Chamomile and Eglantine: Lunar Wisps

Stephanie Williams

1. Aghast and still, her paragon leaks his
Tongue, bland mutations scrying for spit
And smear, spur and spot- madly entwined,
Valer, in fumigations of littered snuff

Art rolls off her tongue, the phosphor animalia
Anew- racked with peachy, glutty dings and
Dormant, shallow schmaltz- praying synth-
Heat for want, and smolder, and smuck- riddled
String-beat with tame, and knoll, and thud, creer-

Like raisins in the rain, she carves a wooden
Visceral in stints that pluck her raze- her
Dasein glick, ornate, opaque, sheer and
Vocal, like graves that snip fallow- but
Of course, the jete` scowls to rent feet,
Glowworm minx for skewered gulch

And surely, her prowling prayer meets loose
Excrescent tease, rendered gulp sipping
Diptych sleaze- mounted in gutter and
Gloat to sublingual word, dripping in

Slouch, skittered bless unheard- and cooling
With jest, her mind coils with freeze, cluck,
Dreading notch-quick harmony, oiled plain to
Impede, cross naked and tart, finicky cult

In my breath, embedded dinge and twirled
Faultline impelled, moth ruby come chime
Hoarse ulfire Clive- adjourned holy in ground
Rocks thorax bled-crisp, hot glitch compound.

2. Her quiet heart speaks the ebony, the draught
That drains her perk, spoken cold and drowned
Spit lines, vapor burr and bramble slew-
Spotted croak for memory lines, dipped ink
Curled in blood- wrapped kink in feral eyes

Drawn to the flap, the edge of cloud, dancing
Wild in soft-spun plagues, chipped gnomes of
Black-and-white, fraught moods with deviled
Pink- with spite at the murmur, trim blend at
Meddled blight

Soaked in torn fur, she cries wolf to ripples
Of Him- beckons, “Jesus, Jesus,” at lover’s whim,
Groaning palely to dimpled grime, knife her
Heart with greased come, to dwell in virtues,
In gorged realms

But shame weaves in and out, speckles her
Sodden split with dreamlike trends, swelling
Broadly, tidally, conferring prayer with death-
And as she mends, she lights, she stains her
Stuff with lull, to sing the ash and let her grow

3. Singsong wisps meet wordless chugs, stealing
Bloody the apparition that creates death, alight-
Quantum trysts that mark the days between rue
And silence, the chasm closed, somehow steely,
Breath and bite murdered at witch’s tug

But she bathes in her youth, making splash and
Kerosene lift toward the burn, the magic red in
Her eyes- and with a clunk of her lid, pull
Of her brow, she feasts, nibbling, on spells, and
Croaks brillig on charms

Cloaked maniacal hex, chipped tooth, politely
Dressed in gauze- smashed foul amber click,
Clack, exchange of brute for sinner’s smudge,
Scarlet mark deemed viper flash, cast on
Cauldrons, demigod ache

And these, these candy-coated words, the trite
Wound of language, preciosa- carved in still-life
Apertures and overtures of mixed fruit, coiling
Eternally, like the magma queen you were,
Dipped in apathy, the only “He” to ever whirl-
And turn, and care, pilfered in light smirk.

4. She fades like water singing in the astral,
Pouring dreams into her bones like soft
And death, as we look for death within the
Rose-tree, scouring damp and raucous thorn

Her haven is her silence, conjoined with stars
And far-off glints, looped in aesthetic, manic
Widow, clutching her tears as though they
Held a voice, a tattered thrust, a painted thud

Motif-filled heart, shaped crystalline speed,
Brocading the rift betwixt pen and scroll- the
Treasured gold touch, artless muse to decline,
Ridding word and rough and hagiography cuff

These collections, these flouts that etch the
Mer-folk lust and acrylic mold hair- skating
Through dark and His dismal retch swan,
As she gathers the empty, melancholy sooth-

Brushing wisped tears, cast grim to her ear-
Loathed medicine to drink, and scorn to be
Damned, but He wakens the droll, the minced
Parts in her castle-born gloom, her prayer

Edged with muck fleece- ending ever in
Shoals, in hymns widened, to gnaw.

5. The moon pacts sung, awash in foam, with
Curdled spills and naked coat- finely
Abjuring the dawning plaster, the flippant
Chords that ring round my dock, my true

Scoffing glibly at moonshine, her glitz peers
Upon the ancient woodwork, the paschal
Kneaded song, glazed in ocean thrusts and
Pale pink shimmer, written in roughcast, adem-

To fault her passions, her blindworm pick tings,
Writing as freely as throated words combine- as
Cowering and musk rose as forest wounds can
Bind, building the silt, the wrath of fettered mind

Closure can make soft, can make damns of the
Devil- moving in swift bloom, in courtier beckons
And thrill- trilling gaunt with smattered note,
Taking tunes, sidled glide- murky shades and
Billowed toll, exhumed in fragrant deep,
Smitten as frail and scream- the touch of
Vagaries, belated.

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