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Susan Ashley Poem
In riming realms
of crystal contemplations -
frozen water-vapor meditations
and chilled flutes
filled with zodiacal-light musings
of ancient cosmic dust
dancing in the arms of Sol..
windswept operatic reveries
rise and fall
as her stirring soprano
tickled by the chanting of icicle chimes
gathers momentum
in strengthening sprays
of frosted musical notes adrift in broken chords
she bestrides
a clouded steed colored mother-of-pearl
flowing with fury
within which beats a blustery heart
surging at jet stream speeds
on the clattering beat of hailstorm hooves
from streamer-skies of the northern dancers
they fly aloft
on arctic gales of lyrical laughter
igniting the imagination
of her freezing fire
burning now with a blistering whip
and a frostbite nip
that sinks its tingling teeth deep
sailing
a supernatural stage
amplifying—
her aerated soprano soars
in polar vortex arias
as an avalanche of glazed trinkets
—descendants of her fertile femininity
skydive
in shivering sixfold symmetry
falling
in fierce flights of fancy
as she cyclones on consecrated currents
with wild abandon
escalating
in twirling trills
of glass beaded squalls
swirling her iced eiderdown skirts aflare
baring tempest thighs
storming with a Siberian sting!
..and as her electric eyes spark
luminous with lightning
she buries you in a blizzard
of opalescent mistletoe berries
and wanton whims.
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2018
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Susan Ashley Poem
In the intimate interlace of chance and fate, in the ultimate interplay of time and place, and with the consummate checkmate of my human dignity, all that is -- is over, in the stormy, swarming space of mere moments.
turbulence rises
as sun and clouds intersect -
his calm persona
A random cancellation fits in perfectly with my schedule. In the lucky twist of a Wednesday morning, the doc happened to have an earlier time available. I arrive and set my umbrella down as I sit in the corner seat, alone with my journal, grateful to be on the fringe of the pulse around me. My thoughts swoon, intoxicated by the lush honey of last night’s lovemaking. Behind the arbor of our well-tended landscape, passionate flora grows wild. Sensual ink sizzles in a release from my amorous pen. Wanton words rush, in a poetic passage, to press themselves against the wanting page. I’m rosy with the blush of love even after twenty-five years of marriage.
a wild-rose in bloom
flower head full of sweet scent -
bulldozer chains brush
The waiting room is alive, a beehive abuzz. A community gathers, familiar with each other in their usual appointments of personal injury and workers comp claims. Bilingual conversation spices the crowded waiting room. This morning, a Portuguese dish is the topic of discussion. Morsels of tasty details are translated into English. A kiss of the fingertips releases affectionate praise for the saffron infused white wine sauce. Mozambique is declared “Delicioso!” I smile as I recall my own racy recipe; a piquant blend of long-lashes and loose curls, hazel eyes brought to a flirtatious simmer garnished with risque lingerie, stirred, shaken and served while hot. Voluptuosa!
warm breath of summer -
pollen-laden goldenrod
colors feet of bees
Just another typical day in this snug working class neighborhood. Until, a high velocity kick explodes through the door with a blasting barrage that splits and splinters the scene into a stinging hive of non-stop violence. No time to scream, or hide, or repent. No last dance, or kiss, or goodbye. Black muzzle strobe light freezes fight-or-flight into a staggering slow-motion. Adrenaline and cortisol never stand a chance. Chaos cascades in rapid-fire flash. Shell casings jump lively, leaping from their chambers and diving to the floor in a metallic clatter. A cool-minded extremist moves methodically.
moving in rhythm
not a ripple but in waves -
wasp colony swarms
Before I understand what’s happening, a force blows me back against my chair and steals my exhalation. Seized respiration struggles in vain to return. In the din, the ding and ting of spent shells reminds me of wind-chimes. Are wind-chimes falling again and again? My waning pulse whisks my fading mind home on soprano notes… home, to my garden, where breezy fingers tickle the tinkling from decorative metal bells. Air fuses with broken chords wafting a choir of cloudless notes in a farewell aria. How did the zephyrs sense I needed an angel’s palliative song?
Home, to my kitchen, the sunflower center that attracts the flock, rich and vibrant with the love that feeds us. Wednesday night dinner, everyone coming over, the chatter, the laughter, my menu planned - but not yet executed.
