Best Wormwood Poems
"The Wormwood Portfolio"
Reams of stories
riddled with worms
wood for burning
all the children
cover their eyes
tears smoked
into the lungs
gender fluid
propheticising
bitter water
electric brains
chipped like
fine-boned China
downloading
overloads
dumps are
damp
the fuse
sizzles and
stops
green as absinthe
gauche ghosts
gone all grey skinned
scales of merit
charred unweighted
vacant and vacating
like dandelions
scattering over
the barren wombs
of the childless landscape
dreaming of biblical babies
suckling the wanton breasts
of Desdemona’s structural points,
a sharp essay, feeding insouciance
mistaken identities and confusion
side-blinded by the light
of the tempestuous kill shot
burnt and scarred
beeseeching open handed
faces turning like time dials
towards two suns
gold gone all black holed
dead verdant plants
hot feet blistering
make no more demands
skipping, games of patter-cake
powdered ochre yellow
here's the church and here's the steeple
open your hands where are the people
like viruses, germinating
no more prayers to enchant
daughters of eve
sons of man
when the Word finally speaks
there is hearing damage
Reams of stories
riddled with worms
wood for burning
all the children
cover their eyes
;
the ides of march
recant.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
"A tear in the brain
allows the voices in
they wanna push you off the path
with their low-frequency wires..."
recant. v.
Wormwood.
Ides of March.
Wormwood
There is a place,
in the middle of nowhere... now. (hushed whisper)
It is hot and cooking,
and yet...things are green.
Nature has taken back,
what man destroyed.
Maybe not the way it should be,
but maybe it does not matter,
or it is too late an affair.
She has pushed past the evil,
in favor of...
We are yet,
to know for sure.
Yes, there are animals,
many but not the same.
The weak ones died.
The strong became stronger.
They became smarter, faster.
More clever, more aware.
Butterflies vanished.
Bees... small grains of sand
blown away.
The people were told to leave.
Many, even most did.
Some if not all returned,
the ones that had nowhere else,
to go.
Of them,
many died as well.
Again the invalids were weaned away,
and the mighty became better,
or at least less than dead.
What can be said for this place?
An accident waiting to happen...still.
As it already took place, and will again.
The concrete tomb is breaking down,
and evil is trying to crawl out from below.
From beneath the rock that man sat upon its face.
Brave heroes now are trying to fight,
what can only be heard.
A song of cancer and disease,
change to everything that was,
to something that is
and will be until the end.
The angel stands still...
a simple statue and tribute to the loss,
blowing the horn of warning,
now decades past.
How is time measured?
Not in moments of hesitation,
but souls gathered before the feast.
All the clocks have stopped,
a burst in the atmosphere.
So many still walking among the dead,
already corpses themselves,
unaware they have been
radiated not once,
but repeatedly...
Palm fronds clatter
in a Santa Ana wind
and I am bitter as quinine.
Leaves furl
as the dead hands of summer
and I am bitter as wormwood.
The sun could burst in my anger,
leaves its flame in my ears
instead of forgotten promises.
If to give up is to hear truth
I wish I were deaf,
not to hear the sham
of words and music
and to steel in silence
rather than my heart bleed.
Tell me nothing but facts:
that sky is blue, but not cerulean.
Say sun is hot,
not warm as love's breath.
Teach me not to wait
for lies to blossom like ranunculus
in my heart's winter.
Speed blindness
and I will lie in the dark,
not to wait for day's break.
