LittleDarkPoem

Hurtling through the universe in freefall
For the past two years
She kept on screaming
Throw me a GODDAMN BONE!!
When the bone finally arrived
She realized it could not
Stop her from falling
And she wondered
What would happen to her as she
Splatted to the ground

That was two years ago
She’s still waiting to find out
Hurtling through the universe
Silently now
Wide-eyed
Enjoying the ride
Some times
Clutching onto the occasional wishbone
Colliding with large femurs
Thinking she should have asked
For something else.

Copyright Iole Damaskinos 2005

Capricornus

The door is closing again.
Once before I knew how difficult
It is
To keep one's eyelids open staring
Into light.

The minutiae of the world
Bear me down.
I cannot keep that blue
Circle of sky
In sight.
I lower my head
Snort
Kick at a patch
Of dirt around my hoof
Soon
I become entrenched
Examining every speck
Delighting in the grubs.

Grubs!

All the while my fish tail
Itching writhing drying forgotten
And confined.

When we have managed to escape
We have reached water
We have felt home
Surrounded by wide open beckoning,
Miraculous

"You can always come back here" I heard
Whispered once in the space between
Wakefulness and sleep
The two worlds seemed reconcilable:

Brutal-chaotic-struggling-noisy-fake-false-unloving-infinitely
Rich-wide-open-beckoning-miraculous-real-but-
I am HERE!

Washed up onto this shore
Half goat
Half fish
Not knowing where and how to rest my head.
Perhaps
The answer lies
In learning how to love my horns and hairy chin?
My yellow stupid eyes?

My goat-self eats the world
Without discrimination
My fish-self wants only to
Belong be enveloped by
A greater source
Torn, ripping flesh between two worlds
How can I keep this doorway open?

If we cannot live here then
I must return each day
To knock
And force the guardians to remember me
The sound
Of my voice
Underwater
The goat-self must remember
We can swim
My hooves must knock
My horns must batter

Till we see.

Copyright Iole Damaskinos 2005

Death of a Poem

Under the mattress
for the past ten years
unbeknownst to its
soon-to-be adopted mother
it lay incubating
while denizens
of the world above
tossed and turned
flopped, giggled,
stumbled drunkenly
swore and made love
it lay furiously
crafting its cocoon
with miniature
calligraphic strokes
grafting
stem to serif
until one day
tilting up the corner
she found it
a lone ovoid
upon closer inspection
pregnant with searing longing
reaching out to cradle
fingertips throbbing
she began to type
breath by trembling breath
until the frittering began
crunching giving way at last to
one elegant black leg
a finely tuned antenna
now two
the grand finale
a quartet of wings
uncreased with magnificent
deliberation
and so he found her
standing
cupping it
a look of rapture on her face
turning a diamantine compound eye
in his direction
it flew at him
bopping blithely in its course
towards the screen door
of his mind
she flinched at the inevitable collision
hands flying to her face
and all was still

there was no turning back

Copyright Iole Damaskinos 2005