Selections from The ShadowBride....

ShadowBride graphic - 2007, DS

A sampling of a few recent (1999 - 2010) poems, most appearing originally on one of my former websites, "The ShadowBride."

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Lost Tales of Anonymous Women

Because she was not treasured, 

Time took over,

(And Time treasures no one)

And Time had its way with her;

Worse than serial killers, 

Worse than evil stepmothers, 

Worse than wild dogs. 

Like a disease, like a grub, 

It ate, and ate outwards, 

Till her skin hung like dried fruit 

Off a brittle stalk, 

Till all that was pink and white 

And frilly as Cinderella's slipper 

Blackened like an eel but

Would not slough off.

Because she was not nurtured, 

She could not live, 

She could not die...

While the briars wound around her 

Like New Year's resolutions 

And tore, like meathooks 

Into her eyes, her heart, her spine. 

And. all the time, the blood fell, 

Perpetually, chronically, 

Drop by drop,

Like an ocean 

Filtered through a water clock, 

Like scabs in the desert sand, 

Like tears on an iron pan, gone

Hissing into oblivion.

Because she was not honored, 

Her mind became a morgue, 

A silent hallway lined with silent drawers:

Each a keepsake box 

Stuffed with muffled accusations. 

And these, in turn, 

Became her windows, 

Blank as prison doors, 

Dull as an Arctic horizon,

Where a ship 

Would not appear, 

Where a dove 

Would not alight, 

Where she'd not

Let down her hair.

Because she was not pleasured, 

The ghosts moved in to stay. 

They rustled in the wallpaper, 

And groped between her legs. 

She let the dust accumulate 

In snowy landscapes on the floor, 

And let the mold grow on the ceiling, 

Its constellations hovering there

Like spells, like curses,

Like soot, like ashes, like dirt;

While, cast in the corner, 

Blackened and spent ,

Each one her heart's desire 

Or next-to-last lament, lie

A life's supply of wooden matches.

- 2000, Dia Sobin

Port of Dreams

It is always dusk

Behind the moon’s bloodless mirror

The skin is cast off

Layer by layer, submerged,

The pulse ebbs, the airs thicken

And so the blind swimmer

Sets forth

Across the border

To where a starless sky slants

Into a water, slack,

Encoded

W/ the moon’s toneless melodies

- 1999, DS

The Others

They cannot penetrate the aluminum air 

where souls lay sleeping...

migrant birds,

mute and flockless,

cast 

in a perilous density.

I am hollowed like a gourd,

a Chinese lantern.

The Others brush the walls of my interior 

like moths within a globe 

but I am blind, flameless.

Only hymns remain

encrypted in my bones,

worn as epitaphs on Martian tombs,

the heart's own hieroglyphics

hermetically sealed...

And though a memory might stir 

of the initial fracture 

or a featureless twist emerge 

from beneath this dull fabric,

I circle alone 

transfixed, wingless.

- 2000, DS

These Walled Cities

These walled cities 

They are yours 

The minarets the domes 

Patterned windows 

Frameless holes 

Streets cobbled with skulls 

Of both the faithless

 and the faithful 

Now ground beneath our heels 

Anonymous as stones 

I am the anchorite 

In the catacombs

The woman in the wall 

Skin mouldering with self-betrayal 

Brain embalmed with lamentations 

Incantations I can't recall 

Glass nails scimitars 

Nothing penetrates 

Still a light swells inside of me 

As prayers resonate in the citadel 

Bell-like tones enticing me 

But forbidden to me 

Always forbidden 

Yet, some things come to me 

The eye of an owl 

Snakes in the courtyard 

A star's detritus 

Some things come to me 

Memories of rain the wind 

Sensations in the silken skin 

A scent a bead a feather 

(But I came for love 

I came for love only)

Now I lay 

Beneath the walls 

I lie outside them 

The terrible baying of dogs 

spreads blood red on the horizon 

It is your city 

It is always your city

- 2000, DS

Mystica Femina

I know where the burning woman goes

I have seen the ashes.

I have seen the skies darken w/ her cries,

The scarlet tides,

Blackened with denial.

Oh, yes, I know what was done.

My mother was once her friend...

Whether on the corner

Or in the market-place,

Or in a burning bed.

But, even she did not love her.

Nor did all the others.

They could not even see her

As if their eyes were singed shut

By her blazing hair.

What of the ashes then?

Fire by fire consumed.

I see her dancing

Upon the ashes of a Father

That was not, in fact, her own.

After the procession,

They (all) moved on.

- 2010, DS