Ceramic domed home
From many moons past
A sacred space for faerie grace

Auger shells form a white spiked fence
Arcing its way round
A smooth stone patio
Jade to embrace
Jasper for courage
Petrified wood for strength

Fuchsia lanterns hang a magenta heaven
Across a carpet of stars
To the small pond
Reflecting fireflies
Where toads rasp hollow
And groundhogs drink
Deep in the new moon night

Near the pond,
A rusted wrench grants faerie wishes
Gifted detritus
From the dead man’s piles of
Everything
Serendipity surrounds this
Sacred space for faerie grace

Brenda Warren 2017

The man says that
This is just the most repulsive thing
This laptop
Everything electronic that he touches
Is destroyed
He hates this fucking thing
Thing thing thing
It’s out to get him
To eat his spirit
To turn it into spit

Fuck it
Toss it
Dropkick it
Into the gravel drive
Thing thing thing

It deserves death
Rev up Sydney
Put her in reverse
Then forward
Thing thing thing
Die die die

From the porch
His dog looks at him sideways

Something about a laptop, obliterated
Washes satisfaction through the man
He laughs
How dare that thing
Betray his sensibility
Of how it ought to be

The dog sniffs at the remains
Of the laptop, lying there dead
It lifts its leg and looks up at the man

Together they walk through the village
Relishing evening’s cool

Brenda Warren 2017

On a still day
under all that is
you can hear
the universe hum.
Its voice
vibrates being
into alignment.

Through songs
that honor
oneness
self becomes sound.

Brenda Warren

We bare our teeth
sharpen our clauses
And shred each other’s opinions

Brenda Warren 2017

Hills rise from primal rivers
Flowing through the dawn of time
Near Eden’s ancient garden
Where the first macaw screeches
Eat it!
Eat it!
Eve reaches for one apple
While suckling another
Ignorant of everything
but bliss

Eve’s reach
Mesmerizes Adam and the fox
Whose lascivious appetites rise
Watering mouths
Glistening eyes

Set against a nascent world’s skies

Birds, snakes, breasts,

And a scruffy dog
Looking out at you,
Expectantly.

Abruptly
Out of place.

Brenda Warren 2017

Notes: This piece is based on Jacob Jordaens’ painting, The Fall of Man. It is housed at the Toledo Museum of Art. My husband and I laughed too loud the first time we saw the little dog in the painting. So here’s a poem about him.

driving highway twelve
darkness envelopes the car
swallowing my day

Brenda Warren

my pit bull would eat you for lunch
except he’s dead
and never did develop a taste
for human flesh

no matter how hard I tried

Brenda Warren 2017