Hers alone
She writhes
a dance of tightened sinew,
frayed,
wrapped in Achilles’ grip
arched and silent, eyes squeezed,
head turned— away,
jagged breath and running water
A naked moth,
velvet wings, worn bare,
with only this tether between
and sips
a fig leaf-littered brine
anise-scented liquor, earthy rich and treacly black
sucked deeply from the rind
through silly-straw proboscis
slick with sweat
and sickly sweet
so green, she tastes the lawn
a palate cleanse,
in faded button-fly denim,
the scent of pennies under tongue
acid bright
it flitters, a golden beak, throbbing
darting and dark, beating out
a hurricane, a world away
a white-hot glare
thickly dimpled alabaster
dusted purple-green,
rhythmic remnants left behind,
in labyrinthine whirls
(no two alike)
folded,
like aged, Tuscan-hued letters
lost in time,
aching and golden,
honeyed straw strata
breaking through
wild and wise, but fading with time
blinking (was it ever true?)
nails in palms, leave auburn crescents
imprinting her thighs,
clawing, pushing, dragging it all away
this Coriolis effect,
thrumming gut, a rushing train
buzzy and bright,
it flutters free,
from heavy strings,
pours down her legs,
plucking tones, from the pit beneath her ribs
spilling, its honesty deep
and bathing these walls,
all gilded throat and tapestries red,
buried alive in the warm,
liquid heartbeat,
in the gush and
cut of your tongue,
all sharpness and bile,
the bite of your cheek,
every silken swallow
and rocking stillness
soothed soft and tucked tight,
dozing, weighted with drowse
she is emptied,
of all but the slow and steady hum,
of a lullaby washed upon the banks,
of trembling lips
waxen warm,
and coating jangled nerves
she sleeps, wet and feverish
sticking to the empty tub
hair stuck to her face
She writhes
Vanessa Nix Anthony
July 5th, 2022
A World Colored
Kohl smeared
sedimentary strata
A fading charcoaled lithograph
papered the rock-solid interior
of my logical heart
til you shone
Brightly wet
and water-white
through prisms
I had never known
Reflecting
what I couldn’t guess
A world of color
Shades and light
Tones and depth
Enveloped me
filling the dark and barren places
ardent, vibrant light
dancing into corners
breathing open cracks and crevices
hungry
bursting forth
melting stone
making soft center
those rigid, constricting
fears
suddenly malleable
stretching flesh and bone and blood
beyond its shape
beyond all reason
beyond the plan
painting fresh
a perspective
a possibility
a life
slick, eager—glowing
a warm, pulsating,
resonating, vivid
juicy pulp of desire
unraveled
tumbling
chaos
A heart restored
A soul refreshed
A love anew
A life reimagined
In your eyes
Vanessa Nix Anthony
February 14, 2011
A Handful of Fear
Sepia shadowed evil looms,
backlit and elongated,
like gnarled knobby fingers crawling towards you,
silhouetted in the moonlight,
dragging their nails from under your chin—ghost stories,
flash-lanterned distortions,
scratching your name in craggy echoes
across the floor of your childhood fears.
Non Scents
No one wants to talk about it
the way we smell one another
—Not purposely
but just the same
we smell each other
Our sex
Not the act (though that, too)
But the biology
And not just that
But
Our cells reconfiguring
Expelling and taking in
Disintegrating, marinating,
gestating,
and rebuilding
Kneeling too close
or
Standing too near
You’ll know the things,
you don’t want to know
the older gentleman in the produce aisle
choosing lettuce
Off-gases the embarrassment of controlled incontinence
The faintly cheesy waft that escapes
from the folds between grandma’s downy, thin skin
The telltale fragrance of those heavily-scented bargain pads
the Mexican girls used in junior high
STILL
lingers in bathrooms
whether shared or freshly vacated
It’s NOT
the scent of dumped waste
But of flesh
In all its incarnations
Young, old
Prepubescent
Or
Perimenopausal
Doors opening
And closing
Untouched or defiled
Entering or
exiting
It’s the sharp eye-stinging cling
of sauteed onions
tucked away
in a headlock
beneath an arm
A dragon’s fiery breath
come to singe the brows of early morn
the stale familiarity
of a 4th grade boy’s fart
OR the wretched unpleasantness of a grown man’s
— particularly, if he can’t hold his dairy
How the sickly scent of garbage perfumes
the strep throat afflicted
invading the air and space around them
lying in wait
for fever to infect
another—
a cousin to the slick bright red blotches,
of the moist heat of skin fungus.