My beloved family, promise you’ll always turn to face your petals toward the Sun.
Home, to my husband; the champagne that flows through my veins. That smile, his large-frame voice, his gentle gestures that pull me in, those effervescent eyes that excite me so, the lust of our love - we tingle with uncorked joy and overflow with good fortune. A toast to you, my darling; I love you. I love you all, so much. A final tear gathers in the corner of my eye and grows a belly pregnant with memories before it falls.
Metallic clatter drags my tapering thoughts back to reunite with my doomed body. The passing bell within my chest is silenced by the bestial steel drumbeat. Savage intent interrupts thoughts, dreams, dinner plans, sentences, laughter, heartbeats, lives. A mortal sin throws a lasso of sorrow that will forever noose the tenderness of loved ones left behind. I slip on a knell from life to death.
hush befalls garden
broken chimes strewn across mulch -
distant sirens scream
My essence leaves a down-to-earth hollow husk. Lifting, I am softly aloft the bleeding carnage as the last moan dies. The no-longer-living ascend in a meteoric rise leaving precious belongings behind. Mine; a splattered notebook that survives me. A formation of imagination, alliteration and reality; thoughts nestled like flowers between pages, red petals of rhythm and rhymes scattered across white sheets. Emotional nectar now mingles with the red-hot spill of my blood quickly filling the empty lines of an unfinished love poem.
wild-gardener wails
useless thorns on fragile rose -
Moon aligns with Sun
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2020
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Susan Ashley Poem
There’s a beguiling danger in beauty…
seduced as I was by the fickle fingers of fate musingly stroking my hair,
I envisaged
this lusciously lavish landscape
of sun-raptured heavenly hills and valid valleys
to be a lush, plush place for me to land ~
alas, such deception my naive perception did offer.
Buried beneath the facade of a fertile dream-come-true
and a mesmerizing mirage of natural light and zephyrus breaths -
where your thoughts hugged the horizons of my mind
like clouds on the edges of prairie dog skies
and where your stampeding passions trampled my inhibitions -
were delicate bandeaux of ice;
finespun and feathery like polar gossamer
that formed on the stems of your ruptured dreams
that then became my nightmare
when you had your hard freeze
while warm sap still flowed through your veins,
pumped and pushing through your broken being
and freezing on contact with the chilled clime
cocooning me, in a sudden silken surge of your glazing gauze
holding me, in the vivid wild magic of your frosted crystallized clutches -
fossilizing me, in icy opalescent ribbons of ornate whorls.
Unable to escape the grasping glacial petals of your exquisite pain,
your frost flowers plunged me into the frigid heart
of your bitter bluestem’s prairie winter...
There’s a beguiling beauty in danger
hypnotized and hijacked
as I was by the rhythmic sways of your tall grass ways -
your flickering tongue tasting my air
as my emotions were extorted
till I was bled white -
obviously oblivious
that I was being preyed upon
by a stealthy force of nature motivated by indigenous instincts.
Susan Ashley
March 13, 2018
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Poetry for the Sake of Poetry
Sponsor: John Lawless
*bluestem: tall grass native to the Great Plains with bluish leaf sheaths*
*frost flower: thin layers of ice extruded from long-stemmed plants in autumn or early winter. These thin ice layers form dainty ‘ribbons’ or ‘petals’*
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2018
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Susan Ashley Poem
Evergreen flavored mantras
did nothing to purge bitter bile from my lips
nor slake the smoldering thirst for a Rosary remedy.
Tick-tock petals unfurled one by one
as your poppy shed its last sepal
releasing a scarlet sigh across sunset skies
whilst I placed a tender kiss upon your twilight.
If but for your gossamer bloom in persimmon perfection,
I would not hunger for your ambrosial whispers
nor rue the earthly drought of undying nectar.
I stray, a waif lost with my armful of loss,
blind behind the tear-rusted folds
of a weeping veil’s eclipse.
My psyche a pauper
rich in the poverty of penniless promises,
empty as echoes in hollow holes
ringing with wringing reverberations.
In the grasp of atheist fingers I clasp Holy beads
tilling cries and whys.
Every tear a sorrow sown in brambles,
whose sloe fails to ripen sweet redemption
in the fertile sham and barren sand of my humanity;
crushed by the tusk of this damnable dusk.
