Mouse traps
Mouse traps
by Marie Gordon
It seemed easy
To write you out
To catch your stealth
Persona by its tail
And how sweetly
I accepted
Rhetoric’s cure
Without a true poison
These dangling poems
Only squelched you
Needed a trap
To set once and for all
And place it down
As purely mine
Because hunting you
Will only deplete my cheese
Machine life
By Marie Gordon
My heartbeat
Beeped on the screen
A jagged line
Confirmed
I was alive
Why did I wake
To feel this pulse
A plastic tube
Breathing
For my lungs
To know life
Still pumped through me
But wasn’t mine
Dripping
In my veins
A shadow
Of my body
Lays swallowing
Its life
The bow
The bow
By Marie Gordon
You had me spun
Around your finger
Tightly bound
Resisting your pull
A ribbon strand
Like a piece of floss
Tugging fast
To wind myself still
I feel your strength
Clenching my twine
Testing me
To see if I’m taught
I still hold fast
Wrapped around you
As if you
Could tie my bow
Fortress
The fortress
By Marie Gordon
I built my fortress
With mortar and brick
Stacking the tons
Around me
Once I’d piled the walls
And sealed myself in
I waited inside
My stillness
Spilt
Spilt
By Marie Gordon
Will this poem write you out
As my pen pushes in
And the ink seeps through
Will your soggy hands shrivel
When I fiercely dot my i
Will it startle your sleep
And as the word imbeds
Will it pierce your calm pulse
When I shorten the words
Will they hold you fast
And still by their title
To grip and cut you out
When this verse concludes
Dripping from a swift point
Will its smooth blue lines fill
This page from your slick veins
my reel
It’s been a while…nevertheless I am still writing. Here is my newest poem, one that comes from a train of thought that plays on ideas of spectatorship, reality and the concept that reality can interact with what one might have perceived as ’story-book fantasy’ through film. Hope you enjoy.
My reel
By Marie Gordon
If you could watch this reel
With me from start to end
Would you still hold my hand
Would you scoff at the plot
Or diminish the facts
Down to pitiful scrapes
How would you perceive the girl
Sputtering on this film
Like a sharp offering
And would you feel afraid
As you watched her bleed out
That one day she’d blame you
Could you love the body
You saw mutilated
By the unlikely beast
If you saw the damage
Would you carry her off
Or leave her on the screen?
my kite tale
My kite tale
By marie gordon
Tugging a white string
I scampered through the weeds
Chasing a swift menace
As if wind had will
See how delicate
Those tiny toes splintered
Tumbling over sharp sticks
Smiling through the pain
Watching the kite fly
My plastic dream afloat
On God’s lofty blue sea
I could taste the rush
Begging for a breeze
Let my chariot rise
If God could lift the sky
A tad, it’d be great
Hold me little kite
And I’ll hold on to you
Lend me your bird’s eye view
And I’ll give you wings
Bobbing
Bobbing
By Marie Gordon
I was the sea turtle
That swam underneath you
As you drifted out
Into the churning waves
As your tippy toes searched
For bottom I lingered
To see human hands
Buoyantly intertwine
How pulsing tides toss you
How stubbornly you drift
And test these sharp waves
As though you summoned them
I dare you, bold humans
To untangle your arms
To plunge in my sea
And feel the blue chill
Reptile charms
Reptile charms
By Marie Gordon
Your cool breath hovers
Over shaking prey
Your deep voice whispers
Of gruesome fates
Green-eyed mirrors beam
Frames in shiny strands
Deriving smooth greed
From mousy sweats
And trembling beads drip
While glossy claws grin
How weak is the heart
That pulsates pleas
How strong is the smile
That breeds off cold flesh
Jagged and silky
The reptile’s charms