Penelope
by Bennet Roper
Matched with an aged husband
who hates your guts:
now that is a waste!
"Off again I see."
"I'll not miss you," he says.
That, I can live with.
I am no longer beautiful.
Webbed cracks frame my eyes,
my skin droops, my hair mousy, silver-flecked.
He thought I was a goddess once,
worth all the bullshit he went through...
I smile because I know
I was never beautiful.
Just an empty space
for his magnificence to be reflected.
Just a gilt-framed mirror.
He deluded himself,
got caught up in a life that seemed a map
to walk across, still believing
I was worth coming back for...
Even those men who stayed home from battle
only wanted me, so they could best him.
Men are dull.
I am nothing more than a shadow,
yet I control their world.
Twenty years on my own: not too shabby...
When he told me he was leaving --
I knew
Ulis' had finally realized I am
imperfect: lame, old, tired...
I shall let him run his own ship aground.
And let lesser men's
echoes tell our story.
No-Thing
by Gerrit Egnew
is nothing to fear,
for nothing cannot be real.
Nothing
goes bump in the night,
grazes on toes,
hides in the shadows,
coils under the bed,
splendidly vanquished.
One day reality comes striding through the door,
myriad splinters like snowflakes in evening air,
brews a cup of tea, to complement
biscuits and apples. Partake, I try,
but am excluded; I cannot engage,
reality in his fearsome feast.
I go, then,
hunting for nothing.
Nothing can shroud my shame.
Nothing to enshrine my memory,
as a vanquisher.
I cough, a bit damp. Driven by devotion
to my apparently (that is the trick)
nobly-just cause. Reality, he laughs.
Giggles in my ear. Bundles me up
and takes me home.
Forbidden the fruits of nothing, nothing is
something to fear.
|
Joyous Fulfillment
by Madi Lowe
Standing above,
looking bothered at bouncing, bubbling, boiling rapids.
I trudge toward dangerously-enticing water.
Feeling giddiness,
I gain confidence as the river reels me in.
Taking a breath,
never thinking about a chance of death,
hearing its mighty roar,
seeing its powerful waves,
embracing its elements,
I work river successfully through each rapid.
Nothing
could be better.
Blue
by Mary Parker
"The wheel weaves..."
Perhaps
she wanted it to happen,
embracing the end
of her life-long
toil
though she had
much
left
to
do.
"...as the wheel wills."
Surrounded by twittering machines,
not jays,
oxygen from a tube,
not a breeze,
and IV's flowing,
not that brook by her old farm house.
didn't seem the way she intended to leave.
Yet
despite the purplish tint
that had developed in her skin,
she approached the end
with her
trademark poise.
Lackluster eyes closed peacefully.
She tumbled
through the twisted
archway
into darkness
and was gone.
|
