A Play on Blackbirds

<sup><sub>Blood is not a one man act.
With a pound of flesh, a pint
is always tapped to take the lead.

Families wear a noblesse,sashed
along the blue lines
of bluer beauty pageants.
Pedigrees; veins collapsing
with stagefright under the pressure
of too many needling critiques.

She opens, hands wide,
as if crucified.
And red streaks
across the playhouse floor,
garish like her mother's
friday night dress.

She is left crusting
on the rusty nail,driven down,
to hold her into place.
Blood foot the bill, sealed,
and embossed in their eyes.
But she has kept her dignity,
as stagehands pull the ropes,
and pretty comes tumbling down.

Silly fairies do not need
to tell her she is still real
in the belly of a whale.

Blood can be intimate.
With a pound of flesh , a pint
is always stripped
nude for the audience.

Sickness, in the kiss
of puddled lips,
becomes the painted mouths
of marionettes, laughing.
Fathers pulsate, jig ,
while little girls
love Gepetto best of all.

Womanhead figures
upon a blank page of sheet.
She dances in this hall
of spattered hecklers,
losing her wooden
limb of belief,she tried
to animate so long ago.

In sanguine screams,the show
is soundtracked
in the applause of mothers.
It sounds like pink, her favorite color.
An opening of faith
for when the flesh
bends, and bows.

Blood loves to curtsy.
With a pound of flesh , a pint
is always needed for an encore.

Love is a darkness
when the curtains go down,
and ranch style houses fill
with lifeless manikins.
She hung, and clung
to the strings of hope
that those lights
might come back on.
But the show ended there.

Aching intermissions,just beyond
the splatterings
of crashing prompts,
and you scream,
with the fervor
of a billboard shaker,
" Wake up Mama, the show is not over ! "

Origamis of flesh fold,
held together by a blackbird.
Threaded to a hand,
and heart, it flies
across a purple wounded sky.
Directed to rest
in the nest of his words,
her egg of closure cracks.
Truth creeps outward</sub></sup>

<sup><sub>into the spotlight.

Blood, and skin can portray
something other than pain</sub></sup>

Reviews

[An Open Venue]

I think this needs more reading; but I am of the sense of the phoenix rising but feel I am missing things and that is often my down fall in longer writes. This is full of strong imagery and well written; I will reread.

Ven