I am a skilled,
dedicated,
stalker.
When I can sneak out,
I walk across town,
over the river bridge,
creep up the one way street,
imagining the subject of my desire.
Genre: Dark, Horror
Infatuation
by Anna Sue Benson
I am a skilled,
dedicated,
stalker.
When I can sneak out,
I walk across town,
over the river bridge,
creep up the one way street,
imagining the subject of my desire.
One my way home
from work,
the grocery store,
running errands,
I drive by,
slowly.
I wonder
what the neighbors think
about my constant presence
on this quiet side-street.
This object of my desire,
this house,
is mine.
Mine in an unexplainable,
not of this world,
kind of way.
It’s perched up on a hill,
surrounded by trees,
vacant for years,
slowly succumbing to decay and neglect.
I peek in the windows,
see that a remodeling project
has been left unfinished,
building materials long untouched.
The pull this house has on me
is palpable.
I feel,
wholeheartedly feel,
like I should walk up those steps
and through the front door.
It’s my house.
The house makes me believe
the padlocks on the doors,
the deed in someone’s else’s name,
are irrelevant.
I want to,
I need to,
step foot in that house
feel its energy.
I’ve found out everything
I could possibly research.
Built in 1910,
changed hands 19 times
in 40 years,
owned by a company
in Bakersfield, CA
that has no business
owning a house in these parts,
a company
who hasn’t paid the taxes
on my house
in two years.
I imagine,
writing them,
offering to pay the back taxes,
take the house off their hands.
If only I had the means,
to restore it
to the way it deserves to exist,
I would.
I have asked around,
learned all the local history.
People are afraid
of my house.
The land around it,
encircled by many known
Native American burial mounds.
People wonder
if any other burial mounds
were disrespected
in the building of that home,
wonder if there is some curse,
some bad energy
for what might have been done
to a sacred resting place.
Local urban legends
revolve around this house,
the woods around it.
I am undeterred.
I pace the woods behind my house,
pondering a way
I could get inside.
I feel uneasy
the closer I get
to my house.
Maybe it’s that I’m a rule-follower,
I know, from a legal standpoint,
I’m trespassing.
Surely the uneasy feeling
couldn’t be that something is wrong,
off about the property.
I don’t understand
how something so right
could be out of my grasp.
I can’t accept that.
The house
pulls me in.
I don’t know how,
but I can make this happen.
It will be mine.
Girl Power / Gender Equality. Empathy with Malala and all women and girls who are victims of the Gender War.
2) How would you like people to respond when they read or watch your poetry reading?
I would like people to feel moved and inspired to initiate and support social change. I would like men who read it to be more open to hearing the female human’s stories and help to support and protect women and girls.
3) How long have you been writing poetry?
Since a child as a weird sort-of survival mechanism, but more actively publishing since 2012. United Press London Recognition: Women Writers of the Year 2014 and Top Ten Writers for 2015
I struggle to put words into sentence
For my mind is full of emptiness
Words are familiar
But don’t define meaning
Until the sentence structure
Is so tight it is suffocating
And inhaling vernacular
Exhaling rhythm
And metaphorically speaking
Behind the door of a room
That enters into apostrophe
That’s been resting in bed
For years in silence
Till now somehow
Something inspiring
Sparks up concepts and ideas
Of constant words flowing
And flooding into
A computer desktop
Placed on a table
Covered of garbage
And cigarette butts
Overflowing in a ceramic ashtray
I have no other option really
Except to create words of chaos
Subtly turning them into simplicity
Last Night I Dreamed of Leonard Cohen
~ Margaret Lonsdale (@fhaedra)
Last night I dreamed of Leonard Cohen
in silhouette on a park bench in Montreal
He had a paper bag beside him
in his hands he held nothing at all
I thought to just keep on walking
as I have never met Leonard the Man before
But in the dream I took a place beside him
and he asked me ‘Who’s been keeping score?’
In a hush I answered, ‘I am still learning,
but like you, I am not so sure of this game.’
He smiled then so slowly as he buttoned his coat
‘It’s alright now. You are not to blame.’
(Hey hey what can you say? I’m going down to the river to pray.)
We watched as the moon turned to ashes
its fragmented silver covering cool ground
A cowboy drummer sprinkled orange peel served…
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