The removal of shoes
brings with it reminders
of a newly opened bag of Fritos
And the crevice, where thigh bone meets pelvis,
bakes
like yeasted dough
set to rise in a warm room
And
that
final labored bouquet
of
acrid
waning
breath—
the day before
their
death
No.
No one wants to hear about that.
It’s all non-scents.
Vanessa Nix Anthony
January 2019
No Tap Shoes
Rough day,
thick-headed with the fog of grief
and weak bodied with the blood of life
all tough things at once,
a circle of loss,
this is how to choose your bites —
too large, and sticky-sharp
Overwhelmed with
your human condition
ALL seasons at once
teary, choking humidity,
hot salt and swirling bile
swallowed down
in rhythm
with a blister-busted heart
and sweat-aching bowel
(Just a small voice) muffled
beneath heavy pack,
buried in the avalanche
and heavy swelter of
water-drenched wool,
swaddling the (your) face,
seizing the (your) lungs,
weighing the (your) limbs
Peaceful they say,
(how would they know?)
dancing they say
(without your feet?)
reunited, at last
(but lost to us)
THIS uncharted land.
Though,
we’ve read a map,
roughly drawn,
(once or twice before)
to a similar place.
We’re offered directions,
(by every well-meaning passerby)
But NOT this one,
No.
They don’t know it.
not this one,
not this place,
they can’t find this place
where we miss each other,
where you don’t know me,
locked away
in the distant abstraction
of reverie,
bereft,
longing . . .
For
what?!
(you
do not know . . . )
Until, even hunger is a stranger,
and sleep is your closest friend,
I feel your fingers slip from my grasp,
and with them goes my heart
Is this how it feels?
to lose your compass and canteen,
no shoes upon your feet?
no trail to guide you,
no shoes.
and still,
there are no footprints
(only bone chips) in this sand
(and no arms to carry us either),
no lapping waves at water’s edge,
no horizon to follow,
just the grit and gristle
of sand,
And I can’t even FEEL its heat,
only the thirst,
just THIS thirst.
So I make water,
of my grief,
and touch the edges of your face in my mind,
and look for you in every corner of my being,
in every laugh and toe tap of this child,
in the newfound creases of my own skin,
in the mixed scent of soap and hairspray
and floral-covered cotton house dresses
and in the bitter sweetness of a peppered melon rind
at summer’s end . . .
though,
(it has just barely begun)
And it’s briny,
but I drink deep,
(it knots my stomach),
but still,
I will drink,
(and yes, survive),
bathed in the hope,
of a freshwater savior,
(attempting my own osmosis
daily),
until the sand comes for me,
and with it, a time when,
those behind me,
will drink, too.
— Vanessa Nix Anthony
May 30, 2017
Melting Pot
So many peoples in
the land of the free,
blinded to the “dream,”
it’s been gouged from their skulls
by generations
of too soft, stubby-fingered hands,
“C’mon, it’s a revival!”
A legacy of othering,
shimmers on our slicked rivers,
hanging lifeless from the trees,
dusting lash and breath with ash,
smeared across cheeks,
and forced down throats.
this bitter lumped gumbo
no gag can expel
“Everybody out of the pot . . .”
and if you’re in,
“. . . as long as your under
these skies,
being stirred with THIS spoon . . .”
don’t bother
looking up.
you’ll do as (they) say,
Grateful.
for the warm-handed pat down,
or else . . .
have the breath crushed
from your moth-winged lungs
or a boot to your cloud-filled head,
hidden there in the closet
maybe something in a . . .
