My Grendel~

Girl floated her canoe on a lake of marmalade glaze

belly, sunned gold

wild, evergreen eyes 

complementing bent pines, whispering her name

skin, white clay

and look! there!

Heron is trailing her canoe through the shallows

his blue tipped wing open to comfort a trembling butterfly on her taut shoulder

“This ain’t a good idea, girl.” trils Heron

his silver iris giving Odin a run for his recreated fragment

girl says nothing

strokes paddle against underwater stumps

pushing to the shore line

 

Owl turns his head around

idling between dreams of being a man in love with a crazy girl

and an ave who's biggest concern is to Hoo Hoo in rightly worship

at the M o o N

so we can see, he is circle of magnificent DNA

atomic bumps in particles in the space between his stillness on a branch

and a girl dragging a green canoe onto the bank

“Who.” Says the owl

girl tilts the heart of her face to the trees

a wicked little pull of a smile at the corner of  berry lips, asking

“How many licks to the center of a monster’s soul.”

laughter in cell division breaking through a primordial puddle at her feet

owl sighs his wings in a fluff of agitation

“You should know better than to ask this girl for any straight answer.”

Heron mumbles. sidestepping a snapping turtle peeking from its shell

 

Girl on knees in shallow sands of light

a line of deep concentration between her pearl brows

clawing earth out of the fluctuating spine of a ground that didn’t know tomorrow from yesterday

fingernails break off around a latched box of scrolled bones

her blood through the lock

a liquid  key in extraordinary pain

opening . . . .

 

Wolf gave himself shape from the mud

took the clouds across his bones

a distant star for his eyes

soft paws on sand

his muzzle lowered beneath girl’s chin to lift her face

eye to eye

“What are you doing, girl?”

his sorrow

her beating heart a knife

her hand on the lid

“Killing a world.” she smiles

she opens the box

 

Heron covered his silver eyes with wings

owl turned his head away

wolf felt the press of collision in the fabric of strings pulled taut

but does not turn away from his girl . . . .

 

Inside the box black velvet night

a swirl of constellations winding

unwinding

a single genetic factor

coalescing

a mask

her arms dip elbow deep

her own private gom jabbar

eating away her skin

flaying muscle into thin slivers

snapping sinews

melting bone

wolf braces her, his spine pressed into her belly

lest she fall, again

 

Girl became mobile stone;

from the box she pulls the Mask

with the green beryl eyes

opening . . . .

wolf moves aside

lays his body on the ground

supplicating

 

Girl traces a line of memories in every crack of the living Mask

with sheer fingertips made of stardust

pulling memories from every pore

~girl as monster falling through a man, jaws unhinged~

~predatory beauty filleting the center of a man with curved claws~

~woman swimming silk sheets with a dagger between her teeth to pause at a man’s throat~

~ecclesiastic beast on all fours of seduction with an arch as deadly as a charmed snake~

 

“Enough!” wolf interposes his head between her gaze and the mask

owl shivers on a branch

Heron, being, wisely, magik avoidant, contemplates stones in the water

girl smiles

lifts the Mask to her face

ties it with a ribbon of lace light at her overdeveloped occipital lobe

 

“Girl, why?” asks wolf

she strokes the underside of his chin

the Mask eating through her bones

solidifying pearls

riveting mythos

“Wolf, I don’t always have the answers.  I’m just another monster, doing the wrong things for all the right reasons.”

 

Girl floats her canoe on a blood lake

pearl dipped ruby eyes  bursting

under

her fingertips

stroking the surface

releasing juxtaposed morality

to swim like jeweled minnows down river. . . .

to the Alloy Forest

 

 

 copyright:vssmd/pa.inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

excerpt from

 

 

 

Reviews

[Matthew Kult]

Hello Selene,

You took me back to my youth.

Sometimes monsters have to look within their own soul and decide how they want to do their own lives. It's interesting you talk of a girl finding a mask to put over her face only to create herself anew. So telling...

Can you be a monster Selene? Can you be naughty like me?

Regards,

Matthew

[Leo]

...helping me to transform my ordinary pain into archetypes, thus making a surrealistic sense of it all...

