~this week’s poems~
Prairie dirt shutters my windows
like a shrug, and I say that
melancholy shouldn’t feel this black–
the glass should be clear
and the view beautiful,
but out of reach;
so that in here
I’m zealous and austere
with equal parts
grin and teeth.
Your angels wield agency
like devils play my strings.
Either way, we dance
together and detached,
our volition the cute smile
on the ash and bone cheeks
we anguish with tears and sweat
wiped lovingly away with their wings;
we’ll always be such naughty little marionettes.
I’m a zealot two drinks
after dusk starts ticking
on my temples, nervously
flicking the barbs on my crown
as they thicken with layers
of skin—I’m just that sort of saint,
a muse of worry, an artist
skinning canvasses in battles
I have no hope of winning.
Above my pulpit
swings a slip knot microphone,
and the man in the mask
curates my words.
He leads me up the steps
to my best audience yet
and pulls the mic tight.
I clear my throat
against the rope
and I speak
through my shroud:
my poetry
is immortalized
through the hissing silence
of the crowd,
the banality
of my last words
overwhelmed
by their utter finality,
and then
people
really
really
listen.
Whirlpool of Crows 