Hananigans Shenanigans

were wreathed in lilies, called it The Curse;

drank secrets until open we burst;

scratched at our own necks, choked by our tanks;

dug up our own limbs on riverbanks;

laid blame at a pair of calloused feet;

poured salt in the cracks of the concrete;

lit joints to forget we killed our kin;

burned our holy words in old tin bins;

wore our lipstick high inside our thighs;

blew smoke rings on balconies up high;

laid hair in water like yarn in paint;

prayed dead there like our own holy saints:

dead with goddesses and First Daughters,

like she and me, dead like our martyrs,

Her name was Tender Heart

Her name was a chide

Her name, a chime,

A ripple in the tide,

An echo across time.

Her name, to raise her from bed

(In a dream yet)

Led away by Red,

Led away by a girl in Red, Red curls

Through the golden wheat

(Somehow golden?

Somehow bathed by emboldened heat.

Own cheek,

Somehow coated in molten heat,

Although, just ago,

Cool moon had not yet

run its retreat...)

Red, Red curls prancing ahead.

Own adorned foot browned

by torn funeral ground.

(Although, just ago,

It had been lush, unsoured,

Green and plush.)

“Tender Heart!”

Her name! An echo across the plain,

(across planes?)

Found wild curls of a girl luring

Sweet young boy whose heart beat in chimes:

“Tender Heart! Tender Heart!”

Her name.

“Tender Heart, it is time

For last times.”

A chide.

Across thorned plains, and then,

In the dark.

Red, Red curls lured her again,

“Tender Heart, it is time

For last times.”

A chime?

Then, perfection,

And Red,

And racing Red minds

Overtaking feeble eyes

To flaws soft, lush, plush, and green.

A curdling scream,

To tear from reverie.

Tear Tender Heart from bed,

To a river of Red, Red

Of Sweet Young Heart whose beats used to chime,

“Tender Heart, Tender Heart

A chide, a chime,

A ripple in the tide,

An echo across planes,

An echo across time.”

(Although, just ago,

It died with morning’s tide.)

a TV antenna pointed west,

across rivers of smoke,

screams in smoke,

screens on TVs of smoke.

And little girls choking in scarves,

and little boys choking on arms,

and Bakers and Smiths in arms,

and neighbors sniffing out armies

and traitors and armies of traitors.

She was like vapor,

drifting, hissing,

East. East across the water,

East across the border,

East across the mortar.

Battling beasts battling beasts.

And still static. Still,

systematically symptomatic.

Still smoke screams.

Still smoke screens.

Still cloaked scenes on her TVs.

Ten years, an antenna pointed west.

Ten years, radio static.

Ten years confessed, traumatic,

venom left bereft.

Ten years, an agenda against

beating chests.

Still, ten years.

Ten years as smoky static,

as smoke on water,

systematic trauma

to daughters choking in scarves

to sons choking on arms

And Bakers and Smiths in arms

Our neighbors and kin in arms

There were no fruits on his branches, nor on hers.

Theirs were ashy and stiff,

like the fragile shells of kindling corpses

after a cruel and indiscriminate fire.

Yet, they were stood atop a hill barren as they,

and found solace in a warm sun

that wantonly matured across the sky;

solid somehow; bleeding somehow; alive somehow;

like the fruits it would not give them.

And they were comforted

by such a torturous taunt,

because it was proof that time trucked on,

and there were fruits some place,

that were, too,

solid somehow; bleeding somehow; alive somehow;

maturing to the rise and fall of those taunts,

maturing to the solace of warm suns,

trucking on somehow,

There were words on words

in bones of

lost sisters.

Cinematic cuts;

theatre thirds;

sang in moans;

performed in blisters.

Amongst us

who will dance

again, songs in our

spines hung up

like hanged men…

We’ll abandon kin

for nothing

except for

that cacophonous

crowd’s chorus.

(Should we zip

lip and bow? Moreso,

will it wow?)

Blind and deaf.

Awed to applaud our

deepest flaws.

"Perform!" They

shriek. They jeer. They prod.

We, like all,

breathe wounded

songs. We’re left nothing,

but sisters’

words in shins.

Words tucked under tongues.

taking pains towards the insane

to be the victor who remains

with mountains of candy and brandy

and insecure caddies

to carry the broken pieces

of our egos and dreams

downstream

to where an old man

patches the holes in souls

to make them whole

again, like

dames and doctors do

for boxers and bones.

.

There is only rise or falter,

no compromises for the daughters of fathers,

whose stern concern can earn

them the churn of a stomach

or return of a spurn.

No spins or whirls,

for splintered hearts mourning words,

and the dull aches of 'what could have beens'

and past mistakes,

and the haunting thought

of when there were no breaks

at all.

.

But life hinges on a desperation to avoid

the legacies and dreams

of hopeless ancestors' memories,

and midnight moonlight will light

sea-shine diamonds

on the edges of distant horizons,

and hearts pounding in crisis,

shivering lips,

dilated irises,

palms sweating, minds silent;

We'll experience timelessness!

The righteousness of idleness,

the power of absentmindedness...

.

Sure, the trees will muffle screams

of those oppressed by extreme regimes,

or extreme machines,

or extreme teens in blue jeans

desperately pursuing

a method and a means

to a happy scene for humanity;

one that died with nature and nations and queens,

and entire continents blasted to smithereens.

.

In the end, we'll find quiet,

quit our polluted diets,

full-time jobs and part-time riots.

Drift back to cloudless sky,

to you and I

double-dying our reddened noosed ties,

and letting the war cries of life die

in the blood soaked air

of broken swears

from forgotten people