Bullet for your late night candy cravings,
your naked bones strung along a fence,
number on your wrist . . .
as you wait in a very long line
for the only bathroom for
YOUR kind
What’s that you smell, simmering on the stove?
(it’s mother’s last breath now,)
“Shh! She’s fine, just having a rest.”
“Don’t worry so much.
We’re safe here in the blankets they gave us.”
(So hot in Herr)
HOPE’s hydrocarbons
cracking with the blackened
crusted crude
“Taste this.”
“but we’re gonna be great again,
aren’t we?
Like it was . . .”
When?
Vanessa Anthony
February 2, 2017
The Dalliance of Leaves
A brilliant dalliance,
golden ochre, flittering,
paper Monarchs
taking off in flight,
twirling in the arms of the crisp Autumn air
outside my living room window
A break in the music,
(a welcome respite from their spirited waltz)
the dancers gather in groups, large and small,
on the emerald slabs of the ballroom floor,
catching their breath and
quenching thirsts,
sipping dew drops
from the blades
beneath their skirts
Vanessa Nix Anthony
November 7, 2016
So . . .
So weary of this war machine
where “They” and “Them”
“MUST BE DESTROYED”
So easy
when it’s THEM
Because
THEY
did
THAT and
THEY deserve it
Children, howling, slapping back
With all the rage and indignation of a God
(we bluster)
all the bite and brawl of a rabid Dog
(we attack)
Heeding the seasick call of
an infrasound fear,
beating just out of reach,
behind our eyes,
pulsing,
beneath our hearts
in the slick, oily underbelly
underscoring,
undermining,
the syncopated rhythms
of our own internal compass
Jarring our needles from their
HOMEward pointing cradles
spinning them, careening
towards a magnetic pole
that leaves us all thin,
dizzy and amnesiac
All less than our whole
Stretched and translucent
Far from community
from tribal unity
from our humanity
And just as senseless,
just as petty,
just as bereft of higher vibration
or thought
Naked
of true meaning
of THE purpose
that IS
love
An action so small
Four tiny letters typed on a page
A line, a circle, an unfinished inverted triangle, an arm encircling in half-embrace
Four letters (4)
To bring us HOME
So
Ready
to join arm-and-arm with fellow humans
REAL humans
not automaton politicos
or Wall Street thieves
or the grift of man-made marketer dreams
So
Ready
to leave behind all the gaping, ooze of want
(disguised as NEED)
to abandon our Corporate Overlords
to their empty marbled fortunes
and gristle-strewn lies
(All of them, long ago parted
from the heft and whisper of their 10.5 ounce fisted muscle,
aortic valves parched, cracked and curling at their edges
their barren chests echoing with the hollow reverberations of a desolate chamber)
Peeling back these crusty, wilted layers,
the greed-covered rot,
to find that better place
where those four tiny letters
and empathy,
kindness,
and consideration,
reside
To find us,
and them,
and they,
Are WE.
Reunited –
blooming in the Bedouin desert
hand-feeding one another,
feasting, on the honeyed milk-giggles
of OUR children
Vanessa Nix Anthony
June 14, 2016
And Sometimes Late at Night
She clips
and she clops
she bangs
and she stomps
my neighbor, next door
But just in the morning . . .
and sometimes late at night
(when she’s most important)
or more importantly, when I’m adrift
wading through a dream or semi-wakeful state,
groggily numbed by the washed out sounds
of my white noise machine Read the rest of this entry »
Whose shoes are you wearing?
“Apex Predator Shoes” by Mariana Fantich & Dominic Young.
They say walk a mile . . .
To understand
And it’s true
To gain insight or empathy
That’s what you should do
But to get to your dreams
Infinite Monkey 