by Mike Edmundson
Artwork, “Weather Warning” by Louise Francke
One with lust and one with disgust
Pale-faced and sickly but strong as ever
I hide from you behind a screen of smoke
Uncertain whether I seek your face, I smell
Perfume of Aphrodite on your lips
So strong that to defile you,
They’d burn women at the stake
Ascetics and zealots alike
Cloistered, repressed, broken
Denied she was ever more than
Your sworn enemy. She spoke
Sometimes with the cold breath of one long dead
Or she spoke of the world far beneath her
“Slaves to themselves, the fools
Dragged down by leaden flesh.”
You always look out for yourself first, man’s real best friend:
Your scent intractable, pulling you ever forward
Your bite lonely, misconstructed kindness
Your bark calls out at anything that moves
And you balk at the dirt at your feet
Sifting gently between your toes
Neither written, implied,
nor hidden between words and lines, but written clear,
Refreshing and feverish
You stirring sudden under the arctic ice,
Even with just your single thought, even
Breaking again the rules set forth by the sun.
Molten glass, you connect me, even
Only to a fantasy
Slave to soft ridges pressed flat and projected
Great monument to yourself, you
Like a grave-marker for murdered dignity,
Adorned with praise from past lovers
Set upon by rotting doubt from within
You first came in force when I,
Shaking hands and clouded mind
Took her at last in arms unsteady
On the first ship in waters untested—you
A thick wool blanket cast over
Livestock emotions out to pasture in the field,
Only ones I have, thoughts, aspirations,
Fade the same in your presence,
You bearing the dopamine
The fix for the lifelong addiction
Of every species
Every waking moment a different spur,
Some sharper than others, to goad you to action
A new mystery every minute.
Fed on plastic foods so long you forgot the taste?
You turn to art only to deny it imagination
What is imagination
But a slave content beneath your honeyed whips?
Discouraged leper, Desired lover
Savior, sentencer—
If you depart
Or are buried forever beneath words and scratches in the sand
Let every soul to itself mourn your absence.
If I dare to let you
Slip fishy through my fingers I hear
No encouragement even from disgruntled worms,
Who’d gladly salve with wet pleasures
The wound you cut into yourself
