I dont want to be
another plastic flower
in the cemetery.

This is an entry for the Mookychick blogging competition, FEMINIST FLASH FICTION 2011. Enter now.

Take Back the Night

Take back the night
Andrea Dworkin 1977

Why then, should we fear the striking of clocks?
Waking late sweating, are all the doors locked.
Prisoners of the sun, snatched from the moon
Women on curfew, alone in their room.
Say no to the bone, say no to the fist
Penis envy, Freud needs a therapist.

Sisters, victims of testosterone.
Where are the men whilst we’re caged in the home?
They’re out in the pubs and roaming the streets
Ladies stay in after dark keep the face sweet
But women lift up your heads and shout,
Now is the time and now we want out

Put down your fears and come out to fight
Now is the time to take back the night.

This is an entry for the Mookychick blogging competition, FEMINIST FLASH FICTION 2011. Enter now.

The Second Sex

She is at times
Crouching,
At times
Erect.
Sometimes dressed,
Often naked,
Arms pressed
Beneath her swelling breasts.
Queen of heaven,
Empress of hell,
Whence she crawls forth,
Or flies,
A serpent.
A dove.
She is manifest
In the mountains,
The springs of water,
Creating life.
Killing.
Retrieving the dead.
Capricious,
Cruel as nature.
She reigns
Over all of Aegean,
Syria, Antolia.
She is Ishtar,
Astarte,
Gaea, Rhea, Cybele.
We are
Isis.

This is an entry for the Mookychick blogging competition, FEMINIST FLASH FICTION 2011. Enter now.

Muse

I am Lorca’s iguana,
Kafka's spine
Schopenhauer’s sloth,
Rimbaud’s barren love child.
I am Blake’s opium stain,
Burroughs needle
In the grove of the vein,
Ginsberg’s anus,
Kerouac’s road,
Millers Capricorn
Hot white load.
I am Wordsworth’s daffodil,
Hunter s Thompson’s
Little white pill,
Sartre’s word,
Poe's death bird,
Sextons lover,
Bukowskis' another.
I am Waldons log,
Dylan’s dog,
Hughes crow,
Plath's sweet low.
I am Elliot’s wasteland,
Beatrice’s snow-white hand,
Carrols Alice,
Neruda's phallice.
I am Jims nod,
Nietzsche’s god,
Gibran's east,
Yeats rough beast,
Ownes doomed youth,
Rilke's truth,
Huxley’s mage.

I am my own blank page.

I lost my identity today

I lost my identity today.
It slipped away,
like a wiley dog
on a thin leash in the park.
It didn’t even kiss me farewell,
like an infidel lover
leaving in the midst
of a hot stale night.

I searched everywhere,
picked every star apart,
smashed every glass to pieces.

Others told me I’d find it-
in the bottom of an empty wineglass,
the last drag of a joint, the fizzle
of LSD on my tongue. I’d find it
in the puddles on cheap city nights,
in the crystal splinters shattering my nose.

Friends offered to lend me theirs,
sometimes I’d steal from strangers,
running down the street with
their identity clutched in my fist,
like a bright woven scarf
flailing behind in the wind.


But draping it over
my bare shoulders
was like wearing
a silk slip in the rain.
Clinging, chilled to the bone.

I’ve got used to sleeping alone,
standing naked in supermarket queues.
And when people ask about me,
who I really am.
I shrug, letting the labels be rain
sliding off my back,
forming puddles, mirrors
on the floor,
to watch your reflection
grow empty.

Where are my Dreamers?

A man rakes leaves into a young woman
Bound silently to accomplishments.
All hail the American night,
These monstrous angels run,
An appearance of the devil,
Explosion of birds.
And I came to you
Androgynous, liquid, happy-
As the drowning man.
Bitter winter blessings,
Clothed in sunlight,
Clustered in watchful terror.
Come disciple
Does the house burn?
So be it.
Drugs, sex, drunkenness
Battle
Earth, air, fire, water.
Everything human
Fence my sacred fire.
I am guide to the labyrinth,
I fear that he has been
And will not come again.
L’america
It was the greatest night of my life.
Midnight moment of freedom.
‘O god’ she cried
Of the great insane.
Poet of the call girl storm,
Rhonda-
She looked so sad in sleep.
The day I left the beach
The diamonds shone
Like broken glass.
Grand highway,
Hour of the wolf,
Voice of the serpent,
Velvet fur of religion.

What are you doing here?
Where are my dreamers?
And the walls screamed
Poetry, disease and sex.

For Jim Morrison

When Beatnike Die

We spent the summer drifting
Like dry rot on the lake.
Our dreams hanging over,
Drooping on the boughs
Of willow trees as adolescence
Passed us like a cloud.

Then later your mother
Fixed the lemonade,
That we replaced with wine,
And set out on each others hearts
With knives and forks to dine

Each day burning out
Like the choke of cheap cigars.
The smell of mildew,
Of you, damp on my pillow,
Kept me restless through
The listless storms of night.
And the faint glow
Of dead end stars,
Kept me burning
In your sights.

We spent the summer chasing
Sparrows that we thought were doves.
Trailing our fingers in puddles,
Making ink blots on the carpet,
And talking idly of love.

Then later your fathers’ winter
Crept up into your blood,
And even the kiss of Isis
Couldn’t pull you from his touch.
Like a dead leaf released
From the trees, blown out
To be a sailor on the lonely
Mans blue seas.

I spent four springs waiting
For the lamb to be reborn.
I thought I’d picked the root,
Instead I chose the thorn.