaming arms of cross
and ceramic angels gliding.