Miracle
Wake up
It is the hand that reaches down from the sky
The hand that reaches from between the empty spaces
The hand that
reaches
It pokes, prods, grabs your arm and shakes
Violently
Wake up
It is the irritating buzz
The blare of trumpets
Voices in your head
Speaking in tongues
It is the whisper
From which only intent can be gleaned
Wake up
It is the lover's sweet caress
The spike driven between your eyes
The pressure deep down demanding release
Why do you not pay attention?
Wake up
Roused, the choice is entirely yours:
Remain awake, and see what is real
Or push away the hand
Roll over and draw covers high
Return to slumber
Return to the mere dream of reality
Wake up
- Becca Morn, January 2006
Dare
Dare to stomp hard in fresh rain puddles
Spend as long as it takes to find a four leaf clover
Kick a discarded Pepsi can, just because
Weave protective garlands from dandelions
Dare to rub one on your chin to see if you like butter
Learn the future from a Magic 8-Ball
Dare not to step on sidewalk cracks
Simon says take giant steps always
Dare to build a model spaceship
Believe utterly that it can take you across the galaxy
Dare to color outside the lines
Daydream about talking horses
Watch cartoons in your pajamas
Dare to buy yourself the one thing
You never got for your birthday
Enjoy it even more than you would have then
Go on, I double-dare ya
Tag, you're It
- Becca Morn, January 2006
Double-Dare
Dare to climb through the barbed-wire fence
Into the ground-cropped pasture
Begin searching among the stubble
Wander until you find one, freshly dropped
Glistening brown and steaming
Flies not yet arrived
Lean in to experience the sweet decay aromas
Semi-digested grass and grain
Rich mammalian smells
Dare to plunge your hand in the lumpish pile
Savor the fibrous moisture
Forbidden gift of bovine warmth
Close your fist until it squeezes
Like mud between your fingers
Stir it around, find more pockets of heat
Touch and experience this unclean thing
Relish it fully
Become one with the cow-flop
When you are done
Go find the cow who
Gave you this priceless boon
Make obeisance to her
Show her your hand
Allow her to sniff you if she chooses
Go home after
Do not wash until you get there
It's okay if you try not to get any on your
clothes
It's also okay if you did
- Becca Morn, January 2006
On Writing Poetry
Rip petals from a pink-red rose
Stuff the handful into my mouth
Grind and chew until perfumed water flows
Swallow it
Whetting a thirst for more
Knock back a jigger of silver mercury
Forbidden, toxic heaviness rolls on my tongue
Feel the poisonous caress across palate and gums
Swallow it
Sliding down like liquid metal escargot
Gulp the burnt sweetness of pine boughs on the fire
The milky-sour odor of infants
The fecund stench of decaying flesh
Swallow it
Resist the urge to burp prematurely
Gorge on unshed tears, burdened sorrows
Consume my rage and ecstasy
Eat laughter until I am bloated
Swallow it
Wait for it
Gestate
One day, I cough and cough again
Seized in great ratcheting spasms
Red-faced, arms flailing
I honk and whoop all undignified
A few stolen sips of air, then I cough again
And again
And again
Something awakens finally
Opens its diamond eyes
Rips free
Rises
A gout of crimson blood and watery bile
Bursts from my mouth
An act of reverse peristaltic creation
Hurry!
In cupped palms, catch the hidden thing
Or it will hit the ground and disappear
Like dreams do upon
waking
A raw unfinished lump, dripping gore and slime
Still soft, pliable, yet essence already inviolate
I impart a final shape
An impression of fingers, my grasping hand
Before it
Crystallizes
Abandon it to strangers, or unsuspecting friends
Who have no idea what I’ve actually given them
Let them keep and raise it as they will
Cherish it, or drop it in a garbage-choked gutter
Doesn’t matter
I have already moved on
Rest a moment, catch my breath
Wipe roughly backhanded at the blood on my lips
I reach for another rose
Hungry as ever for more
- Becca Morn, December 2005
Grief
A marriage ended badly
A loved one dead
A dream abandoned
It's all the same
Yet your grief belongs to you alone
A writhing vine of oily leaves and needle thorns
Growing best in darkened, empty rooms
It wraps a tendril around your outstretched finger
To feed on fresh blood each gray morning
Grief is a chasm
So deep you cannot see the bottom
So vast the other rim remains theoretical
You keep pausing in indecision
Do I hurl myself in?
Do I stay here on the edge of this shadowed void
The temptation unfulfilled?
You go on for now
The chasm remains
Forever in the corner of your eye
- Becca Morn, November 2005
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