By Malinda Meadows

A Primordial sound in time does echo
Whether Pathos was the creator of art
Or if art was the midwife of Pathos-
Or was Pathos always around
And just jumped from jaws to javelins to Pens?
Speech so blatant a head doth detach
So written word created a latch
To open the doors of secrecy
Just enter the passkey
It is Poetry.

The spark alit

To a fiery glow

To a conflagration

Burning with it

Thoughts of indignation.

Until there was no more to burn

And with water there was stagnation

The spark once in my heart

Now turned cold as stone

Pierced with fear

By thoughts of him drawing near

Alive and beating but hardened so

Just as Pharaoh’s heart was hardened long ago.

The burden of proof escapes me

I have no witness to arson

But ladders from fire

And running footprints

Scattered amidst desire.

He is portioned apart from me

For the sake of justice

But maybe only temporary

Beneath the stone arises

A ubiquitous unrest

My eyes don’t want to see.

I want to do something wild and impulsive
Like a feral animal
Who makes a sudden and desperate escape from certain death
I want to rip my clothes or tear my hair
Make several little stitches there
And I wonder where
My sanity has gone
Why I seek to King and then dethrone
To scramble into arms
And then want to be alone.
All or these things
remnants of the tree from which I was a seed
Who can no longer speak to me
speak reassurance and distraction
And swear love endlessly.
The line has been disconnected
And in my heart a fraction
A portion of it missing
Buried with him and my picture
In eternal sleep.

The wind wraps around me
Like a lover
Pirouetting around my pubic parts
Drawing invisible fractals
As though it were an art
Speaking of things distant
And close but distant still
Like a wave on the wind
Ushering by the tale

of me and him
Wanting to, but daring not
To seek solace in his skin
Craving the feel of male ribs upon mine
Whose image I was envisioned in
So says the supple spine
Who would pine
For years on end
For a cease to the decay
That little by little
takes each breath away.

He broke my spine, my will
And I died until
I found the freedom from within
To rise again

The proverbial phoenix
Dashing plumes upon the black night
Wanting things to balance and realign
Wanting somewhere between the peak
And the Meadows down below.
Somewhere in-between
To rest, and to grow.

Watching the smoke of my fire dance
I pause, I blow
And the wind carries my breath
To the living down below.

I feel my next tears
Waiting there behind my eyes
In their eye wells
That were almost awoken by his words
The clash of verbal swords
As sword meets mortal flesh
The shape of your eyes as you digress
You are a mountain
I am piss.