5th Place
Mid Summer Premier Contest
Sponsor: Brian Strand
7/21/17
I'm falling like a star
Every time I touch your lips with mine
When you shine your radiant light
There once was a time,
When I used to dream for someone
Like you
Lifting all the Shame just with your simple embrace,
an immortal peace within my soul
Resisting all melancholy that tries to enter
I'm falling like a star
I see you dancing with Uriel
Why It does it have to be this way
My heart found out
When it was bearing in your chest
Swim close to me
Forget it ever happened
Live like you're my falling star
Battered down the fall has came
The dance will start again
It shall come when
I never invited to reconcile
But you stay with me
Like you're my falling star
Perspired into a Spiritual matter
Uriel will come, my soul is what is needed
To dance with him again, will ever find your heart
I'm falling like a star
I see you dancing with Uriel
Why It does it have to be this way
My heart found out
When it was bearing in your chest
Swim close to me
Forget it ever happened
Live like you're my falling star
Why, did I ever have to meet such
A powerful angel
Why, did I ever have to see again my sins
Why, did i ever have to enchant you so
I'm falling like a star
I see you dancing with Uriel
Why It does it have to be this way
My heart found out
When it was bearing in your chest
Swim close to me
Forget it ever happened
Live like you're my falling star
I'm falling like a star
I see you dancing with Uriel
Why It does it have to be this way
My heart found out
When it was bearing in your chest
Swim close to me
Forget it ever happened
Live like you're my falling star
Most often we misthought,
yet understood
The bitter truth
that nothing here is good
Our earthly life,
of reason is unbrewed
That hides the pain
and hurt which we allude
This root of gall
becomes my daily food
And eat the fruit
that turns my bowels crude
My tongue was fooled
by that which could not soothe
For I did swallow
more than I had chewed
For this I stumbled
and became most rude
I was offended
like the multitude
And though my mind
is calloused, I construed
His chastening rod
is made of tender wood
And ceases not until
it breaks for good
A wormwood changed
my bitter attitude
I came back weary from the distant road,
Yet I returned singing, calling it "homeland."
Golden plains, stretching into the blue sky,
I longed for the scent of your wormwood.
Soft, dusty earth, swirling in golden clouds,
From this dust, your child weaves verse aloud.
To my eyes, it’s dearer than fire itself,
The remains of earth huts, the village I’ve felt.
The hearth stamped flat, the yard a perfect round,
To me, this expanse is sacred ground.
The embers where my mother brewed tea,
Held me pondering the glow of eternity.
The wind stirs crimson coals into a gleam,
On the coals, a white kettle softly steams.
In the earth hut, the wormwood's scent is strong,
Outside, the sheep chew cud, humming a song.
The scorching heat slowly fades away,
Stars crowd the black sky in their array.
My parents sip their tea with delight,
Holding sugar cubes, soaked just right.
Time flew by, laughing, as if in jest,
Leaving embers of hope from the hearth at rest.
Though my parents are gone to eternity,
The scent of wormwood lives forever in me.
When the whip of the wind strikes the earth’s flank,
Dark clouds rush forward, dragging low and dank.
Like a female camel moaning for her calf,
The heavy clouds, their big nipple isn't half.
The autumn sky weeps, then suddenly smiles,
The dark clouds drip in a rhythmic style.
Washing the dust from the steppe’s face,
Shaking the heads of wormwood in its embrace.
The poor wormwood stood there, unable to sway,
Shoulders heavy with dust, locked in dismay.
When the cool breeze brushed its face in delight,
Its fragrance burst forth, wild and bright.
Oh, how marvelous, this land so beloved,
Its cherished scent holds all life discovered.
If not for wormwood, so enduring and true,
Every other plant would have burned through.
I have heard of it before, but I never knew what it was until I walk through the door, I thought it was a wood made of special ink and it cast a strange dye in the sky and it tells you when you are going to die, but that theory is not true because the wormwood makes good medicine for you.
The word came out of nowhere, which is why I have to share.I don’t know if it makes good tea but all I know that it originates in north Africa and naturalized in North h America, Canada and America has a lot of it but they don’t know what to do with it, but the medicine man is coming to town and he is Canada bound. He will show you what you can do with the wormwood tree, and reveal its medicinal capabilities.
The wormwood is all around you with a value that is bigger than you, its branches are spreading and people are coming from far and near just to get the leaves from the wormwood tree to ease the pain so that you can be happy again, the Greeks use it in childbirth and my aunt used it to solve her gemological problem before she depart to heaven and when my neighbor goes to the bar, the bartender put some of it in his drinks and it make him sing.
Artemisia Absinthium sits in the middle of the town in her long gown wearing the emblem of the Greek goddess, looking straight into the sun until the day is done as she tells tales of the wormwood before the complete remedy unveils in the town.