Susan Ashley
April 13, 2020
~ First Place ~
February 5, 2023
2022 Poetry Marathon Qualifiers' FINAL Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 9
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ Third Place ~
Premiere Contest: Your Best Poem Ever
Sponsor: John Hamilton
~ Seventh Place ~
Premiere Contest: Crushed
Sponsor: Anthony Biaanco
~ First Place ~
Standard Contest: Your Best Free Verse 2020
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2020
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Susan Ashley Poem
A born lioness my untamed heart? ha!
a mouse, this pulsing token ruled by unruly wants
at times given, traded or stolen - sometimes
thrown down on a dare to be won or lost
till it became a paper tigress in tatters;
regrets and rejections remorse and resentments
flitted like fringe in the wind
..I played at life and life played me..
good times and bad vibes as random as Russian roulette
..five chambers of folly.. but that sixth was a b*tch..
bravado worn like a honeyed mane ruffled and bluffing
rolling with -or- rolled by the wrecking ball of the spin
to laugh and lose and tell - and live
through duels between disasters and dreams.. alas,
chivalry was lost in the gamble but not the likelihood of liability ~
I rummage through my psyche’s ruined luggage
soul-searching with mood’s sentimental searchlight
for affection connection lost in dark depths -
I am but a ghost ship stranded on the beigy side of brawling breakers
sails of self-pity hailed by greedy gusts with a sorrow’s lust -
I pine for a pipe-dream dance
in rapt thoughtful thirst for a cocktail blend of
bay-breezy optimism swirled with vibrations of om
garnished with a slice of the moon
a pester of wagering pessimistic clouds
lay odds upon the outcome of a trove discovered in a wistful cove -
this wastrel's newfound fortune of amberina;
satiny shades of Autumn’s bittersweet
born of breakage and abrasion -
frictional forces of joy and sadness dress the drift glass
hoarded in the sea’s rabid bites of the shore then
abandoned by the absent-minded backwash -
..forgotten like vague fractions of a song too long-ago to remember..
what passional tales these frosted bits of daystar could tell;
a not-so-charmed journey;
from virginal vessels of translucent wonder
to shattered shards of a doomed sunset
their fragility favoring the risks of vulnerability --
bygone blushing damsels damned by double-dealing
recounting deceptions like a martyr or a saint
..or.. perhaps.. that’s just me..
lost to decades of accidental metamorphosis
if only to reach another shore touch another soul
..maybe.. ..touch my own..
O harmonious forces of fate
how do you orchestrate such feral instruments
like time and place and distance
to unite in tune with symphonized chords
re-creating an irresistible lullaby worth remembering..?
nostalgia rouses a stagnant ballerina to twirl on Swan Lake swells
as faint echoes of quaint chimes reminisce with imagination;
in an old-fashioned parlour with white lace doilies charmed
by heady plum plumes atop silvery-green stems spooning
contentedly in a tan wicker flower basket -
a child sits on grand-mère’s old-world lap comforted in her lavender arms
..before her perfume and my mind
were blown away by winter’s mistral winds..
enraptured as I was with an ornate trinket box with a musical belle
surrounded by dainty forms of hand-blown amber-rose objets d’art
before there were cracks in the glass
..could I ever be so enchanted again..?
for the washed-up gypsy gems stripped of shine
are worn and warm and wise and oh so familiar
shaking my awakening with their loss of newness -
their roughed-up radiance tinkers with my sense of awe
rescuing my mood
like heroic swords of sunrays slaying the night
bloodletting the black out of incubus dreams
soothing heavy-metal thoughts
as comrades-in-commiseration croon storm-surge blues
with weathered heartstrings’ of hard-earned hues -
..sympathetically
with the empathy
of a survivor..
and like me... are a creation of tumbling forces of man and Nature
in a mind battered by diatribe tides
over tossing dice through turbulent times -
I behold an opaque odyssey in a handful of mermaids’ tears;
broken and buffeted their buffed beauty defied destruction
burnt orange and devil red pearls
time capsules quiet with a vintage fire’s glow
illuminates the amber marrow of a tigress-soul caged
behind the mirror of a little girl’s music-box-memories —
..before the dancer’s spin into darkness..
