Fin de siècle

I wake in the day, blinking in the sun
dandelion-fuzzy, curls fizzing out of my head,
the blood falling from my face like milk-glass--
ecclesia non sitit sanguinem.

But I blush out of habit and out of reach,
the sucking sound of your lamprey mouth
so many miles away, your voice shimmering through
my dark waters. Your direct gaze.

Reaction in my skin puts out tendrils, a vine
and a catalyst, opals poised to burn, acid
in the acrid night, full moon smiling on the auto-da-fé
of my heart, staked down and set alight

without hesitation. A shiver in the wake of your smile.
A note vibrating in the darkness before the dawn. A knife that
sinks in, remote. I cannot repent. I cannot forget. I cannot relent.

awake

You are a shrine to dangerous things, he says, while I press
my nails into his neck. And I am. I breathe smoke into the
night sky and wait for the clouds to roll in.

Kali, dancing, pauses between steps, and I run, heart aching
through lightning strikes and coming down hard on every
roll of thunder. Singing bowls chime the dawn of my day.

Tear it apart, he pleads. Crack it open and pull out the shreds
and shards of every evening spent beneath your feet. Tease out 
the splinters and do not worry, do not mind the ragged breaths.

I will do as I please. I will dance, singing, while I belt on bones
and crown myself with lilies and ashes. Howl hymns to me, taste
chicory and burnt sugar on your tongue and bow down.

I am lovely in this light, a dangerous thing you have discovered,
a monster and a lake, a god and a sea in which you may drown.
Dive, drink deep. Be afraid.

For I am a shrine, sacred to those who creep into my arms, to the tears
and exhaustion of love. Hallowed by sound and sharp scent and the burn
of needled flesh. I am a temple and a wave.

I will draw you in and be damned.

a pact

Jotun, jotun, brush my hair, and I will be your Thursi.
Call me night and call me cold and I will warm for you.
Cry out in my arms and I will be your Yagayevna,
witch-daughter and eater of flesh,

praise me and I will sing. Unholy hymns rising in the
air like wisps of fog, surrounding you,
binding your arms, knotted tension and anticipation.
Peel back my skin with tempered wit.

I will take your hand and place it on my throat,
hold a hallowed knife against your spine, press these
words into your mouth by moon-dark and while you
choke on them, I still will sing,

pull you into the tide. I will drink
deep of your lust, your longing, and your adoring
gaze. See me as I am.
Braid my hair into fetters, chain yourself to my broken heart.

Frost-eater, fell and fair, wrap my braids around
your wrists and hold tightly. Call my name
in the night, gasping for breath under my wave,
until we drown together and rise again with the tide.

Brush my hair, long strokes from my crown to my waist
and I will sing for you until you can weep no more.

Menu

An isolated heart is a terrible thing. You can salvage it in several ways. My favorite is sliced, thinly, and grilled. Serve with hot mustard.

If your morning is tedious, you can use this recipe as filler while performing other tasks. After grinding chocolate, throw in the day's spices. Your heart will be much improved with proper seasoning.

One heart cannot serve two without some tricky maneuvering. Be sure that you account for all guests, and have a warm, damp cloth at the ready for each.

Today's recipe calls for the following ingredients:
one heart, washed, pressed, and emptied,
one cup hot chocolate, ground and fashioned from the shards of dreams that woke you in a sweat,
one kitchen, cleared of sharp physical objects,
one knife, rescued from the aforementioned clearance and sharpened, carefully, on your tongue.
Assorted spices, extracts, and impossibilities.

Cut bravely around the heart, severing its grasping tendrils without paying attention to its cries. Pat it fondly and wipe your hands clean. Sip chocolate thoughtfully while you gaze out the window, wondering why the birds have gathered in that one tree, and why you cannot accomplish the things you have set out to do. Grind teeth and notice you have left marks in the cutting board with your fingernails, again.

Set your heart on a figured platter. Figures of Bosch seem appropriate in most cases, but a willow-ware platter can be quite elegant with a few garnishes.

Season your heart thoughtfully. Spice is a very subjective thing, but several testers agree that the combination of vanilla, ground coffee, assorted chiles, and coarsely ground black pepper is a fine and traditional flavor. Do not be afraid to experiment or try something new. Cover the heart with banana leaves and allow to rest in a dim room, with a tolerable red wine and a well-loved paperback.

When you are tired of waiting for your heart to quiet, remove your salvaged knife from beneath the pile of lifestyle magazines and test it by scoring a single line on the wall. Do not lose track of time while contemplating the number of lines indicating every dour morning spent questioning your existence. Set this fever aside, and move on.

Slice the rested and spiced heart into an equal amount of thin strips. Each person should receive the same amount; if an odd number, consume the extras over the sink, silently. Tears are optional.

Arrange heart thoughtfully and with care.
Serve raw, with bread and wine, after the salad. Do not be offended if a guest refuses your heart; after all, it is bitter.

Bitter.

--
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175754

In the Drowned City

Fish dart between the pillars, where the meretrix once paced; the purple silks of a dissolute age still hang, tattered, from glassless arches. Where the silk has disintegrated entirely, kelp sways in curtains, untouched for centuries.

Long-maligned Ahes walks through empty, sodden streets, an ornate key on the golden chain around her neck. Seawater has tarnished her silver slippers. Iridescent fish scales dangle like grape clusters from her ornaments; her gills are the color of rubies, gentle in their movement and implacable.

Anemone blossom and writhe in her footsteps. Sharks frolic in her wake.

In the well at the center of the drowned city, a voice rises in luminous bubbles. The red-bearded knight encased in coral cannot weep. His tears mix, unseen, with the sea, and his entreaties are lost amid whalesong and the dim clangor of the city's sunken bells.

When the City of Lights falls into the sea, Ys will rise again, a balance long promised, long prophesied. And the Lady of Kêr-Is will walk in her silver slippers in the moonlight, where roses will bloom bloody in her wake. But the red-bearded knight will remain at the bottom of Dahut's well until the sun goes black.

Spring-heeled Jack

This time of year again, full and floral in its certainty,
grates against my spine. The paper moon hanging behind
pale pink blossoms illuminates nothing but the aimless drift
of true north in my flesh, the brass key twisting, iron wires wrapped tight.

It's you, my personal four-minutes-to-midnight, dragging
this compass through no-man's-land. It's barbed wire alone separating us
from faded summer, shredding me like tissue while I survey these new coordinates;
diminishing your High Priestess of escape into mere avoidance adept.

The damage we do to one another is legendary, mirrors cracking
from side to side as we pass, seven times seven years of bad luck latching on.
All that longing after mutually assured destruction, now banked in ash,
the baleful ember of at least one crisis averted.

Still, your silhouette draws me in. Your shadow leaves me wondering through
every sleepless, jasmine-scented dawn. Is this love, or aftermath? Twisted metal
stained with red, the street covered with gems of shattered glass; perhaps it is loss
I feel. Or perhaps it is only the sound of another clock, ticking quietly toward the end.


--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Bran macFeabhail challenged me with "Crisis averted." and I challenged sparrow with "I say. Bad form, old chap."