Ivy
Torres aka Hedra
Helix
Living
with wild digits
unaware of
what's
you
woke up wonderful
and the world went to kiss
me,
took itself through the
glass
past the blinds
crossed the bed.
i backed away
thinking,
ghost,
smog,
fire
?
but it laid its soft finger on my
cheek.
drained my ugly
memories,
and each nightmare
right out
of my
skin.
made a leap like
an african
around the fire of my soul,
whispered break
screamed up
told me wait
advised see,
but i didn’t listen,
and i went straight to the evil
three breaths in from heaven.
let it mutter in my
genes
fingers deep within my
skin.
sent my body slunking over to the
window
bade my hand to yank back the
shades.
*
outside in the yard
men drifting,
four feet
above
the ground
toes pointed home
suit types,
friends,
each eyes'
black eggs
glinting back a reflection of the
horizon.
in the sky
a matching black-hole
sun,
blazing
a red fire engine
wrecked
beached parallel in the
yard
the street run through
with giant dogs
wolves
silent
intent
and in their mouths little
dogs
and in their mouths littler
dogs
and in their mouths wiggling
cats
and in their mouths fresh
hearts
dripping gristle
draped in veins.
and i see they've enough to
suffer the world.
and a rabid thought
occurs,
and my hand climbs
nervously
to where my eyes can't make
themselves look.
. . .
i finger the new
hole...
same ways I just did the
old,
senseless,
experiencing the world
passing careless through my
chest
whistling, married to a cold
breeze
flowing,
my eyes,
simple
openings,
make
the image of
eve clutching an apple
core
made in
particles of mist
little bits of blood
swarming forms,
a mirage like
hallucination,
an etch of sketch
of pale guilt and
woman
that shivers on the
palate
of the wind for a split
second
just
to show me her stuff,
looks exactly like
mine
just like..
before the current disrupts
it,
{ {{ Poof! }} }
and i wake, twice baked,
to
this day.
....
or
.....
Sip
and you will be
forever
Yes,
I taste your sweetness, but I
can't have you,
outside of
midnight
wishes
and open eyed dreams.
Elaborate,
I set a fancy table,
spun from the fact that I don't
get bored with you.
Set out with rustic, crusty,
bread
and delicious orange
cheeses.
Of course
our mind games are ritual with
victuals
like red wine,
And its good
'cus we're balanced in
winning.
We breathe in deeply,
always
to preserve us while we
submerge.
My energy is storing.
Strong.
Making me off balance,
internal shiftings, of
rigorous challenge.
Perfect O.
We struggle or
immerse.
in envy.
Confusion
and
bandaged pride,
bubbling
on lost friendships, wasted on
silliness,
biting lost syllables
’cus you quiver on the
outside.
Shake,
shiver,
c'mon, get it over
with.
Fuck
to
let the magic
in,
that bright selfishness of
children.
tESTING life’s’'
boundaries.
Beat around the bush,
sure,
and then learn
to throw a stone at the
window.
Ensure it's
interesting.
When I appear in the
glass...
I'll do the same.
Sighing, I'll say
clearly,
wrought with a tremble in my
voice,
wondering
do you mind much,
that my mind,
shifts all the fucking
time,
from being sad, to being glad,
loving the world, to hating that girl,
bastard tv screens and teenage
dreams, the witch and the sun
and Jacks' magic
beans.
To grow us a bean stalk to a wide
and clear sky.
All in violent search
for
The One :
to sit with, in desert cafes',
sipping wine.
Or bundled in wool walking
through the forest night, watching the retreat of light. Saying
and understanding new thought in beautiful throat
reverberation,
like song.
I know you're out
there.
~O' Run away Moon to the edge of
the Sun,
ride the Blue river to where you
must go.~
We should hold hands, as we go
down the slide.
Our laughs can mingle and relate
to one another.
So we can remember
the smell and colors.
And remind each other
later,
that the slide was
red,
the sky was blue.
