2014 Barrett Winner
5th Place Tara Martines
His Name is Alive
The sparrows take flights of fancy
riding on the metro. While book monsters
gobble up children’s brains like cotton candy
and fills their heads up with spiders.
Wo ist der furher der mich furht?
Dancing in a macabre light.
Follow me down through the rabbit hole.
Ich warte immer noch.
The devil’s table has six legs,
six legs and a bullet.
I wait for you on the other side of the key hole,
with a bottle of drink me.
Nurse
Fetishized. Glorified. Patronized.
Kiss the boo boo
make it mend.
Make them forget
you glorified drug peddler
pushing hospital heroine.
Coffee at three in the morning junkie with
tear stained cheeks, and blood soaked scrubs.
This is what is expected of me.
Defined by what I do
Rejected.
Siren’s song
An epic tale of a fish
Who flops her fins day and night
Her top half looks like a girl
Her bottom half would give you a fright.
Now some may call her a mermaid
But the truth is in her call
A siren’s song she sings for me
Bringing sailor’s down to the fall
And there is where we ravish them
Their lives and souls to take
I keep them in a jar
As my glowing keepsake!
Thorazine Shuffle
Some scientists say
our heartbeats are limited.
The amount of times
our hearts beat is predetermined.
They’re finite
heartbeats.
Breaths.
Kisses.
Trysts.
Blushes.
Birthdays.
Sleepless nights.
But maybe
if we had
a crystal ball
we could see.
Or maybe we’re all
just mad here
and at the tip of a needle
that in a rage
pushes through
soft skin is a bead
of Thorazine.
And it’s all
just a dream
Just like Hiroshima
What can I say
To make you feel what I’ve felt?
What can I do
To make you see what I’ve seen?
Silken skin kissed by frost,
Paper thin and frail.
Silt statues stand watch,
Don’t blink.
Who can I be
To make you do what I’ve done?
Where can I run
To watch it come undone?