[kmartell]

i like the canoe coming back through the poem. you dont lose the (you know) stuff about other....the more connected the more unconnected you can become

or something like that

i have mr fox and he got wrote down but is now stuck in time since my mr fox has lost his connections and come unplugged but he will return get on the page at last, this is like girl i like "girl" and mr fox would too with his secretary miserable secretary of the interior/ aho schedules all his appointments like in real time mr fox was headed into the dentist office last i heard i havent wrote a thing since

sorry i sound egotistical, it is only because i am. well keep writing it is fun to do

[Aidz]

A trip through the swirling, inflicted with tips of the sublime... a treat to the mind

[Cascara (aka Sprint Goe..]

What a great story flawlessly merged into poetry!

[Melobldnfr]

Wow. This is all so brilliant! The lines "his silver iris giving Odin a run for his recreated fragment", and "wolf bracing her, his spine pressed into her belly / lest she fall" are my favorites. The first reminds me that a token can be other than a coin. The latter puts me in mind of trying to reach the inner child. Finally, when we don masks, we do risk destroying one world while creating another, don't we?

[.]

this was a exquisite story..has a japanese folklore feel..with the owl, heron, wolf..I loved the your story telling style, as if you have peeled back a bit of the world we see, to expose selenville, a positively surreal and bizarrely beautiful world..

[Zeitgeist Manifesto]

Wow Selene..this was epic..magical work. This is one of those rare pieces that you leave a bit of your soul in. It will be a seance for the reader forever. You've given us a very lengthy buffet of themes and issues to consider. There are just too many to give this poem a worthy review short of writing a book. There was wisdom, chaos, fate and good fortune all fighting to claim the story of her life. This was just amazing work. I have no idea how you filled it with so many symbols. They didnt go unnoticed.

[Linear]

What is a poor boy to do or say, to craft words like you do? At first Pandora looped inside my head, though I kinda wished it was my bed, the flow and diologue of this poem opened up a world I dare not enter, but look I must like a voyeur at play.

Oh yes you can write so well :0). That's all I can say.

[KATHY SUE SILLS]

Such a creative poem of all the classic tales. Love the imagination that was put into this excellent poem that lead to a powerful story!

[SpokenWord]

I think as readers we see what we want to see in mystical writes. For me this poem is powerful. I wonder how many women feel this way inside? I don't think man actually realizes what we as a gender has done to women. We over look it, justify it or try to comfort it with bread crumbs from our vast table of Dominance. I see the damage that we have done and frankly it scares me. Simple things like when men are sick we moan and groan and want comfort and to return to our days as children being cared for by our mothers, while when women get sick they have to suck it up and deal with it because man shows no compassion for her. It is why when I suffer women (all women that I know and talk to) all say "Awww Poor Baby" I know what that means, it is girl talk for suck it up wimp.

"~girl as monster falling through a man, jaws unhinged~
~predatory beauty filleting the center of a man with curved claws~
~woman swimming silk sheets with a dagger between her teeth to pause at a man’s throat~
~ecclesiastic beast on all fours of seduction with an arch as deadly as a charmed snake~"

I wonder what people really think when they read this, did they see beneath it? and this line within that same group, "~woman swimming silk sheets with a dagger between her teeth to pause at a man’s throat~ Wow any man who reads this should take pause and think of it as reality. It is man's sexuality and desire to control women sexually and as a sex object that ultimately gives woman the upper hand and man will never see her coming to slash his throat. Blinded by passion and perceived superiority he is when his very sex is his weakness. This I learned from a very wise woman who taught me through tease and denial of my own pleasures. Enslaved by a need given to me by nature ironic ironic ironic to me.

and this line: “Wolf, I don’t always have the answers. I’m just another monster, doing the wrong things for all the right reasons.”

This is what man doesn't see or understand and never will as he lies in bed with the woman who is becoming more wise, more aware and uncovering more of the truth and he is blind to her intelligence because of sex. It is right and it is justice but what man needs to know, it is vengeance.

I think this is the best poem you ever wrote from within to out you slammed this one to me. Bravo~