ghosts

I slip into anonymous and then find it brings me to a world I never knew was there  

is it easier to find one’s voice when the audience is glad you speak in a whisper 

and listen better 

if they cannot see my face —how do I say, I’m not ok, please do not come too close to me….. don’t ask so many questions ….. don’t look at me so closely ….sometimes I wonder if I’m a zombie but here when I say I’m a freak to a faceless virtual room 

   it starts to get eerie when you wonder if the echoes are real or just the tubes in the matrix farm 

she wolf

come howl 

at me 

    don’t 

leave me lost 

come howl 

your predator call 

having said

seen but maybe 

now lost words upon  

   my

 walls 

& tell me

to you do

I 

matter

oh come howl

& say you

see

me

still

on this whirling planet 

    we spin 

and we hold on trying not to let go the grip 

as it flings us 

it flings us 

   come howl

howl at me 

and drag me back to your cave

do you see me 

changing in the distortions of life, the distortions of light, changing yet ever constant 

in the moon’s changing light

do you hear me howl ?

A rumpled head Analogy

Analogy

I have brushed my hair for the first time in years. What chaotic havoc the curls have created, it has been a war with Medusa’s snakes; they have a mind of their own, those locks. 

No I correct myself; they are coils but with individual minds like an octopus and all at war against me. 

I say—go there! I say—nay, not to the left, wave right—once twice then get the iron and guess what? It is tougher than even heat the mulatto beanfield war of flames 

After two weeks at war, on the battlefield I find once the overgrown Rosamond sleeping beauty is unearthed 

brush, brush brush grandma always used to say—one hundred strokes a night, she insisted and there was so much more even then to contend with as it reached mid thigh

bend forward, brush down and count 

stand up and there you see the rays of the sun dance like a lion’s mane around my face and static —after which I have stretched out the coils to discover it’s several inches longer than pretended to be. The liars!

and still it does not go where I say 

How is this analogy — ?

what is beneath the tangles is just as chaotic 

and you can never win an argument against it (I know, I’ve tried all my life)

 

waar ben je gebleven? Net als de ridder. woorden. Ik zou jouw magie kunnen gebruiken om me weer te laten geloven. Het pantser is te veel. Waar resoneert het?

as much as I like being on my own

this isolation is killing me

Elan/ somewhere in time

It was as if time had frozen for her; Elan was so still for fear of moving to cause anymore noise to reveal what could be amiss behind the shut market stall. What felt an eternity of time was no more than half the time it takes to run to the shoreline from there. But also time froze in her mind even as it was time was still continuing in reality. 

After awhile she moved slowly, testing her limbs as she trembled. Tested her ability to soundly move well enough to disengage what was left of the dead weight upon her. By sheer will, eyes closed, she released the weight soundlessly and forced herself to move away quick, to search for the objects she had dropped during their scuffle….then to get her mind focused on what to do next. 

The sun would not be rising for awhile. She could tell by the moon. Her plan had been to change her clothes into the disguise she had now stuffed in her travel bag that had a long strap. That had been what she had first meant to do. Until the noise had awoken Gwydion. It occurred to her that now was the time to change her clothes. 

She had repaired enough of Gwydion’s trousers to fashion herself a similar kind, and once free of her long robes and the trousers secure, she slipped on one of Gwydion’s old shirts she had recently helped herself to and had altered to fit herself and on went the black overcoat robe and having watched him enough, knew how to mock the movements of a Druid in meditational prayer.

She tested herself now. She started to walk the width of the shut up market stall. But then she tripped and she let out a cry.

When she turned she saw someone come through the drape by the stall door. It let in the moon’s light and illuminated a giant burly man carrying an ax, hair like a white horse’s mane and a thick beard.

He stared at her and took in the scene

Elan had the sense she had seen him somewhere before 

“Wat is der bard? Bist ferwûne? kom! gau! foardat jo fûn wurde! Ik bin Willem!”