pulp of my grief plashes upon relics of pain and love
gentle splashes baptize despair and shame as
contemplation undresses the looking-glass of inward reflection -
recollections like sky lanterns lift from starless depths
light-bearers intercede with murky horizons as flames are lit from
ruby tips of sunrise surf ready to parlay shipwrecks and spindrift into gold -
stray feelings of triumph and pride squint in the sun of self-compassion
like skittish felines -shy yet hungry- they warily lap at the cream of self-worth
finally able to reap redemption from reckless wreckage
while finding peace in the eye of the hurricane
..frictional forces of sadness and beauty dress the drift glass -- and now -
dress this drifter in a lioness share of indigo epiphany..
and... I realize that my coming-to-light
was a fait accompli
Susan Ashley
October 30, 2020
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Inward Reflections
Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke
*wastrel: a wasteful or good-for-nothing person*
*fait accompli: a thing that has already happened or been decided before those affected hear and/or learn about it, leaving them with no option but to accept it*
*amberina: a late 19th century American clear glassware of a graduated color that shades from ruby to amber*
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2020
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Susan Ashley Poem
Waking to cold blown tent, ground frozen icy hard
woods are my love, as is poetry to a bard.
Today starts my anticipated forest trek,
seeking salvation from heart's emotional wreck,
last night I watched stars twinkle in heavenly skies
pondering how to overcome world's darkest lies.
Now dawn breaks, sends fresher pair of gem seeking eyes
desirous to find what Time, Fate and Earth denies,
finding cold breeze that blows snowflakes from white cream ground,
thankful for Nature's sanctuary here now found.
First step taken, this soul takes its desperate flight,
embrace anew, treasures that make life feel alright.
Through drifted powdered paths my healing does begin
rhythm of my brisk breath is like a cleansing hymn.
Serenity in solitude is what I seek,
in contemplative meditations I do speak
amongst the frosted firs a chapel for my prayers
in your Trust surrendering all worries and tears.
To slow life’s commotion and hush harsh emotion,
quiet communion in woodland is my potion -
sweetest swells of ecstasy makes my spirit swoon
in whitest snowdrop bloom my heart will follow soon.
With every snowy step I purify a thought
in this pristine Love I find absolution sought.
The winding trail I followed with a downcast face
and left behind the sorrow of my past disgrace.
Ascending farther to the snowy mountains peak
animated to discover my fate unique.
I shall not let my courage waver, not this time,
with weary steps I continue my forward climb.
The final steps to reach my summits divine light,
my mind virtuous as snowflakes of purest white,
I inhale the essence of life at nature’s hem,
finally free from chains of torment I condemn.
With Fate and Time to blend with Earth, I shall redeem
my dignity and recover my self-esteem.
Robert J. Lindley, Susan Ashley, Teppo Gren
(a collaboration - joining as one voice and one searching soul)
July 25, 2018
~ Poem Of The Week ~
Week of July 29, 2018
It is an honor for me to share in this recognition with my gifted collaborators, Robert Lindley and Teppo Gren
Poet’s note: Dear Robert, mere words cannot express my great appreciation for extending your invitation to Teppo Gren and myself for a collaboration with you on this special spiritual poem of soul searching and soul learning. I am so fortunate to be able to create poetry with two such wondrously gifted poets and this lovely artistic experience was a thrilling and beautiful poetic journey for me to take with both of you. Thank you, Robert and Teppo, for sharing with me the treasures of your illuminating and creative talents, fruitful friendships and endless exquisite inspiration..
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2018
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Susan Ashley Poem
In a moment of juvenile jealousy
he envies his red rival
with its intimate and greedy embrace of her angels’ share
of honey and vanilla spice
as wet stretchy hands of fervent fabric
possessively cup
her brandied beauty
amidst wistful notions
to revive his parched heart
he craves to be ladled with her ardent spirits
to be cradled in the tulip of her essence -
evaporating every chill from the calyx of her sweetened cordial
warming her in the hearth of his hands
as she melts
like buttery sunbeams
intoxicating the bleached beachy sands..
his dreamy grin falters and his tantric trance fades
as tattered edges of reverie unravel -
a haze beclouds his aged green-eyed gaze
graying his white periwinkle pipe dream
as he sees that his best days are long past
Susan Ashley
July 18, 2018
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2018
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Susan Ashley Poem
Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch a rickety chair
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives
a different walk of life
to an old pair of thrown-away shoes
two sizes too big and as full of holes
as the harmonica you hold –
you remember..
