After the Ball

No place like magic
face to face,
the cinder of your leer
clings to my regrown lashes,
lashes my averted eyes,
neatly creases
the space between
us in map crisp folds.
I blink
and you are gone.

Homicidal Maniacs Eat My Face Off

Homicidal maniacs eat my face off.
Lord knows I try to stop them
but they infiltrate my dreams
through a complex system of optic Morse code.
Thinking to foil their insidious plot,
I send fallacious, salacious messages,
flicking and fluttering my Mata Hari eyelashes to no avail.
They've come to steal my poems,
replacing them with brambled mumbles
too prickly to tongue.

I feel so funky with no face.
Burly clergymen and small neurotic dogs
recognize me by my scent though feral cats
and border guards find me translucent --nothing new there.
Featureless, I'll blur into your television screen,
generic, the ultimate talk show guest.
I'll end writing hip
yet socially lightened sitcoms on your skin,
entire scenes pithy and complete between your finger webs.

Homicidal maniacs eat my face off,
burp discreetly behind latex gloved hands
and serve my lips as after dinner mints,
the creamy pinked sateen of intimate flesh
piquant; perfect with fresh lime salsa.
I recommend they spread me
on stone ground cracked wheat crackers
accompanied with a dark, rich beer.
I apologize, in advance, for the crunchy bits.

Maledicta

Under mottled gray skies
that spit snow
with icy disdain,
crone trees
gnarl fists
in seasonal rage,
fling back curses
acrid as the memory
of green.

About the author

Joy Olivia Yourcenar is a practical bohemian living in Halifax, Nova Scotia with her life partner, photographer Eric Boutilier-Brown, and her daughter, Zoe-Genevieve, self-proclaimed future empress of the known world. Joy maintains her own website, Mythologies (http://ebb.ns.ca/myth) and collaborates with Eric on icon/graphy (http://ebb.ns.ca/icon), a visual poetry site. She is shamelessly addicted to puns and lists her religion as "Chocolate".