girl he calls [Harlot]

Reel 1

i stand on my mark. a black X beneath my feet. the foreground to a marbled gray backdrop. i am naked. exposed. with a V etched into my skin. above my heart. my freshly branded scarlet emblem. it does not stand alone. circled in red paint. slashed through. (no smoking. do not enter. no shirt. no shoes. no service.) he said i was stained. dirt on his white pant suit. a smudge on his camera lens. my body distorted by his idealism like a window coated in a thin film of rain. the camera losing focus. a grainy photograph. everything in black and white. captured. framed stills. my face smeared into gray scale. i am unrecognizable. i no longer exist. he placed a black bar of censorship over the ugly parts. pieces. fragments of me he would never touch. he tried to solarize me. turn me inside out. make me into something other than what he saw before his eyes. his (finger)prints covering what was left of me. or what he wanted to see of me. all he saw were the negatives.

poetic form

pantoum:   the modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. the last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first. (example: until moonlight breaks)

abecedarian:   an ancient poetic form guided by alphabetical order. generally each line or stanza begins with the first letter of the alphabet and is followed by the successive letter, until the final letter is reached. (example: mind’s eye)

exquisite corpse:   played by several people, each of whom writes a word on a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal it, and passes it on to the next player for his or her contribution. the only hard and fast rule of exquisite corpse is that each participant is unaware of what the others have written, thus producing a surprising—sometimes absurd—yet often beautiful poem. exquisite corpse is a great way to collaborate with other poets, and to free oneself from imaginative constraints or habits. (example: a master of nothing)

ekphrasis:    ekphrastic poems are now understood to focus only on works of art—usually paintings, photographs, or statues. and modern ekphrastic poems have generally shrugged off antiquity’s obsession with elaborate description, and instead have tried to interpret, inhabit, confront, and speak to their subjects. (example: lines)

source for definitions: www.poetry.org

a master of nothing

mind’s eye

An ink

blot

came from the tip of my pen. A

disease ate away my charcoal images

enveloping what was left of them.

Foggy memories. Frustration

growing.

Holes augment deeper,

imbed a

jumbled

kind of

lifestyle. Pieces of the jigsaw fading at a

moment’s

notice, never returning from their exodus.

Oppositional thought

plagues my mind leaving

questions in the wake.

Ransomed consciousness.

Stranded in a black hole,

trying to crack the hour glass

under which I am held prisoner. Trying to

vanquish my rights as an individual

with one last attempt before everything is

x’ed out

yanked from my feeble grasp. My reflections dwindled down.

Zero.

until moonlight breaks

she was bound by a lack of sound

that day she took her place among the flowers.

Spring knocked on Winter’s door

and the sun said goodnight to buds and decayed leaves.

that day she took her place among the flowers

she became the center piece statue in the midst of a garden,

and the sun said goodnight to buds and decayed leaves

leaving a trail of water in her eyes.

she became the center piece statue in the midst of a garden.

her cement sinking with the weight of gravity,

leaving a trail of water in her eyes

as snowflakes waltz their way to her fingertips.

her foundation sinking with the weight of gravity

while she holds her head.

snowflakes waltz their way to her fingertips

and soak her sins into brittle hands.

while she holds her head

her stare tunnels through trees

and soaks her sins into brittle hands

until moonlight breaks her figure.

her stare tunnels through trees

while Spring approaches Winter’s door

and moonlight breaks the figure

bound by a lack of sound.

         

photos from phantomoftheopera.com