Damp Vices & Sweet Loathing

 

My Soul is the Hawk in the Oak Tree…


—Poetry by Shayna Shanes, North Charleston, SC

—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

1.
these flimsy souls
love cosmos with the girls
that suicide attempt
was the best thing that ever happened
to them, they made awesome
forever friends in hospital
yay

my soul is the hawk in the oak tree
surveying like-minded travelers
i anticipate your sorrows
before i meet them
i make tea
of that wormwood
before you
come along

i don’t sleep I write
by myself and with others
the dead ones with quills
whose candles still
flicker for me
in darkness they’re difficult
to miss, we’re an army
of tinder and
hush 

 

 

 

 


2.
I employ precise wording
you were evil
so evil

god knows our suffering
and sent me
for your comfort
a mercy to settle
your tortured soul
as you were mine
my succor,
god’s truce
but you slighted
god’s love, your sin
was contempt
for god

you doubted hard
and thirsted fresh
pressed all the women,
your stale
and guilty
distractions

bees made honey
from the bud of your greed
a sticky bed
a dirty sheet
faith cannot
rest here

 

 

 

3.
i was born
into a devil’s house
my pedigree
allows for the dark
and the light
in you

i’m not afraid
of your sooty secrets
my experience
proves that good
and bad
conspire

your love is damp vice
my love is sweet loathing
the battle and the peace
we weather and rage
we know no shelter
from the storm

 

 

 

 

4.
what I meant
it’s not
i’m just
so rattled
this brain
stutters
and lisps

what might be said plain
is clogged and clumsy
i’m a three-legged cat
or tongueless toad
atrophied
there’s a word

i’m spent
like a nickel
no thoughts
worth a dime

 

 

 


5.
i won a guitar
i took a shower
i wondered what all of it meant

i journaled my gratitude
i sang one song
i felt alone in the universe

i reread your poems
i walked at dusk
i came home to a pot of lentils

i had no control
if i had i would have
changed the entire world

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

The moment of change is the only poem.

—Adrienne Rich

_____________________


Kitchen Newcomer Shayna Shanes says she “writes this and that, off and on, for better or for worse.” She facilitates a writing group for the Poetry Society of South Carolina and lives in Charleston, SC. Welcome to the Kitchen, Shayna, and don’t be a stranger!

Today is the day of the 2023 Sierra Poetry Festival in Grass Valley, CA, featuring, among other poets, Calif. Poet Laureate Lee Herrick. Also today, Amatoria Books presents Traci Gourdine and Patrick Grizzell in Sacramento, 3pm, and Chicano Expressions takes place in Stockton, 4pm. Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Shayna Shanes

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more about National Poetry Month,
including ways to celebrate, see
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month.
And sign up for Poem-a-Day at
https://poets.org/poem-a-day/, plus
read about Poem in Your Pocket Day
(this year, April 27) at
https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day/.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
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Just remember:
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LittleSnake riding a Unicorn~