madness – One Woman's Quest

Domestic Madness

The pot simmering on the stove
really should be boiling, but
baby needs changing, and
He-who-is-charged-
with-watching-the-children
is asleep in his chair…

Where to lay the infant –
her soiled and sodden diaper
threatening its own release –
when her siblings
have dragged all the bedding –
fort-intended, now abandoned
under foot?

Turkey is in the oven
legs trussed, flesh
buttered and salted…
Baby’s skin is red
her squirming legs
noncompliant

Dog offers his presence
curious nose intervening…
I leave the wriggling bundle
to dispose of offending nappy –
images of dog mouthing contents
beyond current capacity

Children’s giggles signal
misadventure, as bath water
spills into the room,
husband stirring,
“Smells good!” says he
pushing buttons
on the TV remote

Ankle deep in water
contents of pot now burning,
awareness dawns –
the forgotten baby
is now missing…
madness achieved.

(Another dream inspired nonsensical poem. Image my own)

Sisterly Love

It’s just a moth, I offered
that blue moon night
rattling windows
chafing nerves

We’d chosen exile –
sister and I – refuge
from family demons,
not ours to claim

Innocence borrows
responsibility – I bore
it like a badge;
she shattered

Could not discriminate
darkness from her own
inner light – sought
to end the fury

I’ll carry us both,
I murmured, too young
to recognize the magnitude –
altruism destined to fail.

She’s buried now
beneath the madness
her mind the moth
slamming against my pain.

(Image my own.)

Winds picked up yesterday, gathering grey. Cold seeped in through the windowsills, and we set the furnace on high. Forecast for today is just above zero, even though we are in a tropical zone. Oh well, I decide, a nice spicy soup will warm our innards.

Seems my body mirrors the weather: health declining, forcing me to bedrest frequently. Have slept most the morning. In between, I check emails, the blog, and we speculate about what will happen next with Mother Nature. Soon, it will be time to venture home – a both welcome and sorrowful thought.

Confused winds blow cold,
winter reversing itself –
piquant soup simmers.

(It’s haibun night at the dVerse pub, hosted by Merril who challenges us to write about March Madness. I am also linking up to Ragtag Community’s prompt: speculate and Fandango’s: health.)

A Nightmare in Poetic Form

(Note: Inspiration for my poetry is derived from the Dreamtime. Occasionally, a nightmare will evoke the creation of a short story. A recent nightmare continues to haunt me, so I have attempted both forms of literature to garner new meaning. The poem follows and the prose version can be seen here. Which form offers more insights I wonder? objectivity in the form of comments appreciated.

Nightmare: A Poem

Melancholy hovers, haunts,
fed by isolation, taunts
threads of sanity.

Darkness, incomplete,
reveals movement –
trickery of light?

Fear’s grip renders
motionless its victim
serenity shattered

Logic has no tolerance
for the undefined,
ghosts off-limits

Is disease the culprit,
inflammation upsetting
equilibrium, a mind aflame?

The veil between worlds
is flimsy, unhinged, shifts
awareness now peaked

I know you are there!
Show yourself!
Stillness.

Madness threatening,
pleas gather insistence
Come forward – be known!

These are merely games
one reality pit against
another, neither winning

A feminine figure emerges –
her presence emitting an aura
of alarm, indicates a window

Two figures, cloaked in black
towering shadows stalking
live prey, the scent of vulnerability

The ego withdraws, seeks
cover, cannot stop the onslaught
of monsters emerging from walls

Delusion, one last prayer for sanity
but the floorboards recede, reveal
skeletons, there is no escape

Trauma’s Offspring

Insanity meticulously recreates
the murder scene – a minute
replica of the house bloodied;

builds it on the front lawn
where passersby can see,
cannot purge herself of it;

turns on me, annihalation
in her eyes; I will chase her
down, cease this madness;

she is intent on destroying
new life, cutting it into pieces,
re-perpetrating the slaughter;

I must render her defenseless,
wrestle her into submission,
dare not look her in the face

the familiarity of her misery
a mirror of self-loathing; this
sometimes sister/daughter.