Carolynn Staib: August 2012

Boogyman

The monster in my closet made a mini mortuary

stuffed me like a doll, stained a porcelain face

snapped naughty Polaroids inside his dreary diorama

rouge upon my cheeks, body bandaged up in lace

Sly eyes beneath the bed, wide grin of grimy teeth

offerings from shriveled hands to justify the crime

Paddle in a pool of pretty things for pretty girls

pencils, pearls and panties, polish up for next time.

Goblins are as goblins do.

Incubi and devils, too.

Try to pick one from a crowd,

They all look just like you.

All monsters curse the reaper, my rescuer and teacher,

who snapped my strings and sang that I am no man's marionette.

Every toy loses flavor when it grows too old for favor

or becomes a suffragette.

It's your turn, boogyman, to catch the boomerang

and now my hooded friend is waiting just outside your door.

He'll rouge your lips and fill your veins, fit you in a pretty box,

then hold my hand and watch you sink beneath the floor

Live Love

Want to lay under the sky

feel the earth beneath my bones

embrace the fear I see

and call the cosmos home

To know my life is brief

and still be brave enough to breathe

then be buried in the clouds

let my ashes ride the breeze

But for now before I'm gone

I want to cradle every heart

touch every life with love

so that my end might be a spark

Every thing is fragile

every atom dies

still love grows

long after we close our eyes.

Make it count.

Wisp

Maybe if I hadn't been so young

or loved with my whole heart

I could have looked instead of leapt

lived inside a work of art

I could have felt you breathe

and not be haunted by your smile

that lives behind my eyes

like the regrets of a child

But I didn't slow to think

didn't dare to take a chance

was afraid to wait or sink

or remain inside my trance

So I let you go

though it wasn't what I want

and toil every day

inside games of if and what

I've told myself since

at least I felt it once.

I can treasure the thought

like it's something that I won

But I lost.

Memory is vapor

that taunts the holder from the past

a gnawing reminder

that our kiss was the last

And like the smoke it is

recollection fades

slips through my desperate fingers

leaving nothing but a shade

How do I contend

with an incomplete dream?

With a door I slammed and locked?

With a past I can't redeem?

How can I navigate

my conscious’s cliffs and bluffs?

How do I move on

when a memory's not enough?

Proverb

Don't fault the wolf for craving blood

or blame the hare for dying

such things are truths that nature sings

and do not warrant crying

Don't fault the hunter for his mind

nor child for falling prey.

Blame the one who should have known

to keep the dark away.

Sister Night

Sister night

Save the world

While nobody’s looking

I won’t tell

And dawn is dead

None will wake before you’re done

Swallow us whole

Let us grow inside your womb

Blind and warm

Sew the flesh back to our bones

Heal

The broken world

Wake

The sleepwalker

Sister night

Push us out

Into the open air

Hear our cries

The shock of life

For us to begin again

Embrace us

Push new breath into our lungs

Give us sight

Bring the birth of a new sun

Rise

Fellow man

Love

Submit

And learn to love again

Dusk

When clouds as shadows dress to woo the fading sky

and black trees cut from paper stand stark against the light,

When bells on tiny legs bid the sun goodbye

and lighted wings like lanterns adorn the coming night,

When all I see goes still and window panes glow gold,

sounds cease, wrapped in fleece

and the breeze turns cold.

When the buzzing drone of waking is swallowed into peace

Is when I feel you breathing and pray to never be released.

(Dis)comfort

I say I want contentment

I lie.

There’s no healing for the healed

No recovery for the sane

Flaw is required for repair

Resurrection’s for the slain

To find perfection is to die,

Immortality the grave

It’s through humanity we grow

Temptation frees the slave

Wisdom and innocence cannot coexist

Which do you want to be?

There is no purpose without struggle

We need to lick our sores

For to be content is to seize up

And improve no more.

One Day

We may not be acquainted

But we’re made up of the same

I may not laugh with you

But one day you’ll know my name

When this world’s run its course

Long after we’re both gone

Perhaps we’ll love each other

In not so very long.

Lament

Bodies die

Magic hides

Fairies are only fireflies

Health goes

Wonder slows

I wish I didn’t know

Greetings From Michigan

How proud your mother must be, sword-bringer

And strange how often I wish she were me

I can claim no credit for who you are now, or who you’ve yet to be

Still, I fancy us scraps of the same tablecloth

Where yellow daises dissolve inside the mouths of moths

Rest, little tanager

I want you to be well

And to steady the light that pierces your shell

I’ll crash on the couch, you take the bed

Or hide in my soul and let it cradle your head

Futile devices though words may be, and I’ve no steel in my name

I hope you’ll listen to me

I see you wither with pain and loss

And deny your desires at any cost

Loving only through film-reels that burn in your brain

Of lakes and kisses and sunburns and shame

And while happiness is fragile

And fulfillment is death

The idea of you hurting stabs me in the chest

You’re right

You were not made for life, not on a rock so full of cracks

But the world is lighter because you lift it

All five parts upon your wasp-bitten back

You’ll be the first invited, little Atlas

To the parade among the trees

Your soul is the least impossible

Irrefutably (and if I accept you, so will he)

Friday, August 3, 2012