After your shin, a perfect line, sharp

and coarse, the unctuous sheets

slide. A sparrow slides, in hand.

Stab my hand, sparrow.

Keep the sleek bird.

I only want the beak.

She stretches, black and wet.
The sand scratches her body.
She eats her home by moving,
Curving her only bone.

She does not eat the living.
That seep of blood is seeping.
This fresh of death is moving.
She eats the death and cold.

My heart is only seeming.
It listens, when it’s leaving,
It answers, when it’s laughing,
It wants the dark and cold.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

An experiment in prose poetry, with thanks to Wikipedia.

Her arm may stretch, weak as wet sand, or bunch its sunction cups. It may stick to itself. It may taste a part. Yes, her arm tastes, but just parts. It can’t taste a rock. What a limit! In fact, each arm tastes by itself. The octopus wants to eat, and tells her arm, cagey until the tasteless eggs are in her gullet. Sometimes, if she’s threatened, an arm falls off. Its sick crawling serves as a distraction. Isn’t it contemptible? It pretends to be an animal! How long does it dirty itself with ocean debris until it dies? Is it even alive? Meanwhile the octopus is swimming, self-satisfied, her eye like frozen milk.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

His fear lives in a corner. The best fear on the block! He orders its food on the Internet. It eats raw bull. It never sits. It opens and closes its little gray hands. It opens and closes its mouth. Little girl, I know things that would blow your mind. 

Now that his apartment burns his fear hides under the bull-stained floorboards. He is outside and doesn’t hide. His eyes are as bright as a giant’s eyes. I know God wants me to live, and I don’t question God. 

He is as tall as a giant. His fear unties his shoelace. Poor thing, it just wants attention. He cradles it in his shaking hands. The Bible was written for me, not you. You’re a nice young lady, but I don’t question God.

 

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

Well, this was originally for Three Word Wednesday, but the third word (predict) just didn’t seem to fit, so I’ll just publish it as is, even though it seems unfinished.

His voice, an iron bell.
I lost my voice in the snow.
A feeble scratch. I’m nothing now.
Nothing without my bell. 

A foaming drink in his cup.
A foaming drink in his mouth.
You are a handsome man. You are.
His plaintive bony hand.  

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

This is a very small “list poem” for We Write Poems, found at wewritepoems.wordpress.com. Now that I’m working constantly it’s going to be difficult to find time to write, and I haven’t in more than a week, so this is a bit of a warm-up. I’m going to have to make time.

Dark, the last look.
The last fall. Bone
That scrapes, meat
That moves, Mind, that is
Nothing, at all.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

I just moved to a new state! So I haven’t had much time to write, but I thought I’d post an old poem. Apparently I used to enjamb a lot more.

She is an insect, puttering weakly,
eating the walls of this house. She apologizes
as she eats, her black eyes pleading for us
not to notice. Her eyes are still and wet, but her insect mouth
works furiously. She watches me from the rafters. She would like
to fall into my hair, and stay there.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

A little ditty for Sunday Scribblings, found here: sundayscribblings.blogspot.com. The theme: letters. This would be a fun children’s book to write. 🙂

W grows like the swells of the sea,
B is a burst of energy,
Z is sharp and secretly kind,
But M is shy until combined.

This is for One Single Impression, found at onesingleimpression.blogspot.com. The theme this week: preponderance.

This unrest must outweigh his taut shoulders,
His closed mouth, his fierce dark eyes.

Baby! Why?

We closed our eyes and listened to Brahms
On your plaid bed. It was a pretense, or it wasn’t.
A sweet secret, then your mouth on my neck.

There’s someone else. Isn’t there!

Yes. I cast you off. You were too heavy.
Granite on my stifled heart. I cast you off.

You say I’m flighty. I might be.
If I’m in flight, it’s from your force
And my labored choice.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010

I have been feeling very uninspired lately, so I was grateful to the Big Tent Poetry prompt (find it and lovely work from other writers at bigtentpoetry.org) to take a part you love from your favorite poem (whether that’s an idea, an image, etc.) and use it in an original poem. I’ve chosen my favorite image from “… J. Alfred Prufrock” as a jumping-off point. I might have to do this with other poems as well!

I should have been a pair of ragged claws/scuttling across the floors of silent seas. (From T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”)

I should have. This body won’t scuttle.
It rests, and sinks in the dark
Like a moon without edges.

I am eaten by vastness.
I should have been.

To stride in the dark, to scuttle!
A body with terrible parts.
Claws to kill, the mouth, a hole.
The ochre back. The silent crawl.

It eats its vastness and spits.

Copyright Megan Kennedy 2010