wyrdwind

Tiamat

Somewhere out in Georgia

they’ve strung a woman’s

desecrated corpse up

to incubate a failed

pile of flesh and blood.

Sit

the fuck down

and call it what it is.

Try

ego trip meets cowardice.

These men won’t do right

without a gun to their heads.

The oldest, oldest sin

is matricide. Didn’t just die,

it was malicious negligence.

Remember this, we’re just parts

in a pretty dress. Disposable, yet

the mother’s mind regulates growth

hormones, the brain and nervous system—

a universe intelligent. If she’s not home,

if she’s oppressed, there’s only so long

they can sell the crown of God’s intent.

Clinging to the prefrontal cortex, high

on pathetic hubris. You emerge

from the great dreaming

of your mother’s subconscious

as surely as every drop of life

emerged from the sea.

Positive Reinforcement

Call me a gorgon,

the way I make a man

shit his pants just lookin’ at him.

I’m never what they’re expectin’,

one sentence followed by consequences.

I’ll show you punctuation.

Ain’t worth my articulation

if he don’t listen.

I’m warm as I am calm,

no taste for a fuss,

if I’ve gone cold means I’ve had enough.

Learned from the best, the first

of my name froze hers on the porch,

an abusive drunk stone dead at her door—

call that Choctaw divorce.

Divine Feminine

Not to sound like a dragon,

oh but there’s somethin’ to be said

about all your pets and an affectionate man

asleep in your bed.

Keepin’ all your pleasures in one place,

just you and your favorite mug

thinkin’ on what you’ll do

when he wakes.

The perks

of him workin’ late.

Early to rise is me,

got plants to tend and chickens to feed,

a woman needs

room to breathe

radiant volume and dust mote sunbeams,

barefoot in a dark nightdress

treadin’ the shoreline

of the deep.

Send ’em off, from depths receive,

first and last is where we meet,

no bolt hole so murky

as beyond my reach.

Run lover, fast as you please,

I’m gonna get you.

Breathe.

Yew Berry

The final gift of dreams

is lucidity.

No matter what, how far, how many,

who or where.

Mine is the crown of Nightmares.

Tamer to the jump scares, dread

is for the unawares. I become myself.

Whatever’s legs can be a horse.

Can handle those.

These here were broken once, both.

Let it hurt.

Clawed fingers, drag your body

through the dirt. If you can’t,

if you can’t be human, good.

Just as well, might

as well be all

over now, safe at least if not

strictly speakin’ sound. Come out

from under those covers, tell me

what you’ve learned.

Set Design

Gorgeous if you’ve gotta count rice,

throw rhymes or do a dance,

who cares

how you get from here to there?

Got that Van Helsing Rube Goldberg kinda weird.

I won’t stake your fretted heart,

nor sever your pretty head—

all this nonsense ’bout the undead—

for the record:

spooks can’t cross runnin’ water

without their Magna Mater—

the very soil they sprang from—

ain’t fuck shit to do with the church. The point

of silver: it’s a superior heat conductor, star

studded channel for electricity. Catches charge,

the magic happens when I throw sparks.

Sometimes you defibrillate sickness in a herd.

An ancient covenant between Mothers,

the strongest of mine for the best of yours,

spare no sacrifice for a daughter

of the blood, a man ain’t never been

the savior of a land.

Weaker Sex

Women need twice as much meat,

and thrice while pregnant. Pigs

can have that salad. More iron

than men can do with. Their guts

are inefficient. We risk

our lives to wait, the last possible second,

because they don’t have what it takes:

over 50,000 calories and pure marrow DNA

to build a human brain. Actin’ like

whoopsie daisy there’s a baby,

we’re right handed as a species,

premature on the titty, because the left

holds you to our heartbeat while we

forge society. Fat heads.

If a man fell pregnant

here’s what happens:

he don’t make it three months

before multiple organ collapse—

if his fried limbic system don’t drive him

carbon monoxide mad first.

His tissues shred apart like pot roast,

him or the babe starve,

just a fetid slump of gore. There is no

miracle of birth, no Father’s hand

in a woman’s work.

Zoonotic Approach

There was an old jaguar

up in Alaska, rescued rough,

but that’s just 250 pounds of cat

to love. They gave him the biggest box

of straw, a whole shippin’ container,

and some fun tree stumps.

He was gettin’ on, long in the tooth,

but his handler still sensed the flame

of his youth. Capacity for joy.

This was her boy. Always.

A multinational team

assembled to draw his own blood

and spin fresh bone jelly to be

injected straight into his calcified

joints. The first operation of its kind.

Predators are hard to keep under,

the slightest mistake and he’d die.

A room full of doctors takin’ cues from the handler

because this was her boy.

She never left his side.

Eyes on his face and hands on his chest,

knew if he hurt from barest of breaths.

A lost jungle king of two interventions,

able to jump, climb, and play again

because one woman spoke for him.