your backbone the plow driven through gadfly soil swarmed
with eyes and stingers and mouthparts sucking marrow
paleface morality two-faced in your person-dignity pillage
losing wishbone-breakage in body-breaking tillage
for a crop you have no share in.. except
for expanding crops of pain implanted by plowers
a harrowed pulse flows
through chambers both metal and mortal
embouchure’s grip with cracked lips
vibrate raspy reeds to bleed
smudgy-notes-smooched
lament the air-split whip
sizzle-snaps of the leather snake
a shoulders to buttocks sharp-fanged strafe
cotton gin justice for overseer’s chafe
wicked braille welts read of tactual factual brutality;
the wrench of your wretched chattel-life
you remember..
the humid cling of cold-sweat fretting furrows
of bondage-resistant brows
it pours briny from tiny tormenting pores
beads bee-sting your bull’s-eye pupils
held hostage in a wide-eyed white canvas of angst
glazing your skin the shade
of a chestnut’s roasted coat in December –
the swelter of escape in the shelter of swamps
your manful heart flexed - a daring passenger on the move;
railroad underground but over ground and undercover
a night-sky-water-dipper sipper on a quest
to quench freedom’s thirst with an ethereal map choired
across cotton fields’ roiled yoke
and tobacco fields’ toiled choke and
hymned in the cramp of black quarters
smoky whiffs and chuffing riffs churn
slick yet sick with sulks they slide the track
blues mood slurs
vibrato’s bravado blurs
plantation friction railway diction
distant tidewater pain pushes into your mind’s marsh;
transition-zone from slave man to free man
and like the Chesapeake both a womb and a tomb
you remember her song of sorrow..
your west African grandmother
her spirit one with the ancient salt and sand
of the Windward shore and her heart as heavy
as the hull’s belly-gorge of flesh and blood cargo;
wishing for the seawater in her veins to drown her –
her ghost croons to your inner-child still upon her knee
the rise of kinfolk spirituals saturate to weep
harmonica’s southern drawl quavers with primal
plaintive pleas of breathing possessions kidnapped
from a land of gold and tusks - her people your people!
stacked like ebony planks in seasick holds to build inhumane wealth;
bought beaten
sold beaten
traded beaten
slave babies born in the Old South
beaten by the shackles of ramshackle shacks!
harp’s intimate groan; worried worn wearied notes
cupped in your hands ripped by the pick of cotton
cradled to a mouth with lips of a fullness
your hungry slave boy’s belly never knew
you don’t want to remember but you do..
memories collect like nesting sparrows beneath eaves
your bluesman’s soul overflows as you breathe
a wavy whine in slow solo
anguished airstream’s inhale
flare of iron-horse exhale
.. a train whistle’s approach from auction block past;
auctioneer’s leer as the gavel slams down!
a screaking child peeled off a shrieking mother’s skirts
like the skin stripped off a dead rabbit –
streams of her screams run a gully in your gut ever deeper
mournful melody laid out and laid down
stewed in the still of your lifeblood
the mash of sad and mad moves in and out
of your heart-grooves with a whiskey’s burn
then settles like a wraith of wrath and faith
in the dried wheel-ruts outside your door
f r e e
to wander beyond the old age of your stoop
laden with a dazed load of a million misery moans
and the haunt of iron chains as heavy
as the branding irons’ hot
Susan Ashley
October 7, 2021
~ First Place~
Premiere Contest: Your Personal Favorite, NO. 2
Sponsor: L Milton Hankins
Poet’s note: this poem was inspired by the instrumentation of “Sweet Black Angel”; Rolling Stones; 1972 album Exile on Main Street; written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It is my humble attempt to pay homage to the vanquished in their victory of escape from slavery through the Underground Railroad and to raise awareness to the inhumane injustices and agonies inflicted upon the enslaved innocents. This is the first of a pair of poems to explore this theme. The other “Antebellum Blues” will be posted at a later date.
Image: Railway path; photo by Bagi Borbala
*embouchure: the way a player applies the mouth to the mouthpiece of a harmonica
*passenger: an escaped slave traveling through the Underground Railroad
*harp: informal name for harmonica
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2021
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Susan Ashley Poem
Grim fog, I praise the shelter of your drear,
the sundown ghost morose not grandiose,
I walk alone - but, no -- with my despair;
a bittern bids a bitter adiós.
