Spring offered heat.
The lilac's pungent scent
blew in the windows.
My hands shook as if
they were the perfumed
blossoms trembling.
I tried to call so many
friends but it was my
loneliness that bore me
on. My sighs cut through
pain like a dull knife
opening a gift.
###
Totalitarian States
Love is a fascist state
where slogans like
" Voodoo Happens "
flash from the bumpers of
cars and troops dressed in
green environmentally safe
zoot suits
marshall the populace
through painted streets
where one's sense of small
intensifies and you taste the
fragrence of all scents:
Licorice Cinnamon Clove.
At dusk every one of
Love's citizens is required
to assemble in the piazza for
the Field Marshall's rally.
He stands with Venus de Milo
placed behind him to the left.
All eyes light on her armless
beauty, serenely mute.
He speaks the word everlasting
as if you could rub it
between your fingers
like frayed fabric or
a dried wild flower
that will fall and scatter
to indecipherable pieces
when you let it go.
--Maudy Benz
about Maudy