Dragonfly
inspired by writer’s prompt “The Artist Never Sleeps”
It was a dream The sand, the wind, the future It was always only you My eyes are prisms now And that is all I am tripping through the universe Where love began You have the power To throw me off And you don’t You are a hard man With your bit in my mouth I hang on for one more ride I am your kind I am welcome In the lost and found I am crazy I hold on tight Am I irrelevant now Am I going blind Am I seeing double Am I going clear Baby, we’ll be alright Baby, you’re whispering What are you thinking Baby, I’m not blinking Everything’s tied up In a little bow Baby, keep relaxing No need to ask me Anything further Dinosaurs feed us Fumes of death Fumes of greed I love that I love I am that I am I watch the centers come and go. That is All We write, we waste, and we suffer That is all we do There is nothing There is just you Someone has made a hell out of heaven That is all Stray dogs love us They guard and follow us Mountain goats call our name The world is turning And no one’s to blame Hell is here, and we don’t know why. Already Dead When you know you are already dead That’s when life begins Before was all a dream We visit the graveyard in Paris Or the graveyard in the desert It’s all the same We are living on the graves of sheep or kings That too makes no difference When you are born already dead The undead, well, they just harvest The bodies of the poor The dogmen keep crying But it’s just for the show The fraud is most dangerous When he’s exposed The world is more dangerous When it’s exposed Dangerously complicit Like Cohen on the wire I will return to Ireland to expire The last champignon bitten With love in my mitten I will follow love home I do not screech into the void There’s no point to getting a cross You were born this way Your children are lambs of the damned There is no place for a poet on your street I get enraged because I know You earned your place from a slave in her grave Your screaming hives will not redeem Your lives spent tossing the poor another bone. Lost and Found Going to sleep with games in the lost and found All the artists have their knives drawn Ashes, ashes, that is all I am fed So what? I am spent The darkness cannot come too soon for me Nor for you and your thickening lovers Averaged by comparison. But I have eyeglasses, and I can pretend to begin again But right now, I’d rather sleep I am much more than an emollient A fly on your window screen An unfortunate consequence waiting in the hereafter But it’s so hard to make ends meet until we are complete And the whales are circling around our boat It can’t make up for my heart that’s broken So I sleep with vultures from the beyond And I catch them in radiators on Highway 1. I am used to all this There is nothing you can do to surprise me I was born this way, with Morrison and Grandma Jane Out on the highway, the suspense is killing me But I’ll wait awhile longer, just until I die To see once again your outlaw smile Who cares, I’m just a lonely flame in the fire Looking for an ash in a funeral pyre It’s been a day for licking trash cans And finding what’s true It’s a bloodborne disease, and I’m feeling blue. Its Eyes Its eyes are extraterrestrial But its mouth is from this pissing planet Its nose has no consequence And its hair is perfect It is a werewolf Ready to bite Cracking lines with cheeks The color of pie. Love is a phantom dancer An illusion with a voice It spins you around It’s a cruise, a fantasy Just close your eyes It’s a window that is viewless. Just stay inside Don’t blow its bubble Or it’s up in smoke Don’t kill it Before it kills you Just take a pill And have another drink. Bio: Elizabeth Cusack is a recovering actress. Ever since playing Rhoda Penmark in “The Bad Seed” as a child, deservedly, she has endeavoured to keep up her end of the bargain. Elizabeth has been blessed with the best of teachers over the years, mostly from the school of hard knocks. She has championed and performed in fringe theatre in America. Elizabeth edits her favourite poet while not otherwise inspired by her muse to write.
Fevers of the Mind 
I liked Already Dead.
LikeLike
Fantastic poetry, Elizabeth! ❤️ Every line left an impression. For me, Lost and Found won by a cat’s whisker – not that it was a competition. Great writing!
👏👏👏👏👏
LikeLike