The breakers so in agony they gnash
and gnaw the strand with thrash of foamy green,
the tempest witch brings ironfisted lash
alas, the eye-of-storm epiphany unseen.
Free, free! The tern who flies in Gemini
above beloved peak and shore and wave,
sun-painted wings, away you went -- so spry,
so fierce! Bluebird pierced and buried in your grave,
..and the stars understand; a fateful fall into the sea --
Damn the deep! It’s jostle docile.. my scream to meet the scree!
Susan Ashley
June 29, 2021
~ Fourth Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mille 11
Sponsor: Mark Toney
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Contemporary Sonnet
Sponsor: Charlotte Puddifoot
*bittern: any of several tawny brown herons
*scree: an accumulation of weathered rock fragments at the foot of a cliff
*a Modern / Contemporary Sonnet is a poem of 14 lines addressing any theme of the poet's choosing. It does not need to adhere to any set rhyme scheme, syllable count or meter, nor does it need to include a volta. The only true requirement of a modern sonnet is that it consists of 14 lines*
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2021
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Susan Ashley Poem
Vanished
the wild magic of this place;
this wilderness I now roam alone
as its lifeblood seeps
into
Afterlife
..my mournful howls
across time and distance
go unanswered -
Oh, how I long to join again
in my brethren’s song..
fading sunlight falls in slivers
through boughs of evergreen needles
across timeworn trails I tread -
beaten by generational rhythms
of the steady, swift and sure
I want to run
but I keep my loping stride
for I will get there;
to the track
to the other side
when the twilight tastes
of blood
the train’s lonely wail
leans on sooty winds
heaving sighs of sad sentiments
as I make my way parallel to the parallel lines of track -
its smokey dirge
echoes laments
walled within the desolation of my soul -
this Trojan horse;
larger than any mighty prey
my brethren and I could ever take down -
smuggles pale warriors into my revered forest
on veins and arteries of iron
throbbing with an inhumane vengeance
..my mind wanders in the reckless wreckage of it all..
neath overhanging branches
where leftover oak leaves
rasp in stubborn cling
and flit like a flock of paper sparrows
I pass..
somewhere up there
above my rolling shoulders
where tips of praying branches
reach to pierce the soft belly of the other side
a widowed crow cries
black and forlorn..
I embody her solitude
for -
from my pack
I am the
last
of my kind —
despite my discipline
my tireless legs trot faster
a maroon sunset stretches with bloodlust across taut skies;
an omen of the taste of twilight -
my pace and my pulse quicken now
like the tribal drums
I used to know
I arrive
here where they gather
a track I can no longer follow - a track I need to cross;
..tales of stalking deer - trails traversed with my pack - thoughts - tears
my path ahead
what’s left behind
boundaries defended and boundaries bridged
human hatred for my kind..
all converge at this meeting place
amidst falling shadows of dimming light
emerge forerunners of freedom -
aged memories that dwell in the pocket of my being
well up in the stream of my noble bloodline -
primal chants
haunting from throats
both furred and smooth-skinned
resonate in reverie;
..millenniums of coexistence and native campfires..
forebears; both four-legged and two
vibrate the mystique of this moment -
its quivers
I sense in my whiskers
I see the invaders
through my grey-green eyes
mine; the final witness
to the decimation of my pack
and the territory of my ancestors
in the atmospheric chill
my panting vapor frames my thoughts
and instinct urges me forward
to the track
the sun is
dimmed
by my passion
and the moon
reflects
in my eyes
every hammering heartbeat
a stepping stone to the next moment
every muscle twitching
with trepidation - with anticipation
..Oh! how I long to join again
in my brethren’s song!..
long legs carry me lightly out onto the crossties
my soulful destination
where parallel universes collide -
..O Nemesis! lift me in my wish to inspirit cosmic dust..
my snarling form
reveals the wild nature of my fateful desire
I turn
to face them one last time -
muzzles flash with fire-breathing frenzy
splitting the air
with scents and sounds
in an orgy of gunpowder lust
spilling the taste
of wanton bloodthirst
into the ebb and flow of crimson twilight;
pale savages savagely ensure my unholy deliverance.
..my mournful howls
across time and distance
no longer
go
unanswered
as I cross over the gossamer track
of gentling night skies…
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2018
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