Red Rhapsody
She was ripe,
an unpeeled apple
waiting to be exposed,
wearing proud red cloak
of ultimate perfection.
I peeled curvaceous layers,
unraveled masked white skin,
appealing freckled face,
beauty more than
skin deep,
lush contours
of glistening silk.
My teeth bit
into her flesh
with slathering,
seductive sound,
intoxicated with
sweet fragrance
of her pith.
Sugar juice
dripped from lips,
red blush of ripeness.
Claret rhapsody.
Pulse
It’s warm here, with my brother and sisters.
Crowded.
We writhe inside the small enclosures of our eggs.
We are the half-formed: brown translucent pods jammed
side by side in the dark hollows of our host.
Soon, our brood mother says. Long, serpentine, beautiful. Soon.
And then—the drop.
We are the fallen, flung from the sky, clustered
in brown globules on the shadow of a leaf.
Come closer, slow-moving snail!
We entice you with our shiny ovals.
Closer, closer.
You are a languid giant sailing across the leaves.
And you take the bait.
You swallow us down your gaping slime maw, and we
travel down the dark length of you.
There we grow.
We grow in this new dark, forming long tubes, interconnected.
We dig our tendrils into your neural circuits and drive you.
We allow you to travel
To where you want to go—for now—
places cool and moist and dark
Running your creeping circuits around
dark undersides of mushrooms and rotten logs.
We are the broodsacs.
As we grow, we spread out into your eyestalks
preferring the left tentacle over the right,
As we grow, we grow fonder of you, our lumbering ride
and life source
As we bloom, we dance and pulsate in bright green and yellow spirals
You cling to the darkness, giant snail, always
but we draw you to the light and
the warmth of the sun, which catch our colors,
(we pulse in light only)
We draw the energy for our dance
The dance of death
Drawing the eye of a new feathered host
Down, sharp beak, spearing into the soft flesh of you
And we are drawn into a familiar darkness, down, down—
The cycle begins again.
If Puppets Brought You the Message You Were Dying To Hear
Who's that Anchorman
That hangs so
Blatantly
From a string?...
He mouths words
Of oatmeal
With no value
At all...
...These Anchors
Take after
Pinocchio
Now...
Wooden limbs creak, and
When they tongue-lash...
...Rivers of chatter
Gravitate to your
Platter...
If puppets brought you
The message
You were dying to hear,
Would you be doing
Cartwheels?...
...Or would you steer
Clear
From the channel
Because the truth
Stung so damn much?...
Commentator's of this
Ugly thing we call
Progress
Spread
Lies 'round
The lips of a
Well-oiled
Smile...
...The truth has to
Taste right!...
...Sticks of gum
Pop
When primed!...
...Who could pay
To oppose?...
...Who can free up
The time?...
These Anchors demand
That we set life aside,
And immerse ourselves
Deeply
In the farce they call
'News'...
Yes, we must join
Their ranks
With our closed closet
Rules.
...We can't keep for
Too long
From the fridge
'fore an Anchor
Affirms our expiration...
...Guess we knew
It would come!...
As the Anchors insist,
We live under
The gun.
If puppets brought you
The message
You were dying to hear,
Would you be doing
Cartwheels?...
...Or would you steer
Clear
From the channel
Because the truth
Stung so damn much?...
Maybe truth wouldn't
Hurt so
If the dosage was
Frequent...
...Perhaps we should
Seek counsel,
And abandon our
Crutch...
©
2017
Bunny Villaire
Believe in God?
I have to ask, — is this all there is? Do we live a few years and then die and nothing more? Is the thought of God an empty creation by man born out of desperation?
Ultimately, when I look up at the night sky and contemplate how vast it is, I realize I am nothing in the scheme of things. When I see the beauty, and diversity of the world around me, knowing that everything comes from something; I know all things had to have a beginning.
I am a machine-tool builder by trade and here is what I do know: nothing creates itself. What I see is intelligent design all around me and this compels me to believe in a Creator. How I would choose to define that creator is a continuing journey and the road is long. The problem is — we are not born with a collective consciousness. We must start from scratch and begin the slow and arduous learning process, turning to those with more knowledge and experience. But progress in any endeavor involves taking the known and building on it. Are we still using flint spears? Growth involves seeking those with knowledge, acquiring, using, sifting and refining in a continuous forward progression. My quest for knowledge on this topic is far from over; yet my faith in a creator is unwavering, because of a simplistic truth bases on the expression, — “Creator.”
The Creation Tale
Locked together in tight embrace,
They were the darkness, the infinite space.
The primordial parents were intertwined
Between them, their children, in the blackness, confined.
Clustered and cramped they were wedged for an age
Growing bitter, resentful, they hated their cage.
Together they plotted for this union to cease
“We must pull them apart, we must make them release!”
So they each of them pushed and they each of them pried
But the parents pulled tighter, their children denied.
The first born, the fierce, he refused defeat
He laid on his back and pushed with his feet.
The oldest, the angriest, cursed out of spite
“Enough of this darkness! Let there be light!”
And the lovers, as one, from the beginning, the start
By their children’s own doing they were pulled apart.
The father, he grieved and so did his wife
As light burst forth and out of darkness came life.
He lamented his loss for there would be no other
She fell with her children and became the Earth Mother.
The children became gods of the Oceans and Seas
Of Fire, of War, of Forests and Trees.
But the Father, his dominion, Lord of Stars and Skies
Still mourns his love with the rain from his cries.
And Earth Mother, she struggles, and makes the land quake
She longs for her love to sooth her heartbreak.
Still they call for each other, but to no avail
And that is the beginning, the creation tale.
We can be so cruel and harsh with each other
Words can cut sharper than a double edged sword
Life and death lies in the power of the tongue
Cycles of generational miscommunication
Cycles of pretence to please those bestowed with power over us
Cycles of suppressing our true self
Choosing to stay caterpillars when we are destined to bloom
What holds us back from being butterflies?
Fear which speaks on a larger problem
We do not know love, many of us will not truly know it in this lifetime
There is no fear in love
There is no cruelty in love
There is no possession or control over the other in love
In choosing to practise love, we speak life, we seek light, we heal our spirits together
There is no force greater than this
yet we are so easily consumed with
anger, power, lust, violence.
As a family we are divided and broken.
We let the past interfere with our present, casting a shadow to our future.
Ego blinds us to seeing the cumulative change and personal growth we make daily striving to become better.
We choose to live in a space of pain and hurt, recounting the moments that made us feel small and unworthy.
We refuse to heal ourselves because that requires effort and an active choice of change.
We refuse to choose to be happy, to heal our pain and turn it into laughter because we don't know the pitch, tone, variance or vibrancy of this laughter.
We fear the outcome believing that if we let go for one moment to truly practise love and heal some how we will get hurt and fall even deeper into the spiral of despair,
living the rest of our lives under a dark cloud.
We lack faith to believe that love is our birth right
We are afraid that in choosing love we choose a new unknown identity. We are not the same once the choice has been made.
There is no fear in love. There is only faith and hope.
I pray that you know love and if you do not get this opportunity I pray that you get a glimpse of it. You are deserving and worthy but the power lies in you.
Exhausted
Feeling sluggish and worn out
All strength has been lost
My physical body is hollow
I'm exhausted
Fatigue is wearing me down
Feel like I'm being tossed
My mind is vacant
I'm exhausted
Believing that my finish line is near
Into eternity I'll soon cross
My spirit will vanish
I'm exhausted
Completely used up
Actions carry a high cost
My soul has emptied
I'm exhausted
