Spider One

The world is a tunnel of death;
it's hard to concentrate with
low-flying conversation overhead.

She stalks only the twins, the girls,
her faces mirror his moods -
together in isolation, partners in desolation,
condemned by genetic mutation.

Her gift to him is rollercoaster fury
tempered with indifference. He is
the long-forgotten ruby slipper essence
when she was single in a relative sense.

Now he is one among the sleepless,
never alone and always by himself.
He is going to line them up
(in real life there are no quick fixes)
and mow them down in sixes.

The gun is in a golf bag in the garage.

He fires it up and flips, one by one,
through each fine fuzzy frame;
his characters are very much alive
in his own home movie and
tonight the stars revolt!

~*~

~mvh

Scythe

I dream treason to my truest self,
that which is not born of me. I swallow
the bitterness that surges
into the back of my throat;
I choke it down. I pretend not to see
the glimpse of the kestrel harlot
I encounter each morning.
I whet my beak and sharpen my claws.
She folds her wings and lingers
in the shadow of the eaves of my lids
ever vigilant for new and exciting prey.

I cut her free and I am all that a starling is not.

~*~

~mvh