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Swan’s Neck

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The afternoon is here. You are lost,

limited, sick with inadequacies

and innumerable attempts

to forget the unknown.

 

The wolf that communed with your bones,

did you place the swan’s neck

next to his teeth? You did.

You were scared but in love

with red blood on white feathers.

You wish you had the courage to forgive

yourself – days, weeks

on the edge of a sinister conspiracy darkness.

 

You are the last of my history.

I can’t go on in this vacuum

of thorny hedges, trying to kill boredom

with these grandiose unsubstantial schemes.

I think you are lonely.

 

I do miss you, sometimes

I would like to have your wax figure in my hands,

hold it over a candle, to see how fast heat can melt

your virgin body.

 

Everything is hard. Hard hats, hard watches –

everything, even your striking eyes.

And the Italian couple who gave us cookies,

the are hard and hurting

for revenge

And it’s no good,

it is just damn awful

to carry this sea full of creatures

in my stomach

to hurt like a worm

in the mid-day sun

attempting to mend this insanity

backhoe digging trenches

into my karma.

 

Please let me in on the secret,

can our gypsy dream really be over?

 

I want to throw the arsenic in the garbage.

I want to triumph.

 

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Copyright © 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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Published in “Medusa’s Kitchen” May 2018

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.ca/2018/05/a-great-wind-came-rushing.html

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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