Image by Klaus Enrique Gerdes

Feathery white petals
curl about Frieda’s well foliaged chest
nestled in a bed of greens
where Joseph buries his face
and breathes in the scent of roses and lilies
spiced with pepper,
muted by the over powering freshness
of just picked butter lettuce
making him want to eat her.

His creation.
His garden princess.
His organic bride.

Joseph weeps a salty dressing to his feast,
recites his incantation,
then sits down with a fork.
and devours his dream.

Later, he hollows out her chest
and carves an intricate heart through her flesh.
Flickering light from the candle within
mesmerizes Joseph with the promise
of a partner.

Completing the sorceress’s instructions,
Joseph sleeps.
A soft rapping awakens him from a dream
of Frieda fleshed in human form.
Joseph slicks back his hair with his hands
and walks with hope
past Frieda’s still flickering chest
to the door.
Just as his hand reaches the knob
the rapping resumes.

Joseph laughs
as he opens the door.

Brenda Warren 2012

Thank you to Tess Kincaid of The Mag for inspiration. This piece reads like prose, but I didn’t want to format it that way. It is what it is. I’m hoping Joseph’s dream girl is on the other side of the door.

Starting with process notes today—
The first piece is dark. It came quickly. Wanting to do something lighter, I used the title of an Indigo Girls song “Keeper of my Heart” for the title of my second piece. As far as they go, neither is autobiographical…but you know a little piece of us tumbles into everything we write.

I used all of the wordle words from The Sunday Whirl in the second piece, and all but “crash” in the first piece.

defeated hope

crouching and bruised
she wishes she could glow
she wishes that every crumpled feeling
would chisel a tunnel of light
starting at her spirit’s center
eating through her flesh
piercing holes
holes that burst with the glow healing draws,
searing wounds’ edges
until all that’s left is a small
glowing ball that consumes everything beat out of her
and spits out light

most of all
she wishes she didn’t remember anything

Brenda Warren 2012

Keeper of my Heart

Love me.
Chisel softness into my rock hard heart.
Burst through its crumpled past.
Split its bleating edges into fluttery flesh.
Draw me a pierced valentine
to swaddle bruises beneath the stone,
then crouch in my heart’s darkness
and listen to its crashing stories
beat in waves against your glow.

Brenda Warren 2012

No. Every single full moon night
brings back her daddy’s hired man
and how he took her in the barn
the way a stallion takes a filly
eyes rolling wild in its head.

Brenda Warren 2012

This is a 33 word piece written for Trifecta: Trifextra. The title is the prompt.

Virginia, Minnesota is one of a handful of cities in the United States heated by steam that runs through pipes below the city. People park in alleys in Virginia, as the pipes run beneath them. Steam rises eerily from the alleys on wet winter’s eves, melting shovels.

wafting

For years, steam from beneath Virginia’s streets
seeped into my grandmother’s buffet
where tight walnut drawers trapped its ever-wet scent
in a sea of her linens from Finland.

Today, the drawers open to an olfactory ovation
as inklings of my well-loved child self waft out
amidst trapped steam and my grandparents’ spirits.

Every time I open the drawer,
intense physicality threads tangible waves
through my torso, and a reverie rises,
breathing in ancient expressions
of self.

Brenda Warren 2012

Margo Roby asked participants in her weekly Tuesday Tryouts to write a poem about self. This developed from that idea. The melting shovels are a marriage of surrealism and hyperbole. The alleys aren’t hot, but they are warm enough that snow does not stick to them, and they are all paved. Some of the alleys are named half streets, for example 8 1/2 Street South, where my cousins grew up.