Linda M. Crate- Three Poems

don't forget some humility 

 

beauty crumbles and fades

like troy and rome 

it dissipates into something

like dust, displeasing to

the eye and rarely appreciated

after it is gone; smug in your

high pedestal you forget one day

it will be kicked from beneath you

swept aside by oceans of time,

and models prettier and younger 

than you will run to take your place

you are but one star in the universe

amid thousands upon thousands

millions upon millions —

i remember once when you used to 

stare into the mouth of the sunset

mimicking the glow of his crimson chin,

one day you will lay forgotten

your bones cracked by the ocean 

until only spiders can appreciate the

void bent within your lungs; 

so don't forget to buy some humility

when you're out shopping for a life of

grandeur and goals loftier than the moon.

dream thief 

 

you like to steal the marrow

of my dreams, and hide it beneath the

shadows of the coldest moon's silver

wings; you don't warn me to brace myself

before you fling me to the ground 

destroying my beauty into oblivion's dust

to ascertain your own youth —

a dream broken and bitter clings to the 

surface of your heart, something you just wouldn't

let go until it consumed you into monstrosity;

your claws draw pained grimaces from

quicksilver that quickly turns their frown upside

down so you do not see the flaws fracturing

your soul into all it's ugly pieces,

always you tell me to get out of my own world

to face the harsh music of reality —

you don't realize the only way i can smile

is to imagine a world better and more beautiful

than this one, prettier than a picture of 

ordered white trellises falling merrily over the

garden gate with the most perfect pirouette.

snake lady 

 

oh, medusa, once you were a beauty

even poseidon wanted to caress you with

more than his eyes; a jealous and

heartless athena transformed you into a beast

whose only capacity was to turn to stone

every man she looked upon; no woman could

bare your form nor your gaze and as such

were not subject to it, as your beauty crumbled

into troy's dust i wonder if you smiled free

of the chains restraining you to perfections's

frame — if those snakes brought you more 

peace than wild locks dancing in the wind the very

same that enticed such an act of violence against you,

and i wonder how your dreams changed if any

could be achieved the same way you once thought;

or did you just accept your monstrosity and leave

the dreaming to the minds of hapless mortals?