This was written for Read Write Poem #82: Ode to Your Homunculus.

I borrowed heavily from concepts in Jungian psychology, Freudian psychology, and Kabbalah to write this — and thus it is a multi-part, somewhat lengthy work. I’ve been troubled by a lack of creative energy lately, so this work was a blessing to me. I hope it touches you in some way.

Oh, and by the way, enjoy.

-Nicole

——————————————
i. psyche

a hollow school room
looking like eighteen and ninety four
everything is wooden
and silent: open-mouthed chairs
wordless desks scrubbed
of paper and language
outside
the snow is falling

ii. superego

she wears a suit of drowned skin
her face an impossible matrix
of wrinkles
she recants
and decants
fire from life
and spits the embers out
into the somber coals
lying inertly in her fireplace
this is where desire expires
and life comes to die
her spectacles

gold-bordered and clear-lensed
their serene roundness barks irony
at the sharp slicing square-ness of
her mind
they sit on a wooden bench, staring up
and reflecting little versions
of her in their eyes: she

of the hair pulled back in strained strands
pre-traction pre-baldness yet unspoken
except for the pain
caught up in her round wound bun
perched perfectly at the back
of her skinny head
and her dress

weeps overcast sky in
perfect techni-non-color while her
black boots click oppression upon the floor
not even polite enough to mimic
castanets, they sound out
her “nos” and “musn’ts” before she
even arrives in the room
we hear these drums
of death

she approaches

iii. animus

gold straw hair forms
spun golden coils atop his head
square angled jaw of Gibraltar rock
carved in peach pale rough flesh
wrapped in loose navy
button-down and denim
he waits

hidden by the darkness of
a wooden unlit corner
heavy round black toe tapping
tick tock
tap tap
a countermelody to the
distant schoolmarm drums approaching
clenched fist, fetal fingers
they ache

for neck
and knife

iv. shadow

auburn clouds
of perfect kink
erupt from her head and
burning black eyes
pierce her smoke veil – a
cloak of black wool reduced down
to tulle and wrapped around her, oak-colored
and pillow-skinned
another corner hides her
she is wearing black

and has been
since nineteen eighty three

v. inner light

a crystalline violet wind
like purple Easter basket cellophane
blessed with a bit of iridescence
it reflects rainbows through its skin
and drags fringed fuchsia fingers
behind it and
carries stellar spheres in
its back – ten orbs of liquid glow
spinning golden nimbi around
their smooth skins
it blows through
this hollow wooden room

it was always here

vi. la petit mort

the death drums
fall silent
and a cold black eye
encircles the caught shadow
frizz on overdrive
waiting in a corner

“I thought I was
rid of you!”

her hands
blue rivers running through milky plains
one pulls a giant wooden paddle from
the air
the other pushes the
lump of blurry black wool
across a desk and aims
for what she guesses is an ass
but

before she can land the first blow
the violet wind enfolds him
and now, he glows behind a
purple lucent curtain and
his pale hand swallows
her accordion-fold neck
push back
pin to the wall
she becomes a temporary
Mona Lisa, face written in terror:
exploding eyes
mouth open in an ever futile inhale
he says

“I’m sorry
you’ve gone far enough
I have no choice”

quickly, deftly
he draws a slender scarlet line
across her wrinkled parchment neck
his silver blade screams green
under the overhead florescents
multiplying a ghostly gleam
to the eyes of all beholders
and she falls

wings spread body curling
feet inhaled by mouth
this gray ouroboros
spinning forever like
an insane wheel of fortune injected by
lightning while her eyes
ejaculate red rivers two perfect beams
of blood spray, knocking her spectacles
up again a random wall and now
they crack – one single, jagged bolt of
tacit lightning divides each lens
she hits

the ground
and unfolds into
a tan hourglass angel wrapped
in white robes and wearing
a tumble-down of black waves
spilling upon her neck
she looks up

and the cold eyes now
gently burn warmth
they are a pair of total solar
eclipses – glowing black marbles
haloed in soft sunshine coronas

“where am I?”

four hands reach out to her
two pale, two tan
encased in pure violet glow

“welcome home
we’ve been waiting
for your return”

Written 7/10/09

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