Intimacy
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
When the Thunder does not tame
the Tender– that is the measure of mercy.
The fold of a Great God
becoming turtle-dove whisper on ear’s curl.
Dare I cup him to myself
as he has cupped me.
Breath against these dirt fickle lips.
Laying down with night,
my side has been a salted field.
No warmth of struggling spring felt inside my flesh.
I wailed at stones and knew my body
as a ghost knows its graveyard
crowded with longing.
And there amongst the ribs
bent to shepherd’s rods, He planted
a horde of romance roses.
Candles of red perfume.
He spread a feast on my bed
and honeyed my sorrow.
If I loved Him at all,
I would become like the stalks of wheat
braided by His drafts.
Like an obsessing cymbal
whose echoes cannot forget His name.
My devotion ripples and waves.
I wait to become clear.
Who am I that He loves me?
Should a seamstress protect a stain?
Tell the Lord, I no longer hide in shadows
for fear He would overwhelm me.
Fall upon my face.
So I may worship
with evergreen faith
the noon of Your beauty.
The Quick – a haiku
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
My flesh knew a laugh
once. (1) Shake. (2) Serve… for old time’s sake.
It’s a piece of junk.
Guiness
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
My gums flare into a fleshy axiom
You mount as a crown upon the queenly head of beauty virginal.
We told her, to roll her eyes like thunder so far up as to appear haughty
And she drooled with consent but did not flinch the flinch of freedom;
She was always a payne in the glass anyway.
Believe you me, that year winter left quick as a teenage father
Returned with several more pregnancies that the seasons
Reared into: peonies, no look backs, and something a kin to nostalgia
But which didn’t require as many professional mourners.
I fell in Lolita with the first two,
They were so ungroomed and took to the nakedness of wisdom as easily as expected.
I told them nothing. I gave them suck. They liked the lie of silence.
The latter I adored with all my dwindling optimism.
It loved the secret of my ankles and for that I told it:
“I know I can narrow my gaze, growl my desire, lick my fangs like any trained predator,
But when you hold me I want you to feel innocent, my blood.”
That was as close as I could come to “I pray to God I don’t turn you.”
But I did and when it died
It pumped its final breath out of an opium pipe.
I mixed it with magnesia and to old age be true
I have lived a hundred lifetimes in those last words.
The river of analyses, I’ve played in. Pon de river. Pon de bank.
My head beat like laundry against the rocks and I thought
Of ironing boards and getting everything straight
But I fell inside the wrinkle of another dream’s forehead.
In the trench war – memory versus records- I met Athena
And I’m telling you she couldn’t weave hair (or victories) worth a damn.
She was no virgin, she slept with my rage and I swore not to tell my religion.
When crossing my fingers
I am fickle as a mojito with a twist,
And in the peaceful decadency of Old MacDonald’s rolling pasture
Surrounded by lilac blooms, fastidious bumble bees
And the dainty cough of summer
We lived for the damnation of doing so.
Here’s to choice!
Here’s to the bacchantes!
To the laugh!
To what’s all the rage in the black-eyed skull of night!
To the corpse, she river-dances!
And life’s yawning zipper!
Childhood- a haiku
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
Child is mama.
Knee surgery – woman. Aged
happiness
blind, blind, blind.
