Your company, a crown of thorns
For the guy I got seated beside at the posh dinner party
who wore his religion like a robe of righteousness
and thought I should take shelter
under its voluminous folds.
Your eyes
are Starry-Night-by-Van-Gogh blue.
I won't use the cliché of storms
brewing in your eyes
or talk about the fragility–
the vulnerability–of your ears
how your gestures are all hard swirls
and religious fervor, soliloquy
to a zealot's unique perspective.
But I will say
that I can't take my eyes off you
can't stop staring at how life
and the enjoyment of it
(by others) has you posturing
just short of spreading your arms on a cross
to complement the stigmata of your voice
raised like a blemish and bleeding on the air.
Your teeth flash halos of hate
as you try to turn my wine into water
lessen the loaves
subtract the leaven of pleasure
from this experience
leaving it flat like matzo bread.
I tell you I think nails are better used
for building things
than for celebrating wounds
while you masticate martyrdom
and sip on saintliness.
You see my words as candelabras
of confessions glowing in the room.
My tapers were lit long
before you sat by me
and tried to bask in their warmth.
I won't tonsure my tongue for you.
You look like something that should be hung
on a wall somewhere
as a warning or example
of what too much sanctimony will do.
But you're not some piece of art
depicting the germ of belief driven violence.
You're real
***
with birds
seashell
you are the seashell i put to my ear
to hear the roar of seas
i have never seen–
your voice is the wind winding through
pearl chambers and pushing
the tide like an unsaid wish into my ear–
salt rims and bird cries echo
the rise and fall
wind chimes
your words are beads
and shiny pieces of metal
and glass and feathers
strung upon strings
in my window
for the breeze of your voice
to move through–
and they chime–
they chime and they scare away ghosts;
they sing like many colored birds in summer trees
storm
your voice is a storm
that i run out into
to get wind tossed and soaked by the rain
hitch a ride on a passing farmhouse
search all the cupboards and closets
for fortuitous besom
and fling myself confidently from the window
and onto the air
that is filled with birds
tree
and when i come down
i root myself and grow
become a tree
just to have you whisper your secrets
through my leaves
just to have you snake through my limbs
sway my always reaching higher for the sky...
and you bring me birds, again, as presents
i wear them on my branches
like multicolored rings
and the song of you rocks me to my roots
***
two faced wind
all the skirts and dresses
flutter, flip and flap in the wind
like colorful birds
like bunches of butterflies
like leaves skirling
or clouds curling
clouds of silk, rayon, polyester and cotton
billow near the ground
pillow out from slender waists
or gallop like horses
around legs
are streams of fabric
running across knees, babbling over thighs
laughing and teasing of carefree days
but it is autumn now
and those who know can see
that the skirts also sway like bells
tolling november
hair rises on the wind
in warning
faces pinch and eyes shut
like the closing of a book
and the posture of those out on the street
on this blustery day
sends signs as clear as any found in almanac
they are bent forward and struggling
against the hard wind blocking their way
as geese make patterns like tea leaves
on the empty bowl of the sky
***
grinding away
those sharp teeth of hurt
have not grown longer with time
canined and rip-ready
no they have blunted
grown old through over-use
and many have fallen out
i just wanted you to know
and also, it's a little embarrassing
to watch you gumming the same thing
over and over
drooling now
where once you terrified
***
Annette Marie Hyder holds the copyright to all poems contained in this missive. She is a freelance journalist/editor, artist and author. She is the founder and curator of the international feminist project, "Facing Feminism: Feminists I Know." She has been a Contributing Editor for "Poems Niederngasse" and Editor for "PNG's Pancultural Exploration of Love." Hyder is the Literature Editor for INTHEFRAY Magazine. Her poetry has been translated into German, Italian and Spanish, included in numerous anthologies and published in book form, as well as on the web. Her feminist cartoons have appeared in E4W MAGAZINE and her artwork has been featured on the cover artwork for the progressive women's literature magazine, "WICKED ALICE MAGAZINE." Her articles appear in print throughout the United States. You can see other examples of her work at http://www.annettehyder.com.