Your person, is like a balm to my
soul.
When the world is a
razor,
trying to cut me in
two.
Seeded
Storm season over, stooped they
trek
the long dusty
road,
arms up, shielding
eyes
red of potato blight
anyway,
drippy noses looking hewn of
mushed together pieces of bread dipped in milk,
and you may not notice
me
but I am one of
them.
And I am suffering.
*
I trudge, head bent.
Attention strictly kept to the
corner of my mind still vividly alive.
Whom I shuttle kernels of
corn,
edible flowers I pick covertly
from the shoulders
-butter,
I send all fat nutrition straight
to it.
I keep my hope dreaming
there
heavy upon plump violet
pillows,
fanned by exquisite long lashed
women.
I arrange it late dates with the
lankiest of strange breathed boys,
in olive groves grown thick in
temporal wormholes where consequence looses all hold and my
imagination can wallow and waft and keep its own in
time,
deliverance declined for the ruby
heart of a moment, wild still, unquestioned.
These boys transmuting into fine
minded friends and fine sense of self. Clear memories of stance
and pages and pages and books of inspired passage made during
long nights when new talents are discovered, to be cemented the
next morning in the brightness of the sun.
Most days, while the body of me
toils foot after foot in front of the other, this is the piece
that waves me on, promising persistently, a way.
-Don’t know how it is I got so
un-solid, really.
Life’s sand slipping through my
grasp once a fist grabbed from a beach of endless
possibilities. It feels empty in my hand,
just now.
The holes in the world today,
somehow winning.
*
And yet,
unquestionably,
I still see hope in tomorrows
equilibrium.
I conjure little boys in blue,
and little girls in pink.
Populate my landscapes drawing
them clutching in both hands jars of herbs and spice that once
rained from the tiny top holes turn to black shiny seed that
when they touch the soil spring forth unquestioned fertility
from lands unintended.
Surprise flowers x 7 arising in
the nodes of the leaves folding forth from sinuous vines, bees
buzzing in from far off lands coming to pollinate the fruits of
my temporary sorrows -as I watch with stubborn pride, praying I
recognize the yield.
I chew my lips until salty blood
runs to flavor in flavors of yesterday the sustenance of my
promised tomorrows,
and I chase the freedom of my
children skipping across their meadow
my mind telling me we are set out
as so,
“So do not give it
up.”
and to follow.
Lizard
Jerky
Go.
*
Lay down like a lizard in the desert
belly-up on the pave
sun above
cars speeding down,
refuse the water
'cus yer crazy.
I'll pick you up in a week
an put you in my pocket
where you'll promptly break in half.
Stiff,
lizard
jerky.
Tribulation
These
days, past twilight, the tender tears do my walking if I need
them to,
the sand between my
toes
as magic -time travels my feet
and then my body, to new years eve, when I was three and my
father was lost in a canoe on the ocean.
Tender like young bamboo
are
those baby memories of fear and
then the next day, of picking bittersweet fruit from sidewalk
trees and eating them anyway in smiles, cus' my pallet was
different. My tongue making stranger fractions when wrestling
words that sounded best on island breezes.
Little crabs my
playmates
and the sound of the beach
calling me home like a beacon
well trained on the taste, of
seaside contemplation.
Cus', though I was a
child
- I felt the water in my
life.
*
One day they said "Say
goodbye!"
So I waved, in my little girl
style.
Quick as a plane travels I landed
smack dab in the city.
Dreams of growing up needing
rapid adjustment, as the serpentine winds of life folding over
the before took me like jazz notes to somewhere
deeper.
Where suddenly, I spoke with an
accent.
You ask, then:
What happens to a prince married
to a paupers daughter when they step out of the lime light and
start to live? What happens to their child?
I’ll tell you:
Tears and tribulation, cold days
in the sun.
Ivy Torres lives in Hawaii with her
fiancé, two
cats and two dogs. She is in the process of completing two
novels and hopes to be shopping them very
soon.
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