CARNALVILLE
Image patten – I see a kaleidoscope of your
Like the eye of a fly, each fragmentary glimpse of a different facet.
your smile a thousand nova bursts
Each pearly part of laughing lips
enfolding me into the Safe Place
Then a frown so terrible and haughty
Smashes the mirror with the perfect precision of a gunshot.
Hold me back from the undamned emotion
Flooding faster and faster, hitting me in the stomach
Hurtling me backward like some rag puppy
you whistle and I’ll come
you kick me and I’ll come
you pick me up and I’ll wriggle away
I’ll lap the salt stains seeping from beneath sunglasses
Only to be thrust away again and again and again.
I’ll howl at the moon and play dead
Until you laugh at my antics
And scoop me up again into the shelter of your smile.
I repent for your sin, and flowers bloom once more in the Sahara,
Roses with sweet smelling thorns.
Merry go round and round and round
Never going anywhere but a circle of highs and downers.
A black stallion strives to o’er take my elephant (bolted to the floor)
And lo, from the depths I cry out
offering cotton candy, corn dogs, chilli, and carnival calories
in homage to the porcelain goddess.
My vestibular system is disoriented and I
fall
to where you wait
©1991
Psychoterrierpy 