by E.W. Wilder
1.
She is not the sort of woman for whom one buys flowers;
she is the sort for whom one builds gardens.
The pout, pursed into bow, the serpentine
arms, the hands poised as if
in the middle of a thought. Through almost thought
those hands make the table they lay on. The vase,
the spoon.
2.
A curl of fennel glides to those lips: commas, side-by-side,
impromptu descriptors of thus.
3.
Those lips once branded me,
the blood smudge of a smashed cherub.
4.
On the blood of dead cherubs she glowed.
5.
There is no reason
to dispute.
Consider the splinter,
this interjection
into the innocent
sky of skin, the wood
made flesh, if you will–
and its will a sorting
of revenge from the un-
toward anger of the plane
and saw.
–Lael Ewy
Shots of angry Dawn®
reach my lips, snaps of peach
and a bit o’ vermin-tail. The women
gargoyle about the buff blinds, chains
of barbed-wire tinkle from their bras.
It’s love, the same
harsh distance as igneous
shards, rock love–
the land it’s spewed up on. In my dream
of the apocalypse, this molten stream
of steel breathes a steam of burnt
bodies: flesh made
ethereal in the moment of a shell-
shocked jubilation. What motivates us
is nothing. What moves
us is the cold, stale
scent of the void.
–E.W. Wilder
Mediocrity inspires a certain exciting familiarity. We (who think ourselves humble) see it and in it recognize something of ourselves. Mistaking the thrill of recognition for brilliance, we glorify our own identities within the mundane. Thus the success of Avatar, American Idol, Sarah Palin, et al.
–Lael Ewy