She is a cinnamon shadow,
outline of spice in her valleys below.
A shimmering smile of ten plagues
makes the atmosphere consistently vague.
Time pyramids shift into the sand of the escapades.
Conquests from the gossiping charade,
pissing out falsifying words of lemonade.
They lead their own illusory parade.
He is a little head of blood rushes,
blueprint of the mind home he unknowingly crushes.
A lad who plays fantasy roulette
winds up in a monthly tourniquet.
Here he has entered the Land of the Bizarre,
nostalgia for the rainbow attic of dust and guitars.
His eyes see red handprints on the soil of Mars.
Identity was stolen and forever lost in the scripture of stars.
And he will meet the guardian at dawn.
And he will be reborn as a silent, wandering fawn.
Turned on by the gown she wears,
this swan takes a dive in liquid gang waters,
an undersea battle from aquatic ages.
She cleanses herself of all past transgressions,
the cardinal sins of flights she has never taken,
eternally married to the wisdom of her avian sages.
In this world of pansexual polyamory,
the subconscious sweater wears everyone.
It loves every contact and silken touch,
indulging in tastes of sweetness of the highlight reel reruns.
It wraps like a python around its host.
Summer hell chases away its woolen interior,
leaving the stinging Sun to worship fabric ghosts.
Sailing and waving to cloud-kissed aeroplanes,
I can fly to the edge of the near-extinct planet.
I meet my Spanish lady on the other side and
smelling her neck, perfume au naturale,
listening to the sounds of cacophonous castanets.
We kissed once before in Andalucía,
teleporting to the jungles of Belize.
Malnourished from the island’s healing curiosities,
a drink of pineapple water is enough to survive,
but none can replace the undying ache to please.
Coming in and out of this daze, no recollection.
Out of the womb, I emerge from the Cesarean section.
From this temporary body, I feel a slight disconnection,
half blind, half deceased, without any direction.
She is an amaryllis shadow,
tortured by the previous night’s afterglow.
Photo by Stas Svechnikov on Unsplash
Z. M. Wise
Z.M. Wise is a proud Illinois native from Chicago, poet, essayist, occasional playwright, seldom screenwriter, co-editor and arts activist, writing since his first steps as a child. He is co-owner and co-editor of Transcendent Zero Press https://transcendentzeropress.org/ , an independent publishing house for poetry that produces an international quarterly journal known as Harbinger Asylum. He is the author of seven books and chapbooks of published poetry and a play, including: Take Me Back, Kingswood Clock! (MavLit Press, 2013); The Wandering Poet (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014); Wolf: An Epic & Other Poems (Weasel Press, 2015); Cuentos de Amor (Red Ferret Press, 2015); Kosmish and the Horned Ones (Weasel Press, 2018); Illinois Infinitarium (Cherry House Press, 2020); and The Nightmare Mask (TBD). His debut play, Bottles of Emerald for the Demon Queen (Transcendent Zero Press, 2019), was published in late December of 2019. His most recent chapbook of poetry, the mini-epic known as The Nightmare Mask, is searching for a brand new home. Other than these books, his poems, lyrics, essays, and book reviews have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies. Besides poetry and other forms of writing, his other passions/interests include professional voice acting, singing/lyricism/songwriting, playing a few instruments, fitness, and reading.
