Zannis - Categorically speaking: a collection of poems

Categorically Speaking
A Collection of Poems
ALEXANDRA MOSS ZANNIS Order this book online at www.trafford.com
or email Most Trafford titles are also available at major online book retailers. Copyright 2012 Alexandra Moss Zannis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author. ISBN: 978-1-4669-4126-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4669-4125-0 (e) Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909917 Trafford rev. 06/08/2012 www.trafford.com North America & international toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada) phone: 250 383 6864 fax: 812 355 4082 CONTENTS We are forced into life through the open wound, smeared with its blood and entangled in its placental snare.

Each day of our lives we are impaled and gored by the relentless traumas that pierce our inescapable net. The wound is within us, never healing, but seeping with the blood and tears of our infinite sorrows. How deliciously iridescent was the budding leaf when it burst into bloom on an extruding limb of the tree another leaf sprouting forth from those that preceded it; another leaf to burden the boughs of that time-worn tree; an added weight until it no longer could bear lifes fruit. But what a tiny leafno danger to fell the tree, no danger to bend the bough to the bone-filled earth. I shimmered and glowed from the dew that caressed me at sunrise, bouncing and dancing from the touch of the morning breeze, singing as the surging sap filled my tiny veins; I expanded and thrived in the suns dappling shadows , growing rich and lustrous with the cleansing of the rain, expanding into an age-ripened leaf able to comprehend my identity among the fledgling leaves, able to sense my uniqueness among the flowering branches. Then one day, bursting with the strength of my youth, I tore away from my roots, snapped the stem that held me and leaped onto the winds of flight that bore me upwards and onwards into the swirling currents of life.

Freed from my umbilical cord, I soared into the future. Aspiring heaven and seeking to reach unimagined heights, I strained to devour all the delights presented by the wind. I soared into maturity with each season stealing a piece of my life-giving fluids until, as a waning leaf, I began to shrivel and wilt from my pleasure-seeking years. When the buoyant winds no longer could lift my dying cells, I began to swirl and twirl downward into the twilight of brittle decay, falling to the ground beneath the time-worn tree where once I budded and bloomed with life. Curling into myself I became one with the earth. Who was that little girl who shed that diminutive body like a cocoon emerging into the inception of its life? Is she but a diaphanous memory her mind grasps upon when the gravity of life casts doubt upon her being? Who was she, all those years ago, who flung those tiny arms around her mothers waist remembering the softness of that stomach which had been her embryonic cradle? Who was that little girl whose fathers songs implanted in that untilled mind a hereditary seed that bloomed into a voice of unimagined dreams? Who was that little child, that tiny sapling that sprouted into another form of being; a dandelion that vegetated on the earth whose flower head detached and floated on the winds of life? Who was that little girl who now is but a dream; that ova-sperm that germinated into what she is today and now not knowing who once she used to be? I am as strong as the morning sun that bursts upon the earth each day.

It never changes, never tires, never ages. I am older than the Bristlecone pines that stand invincible in the noonday suns scorching, the winds raging, the rains drenching . I am the fertile ground for ripening fruit; I am the bearer of mans continuing seed, the flowering soil, absorber of the rain. I am as ageless as time, unyielding to death, eternal youth that thrives upon the earth. I am me! I am life! I am WOMAN! If you hate me, color me black like the bottomless cavity of hell and let no sunlight seep into the abyss; or inject my soul with India ink and wrathfully write the word bitch upon its assailable substance. If you resent me, color me green like the burning envy in your eyes as you stare covetously at me, or green like the bubbling bile that ceaselessly churns and grinds in the pit of your embittered bowels.

If you love me, make me brilliant like the rays of the sun igniting the dancing ripples on a lucid lake into glistening gems, or color me fuchsia like the wild rose that blooms in spring without ostentation. If you leave me colorless then I am faceless, bodiless and soullessinvisible to the world. So take your pallet of paints and color me the pigments of hate, envy or love, for then I am visible in your eyes. Here you sit within my mouth, you pretender of wit, arched to spring forth with some diabolically cynical witticism. Even when youre forced into the hollow of my cheek I feel you throbbing as you preen yourself to ejaculate into articulation. And then, like a flying javelin, you hurl yourself from the safety of my cheek and pierce the conversation with your poison.

O, tongue, shall I call upon Tereus to surgically dispose of you as he did Philamela? .... but I fear the bird would become a vulture! No human face, but molten flesh that melted into devilish form with each vile utterance! Bulbous eyes that seared into my own and from their depths unleashed the furies of a thousand dormant hates. Surly lips, curled back in wolf-like snarl, could not restrain the spittle from his mouth that dribbled like hot coals down his chin; Hands stiffened into clenched fists, upraised and hungry for the satiable feel of dented flesh and smashing bone. I felt the anger well up within my throat like bile; a bitter vetch that chocked my voice and made me puke my words out in that face. And then it came! The smashing fist! My gasp for breath exploding with surprise from shock and fear and hate. When first she knew her womb was generating life her body seemed to levitate above the ground.

She felt herself afloat within a magic spume, not knowing then the seed within was not to be. The sperm provider vowed for total termination; and the devastating serum found its tiny target. While in Cadiz the extrication first began. She moaned aloud in lacerating agony, cold sweat pouring down her pain-contorted face. The inert fetus, liberated from its tomb, lay lifeless in her palmso small a thing, no larger than the graphic image of a tadpole. (with apologies to Omar Khayyam) I sat across from her fascinated, no, hypnotized, as I watched her mouth gnashing up and down on her food, moving two scrunches per second. (with apologies to Omar Khayyam) I sat across from her fascinated, no, hypnotized, as I watched her mouth gnashing up and down on her food, moving two scrunches per second.

She had thin lips, maybe an inch beneath her long nose that looked like an arrow pointing to a mouth that never stopped masticating.. When she halted long enough to talk, her mouth opened like a sewer grate, the salivary juices running down the sides trying to escape her teeth. If we could see ourselves as others see us, would there exist idealistic poetry? Would Omar Khayyam in his Rubaiyat have changed T he moving finger having writ . .. to: The masticating mouth does chew and having chewed gnaws on, nor all its gnashing nor its grinding shall eradicate one morsel from its culinary function? I have condemned all those dreams that dissipated into disappointments and never-to-be achieved into that dark and airless cell deep within my heart. I have thrust them in, squeezing them like festering pus in a pustule wound, without hope of ever being released.