Is it Right?
First line included from “After Long Silence” by W.B. Yeats Speech

after long silence;
is it right to catch your words and string each one along
until there’s a chain between you and me?
They              inch                 across                your                tongue
           hesitant-
                         awkward.
They’ve forgotten how to smoothly slip from your lips.
I choose not to notice, for I’m entranced
by the gentle murmur of your voice.
I haven’t forgotten silence is a harsh master,
teaching me to wait until your fingertips beckon.
For your words- survivors of suffocated thoughts-
to struggle out from the cavernous skin that contains you.
I protect each word that escapes, for they’re a piece of you.

Grim Reaper

Dearest-
desire does not suit your complexion.
Your cheeks are pink against your untainted skin
your lips as dark and lush as an ambrosia apple
that drips with the morning dew.
Your neck is carved like a vase
and your hair the shade of mahogany. 
I watch your eyes dip into the sunset
until they resonate with every color.
What a shame.
With one stroke
I’ll silence your cheeks until they’re sallow.
I’ll dry your lips until they’re shriveled.
With a flick of my wrist
I’ll crack your irises
until the last drop of color is drained.
Then I’ll dress you for your journey
in a shroud of shredded cerecloth.
Around your neck
I’ll hang a hollow hour glass
and in your hand a coin for your passage.
My scythe will lead us to the river Styx.

Darling-
Crying is useless.
I’ll wipe your tears of ash
with my cursed bones
as we descend beneath earth.
I’ll release you to Charon,
to travel across the river in the ferry.
Come, for time is calling with a demand:
Worship the hands that transformed you,
kiss the hem of my cloak
for Death has prepared you for Hades
Death has led you to your new destination
And Death is now your master.
Renew Us

Redeem me.
Understand that my regrets are a riptide-
pulling, sucking, gulping me under,
ridiculing me until I release my unrelenting rage.
You entrusted reason into my upturned palms.
I wrapped you in the residue of my monstrosity
as you lay slumbering in my rebellious arms.

Restore me.
Rapt observance kept you reaching for my universe,
craving the obscure aurora that reeled you out of reality. 
You risked your rights, rewards, and reputation
though they urged you to reconsider.

Rescue me.
I destroyed your rest, leaving unrest to prey upon you.
I ripped a part your self-confidence
and unbraided the strands of your reverent DNA.

Release me.
You must relinquish my past or I remain bound
to my wrong doings, repeatedly running to free myself.

Revive me.
Utter remorse robs me of you, of us.  Please.  Return to me.

Once Known

I walked on a road I once knew.  It remembered me, some of me,
not all.  I didn’t blame it for I saw it without past memories.  My
neighbor’s dog, Abby, meandered around me as we walked.  There
weren’t any yellow and white colors to touch, just the outline of the
lush grass against the black top.  Shadows of hawks would shimmer
across the road; I tried not to step on them.  At the end of the road,
the point where you turn around, I saw the barn.  Red bricks decked
the front and for a moment it looked proud.  But scrambles of wood
poked through the window, like a boy wearing a suit with a
crooked tie.  The NO HUNTING OR TRESPASSING sign mocks me,
and I pause.  Should I?  The barn is hushed, as if holding its breath,
waiting for me to decide if I would discover its secret.  It quivers as
I head to the decaying side wall, a doorless door frame slumped
in the middle.  I enter, stepping on piles of wooden boards, rags, ropes,
not even touching the floor.  The loft is caved in, long boards sliding
into mountains of already piled boards as if it was a jumbled
matchbox.  A dust covered newspaper is stuck to the floor with the
headline Woman Convicted of Murdering Her Husband and I
wonder why the barn has kept it, why the barn hasn’t pushed
the bed frame, rusty cans, dressers, and boards out of its windows.  I
imagined the loft collapsing on me, the despised boards cracking into
my skull, how my face would be pushed into people’s past possessions
until I was crushed into a relic as well.
 

Three Poems
By:Martha Jones