Annabelle Butterworth

Force- Fed

She is my skull,
grown skin and delicate hairs.
The sad, concave furrows
grip two pitted eyes,
within stretched, fragile features,
bird-like, at the crest.

She is my skull
that no shroud will hide.
The grey, restless shadows,
sink to dour aching jaw,
that clicks in protest
at its hollow burden.

She is my skull
And I am helpless in my servitude



Poetry

And I drop
frustrated by the self indulgence
of these wasted phrases.
The pointlessness
of a deaf orchestral scripture.

Each mini composition
disbanded and disconnected-
from nowhere to
nowhere.

Suspended.

A sermon of no relevance
outside the already converted.
We weep
swollen
searching for recognition
in our ability to sprawl
and retch
on a page.

Unable to follow through-
afraid to begin
or to continue.
But instead write ‘poetry’
for our bedroom walls,
struggling with the howl of
tiny ideas
in a world already too full of words.


 

 Current Issue:
July 2007

Annabelle Butterworth
Patricia Cook
Joshua Cristiano
Michael Estabrook
Anthony Gee
Taylor Graham
Michael Lee Johnson
Jerry Judge
Stephanie Kemp
Michael Keshigian
Stephanie Kjaerbaek
Brian Mayer
Steve Meador
Jessica Sidler
Karla Ungurean

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