Death Throes

Morbid fascination

kills me again and again.

These are the death throes

Of our potential.

This is the not the martyrdom

I try to tell myself it is.

It is assisted suicide.

Nor is it the first time-

Reincarnation ad nauseam,

Same me, different yous-

Till nirvana:

A state I cannot reach.

It sickens me,

The way I crave

Your attentions.

Like Tantalus I thirst

And am never satisfied.

You bloom perpetual

While I fade like echoes.

Jeweled fruit that fall

From your lips

Into my ears

Sweet fruit, biting aftertaste,

Like soured wine to the dying man,

Leaves me empty and bitter.

I am killed softly

By the words you never speak.

Impotency

Stagnancy-bred frustration

Angry at what I wanted to do but didn’t

What I didn’t do but could have.

Listlessness taints everything,

Even my rage is impotent.

Carnival Poem I

(I'm not dead).

Carnival Poem I

The music whips you into mania

And the sweat of the masses incites to ecstasy

If religion is the opiate,

This is the tonic.

Sweet like cascadoo,

Rush of power like cocaine,

Addictive like morphine.

We are the vessels

The street is the vein

Infecting all with

Wuk-up-yuh-waist-osis

And free-up-yuh-self-itis.

It is a chronic epidemic

Where the only cure

Is to succumb to the disease;

More riddim,

More kaiso,

More tempo.

Heart Burn

Hey guys, i'm not dead! I wrote a poem and everything. Read on for delicious teen angst. -.-

Heartburn

You are bad for my heart.

Premature ventricular contractions,

Unexpected palpitations,

Chronic pain that no

Clinically proven prescription can palliate,

With prolonged burning from passions

Long since passed.

All you’d left was a hole,

And I was defective.

Recovery is slow,

I’m still clogged with thoughts of you,

But the heart is a muscle

So I’m working it out to be stronger.

Remission lulls into complacency,

So relapse is swift, acutely reminding

That chronic pain is persistent.

It is a return of the now-expected,

Unexpected palpitations:

You are still bad for my heart.

Flash Fiction Friday #38: Obeah Ting

FINALLY!!!

i am sooo sorry i took so long to do it :/ tried something a little different here, please comment on its effectiveness.

fff#38: (starter) what i/you/he/she/it/we/they didn't know...

What she didn’t know was that I would do for she. She was rubbin up under my man when I tell she to stop it an she never take meh on. Well I had tell her I was a obeah woman too an she didn’t listen to dat neither. Yuh see granny had d gift and mummy was to get it too but mummy say dat was simmi-dimmi foolishness an she didn’t believe in dat kinda voodoo bullshit. Granny tell her dat voodoo an obeah is two different tings but if daz how yuh feel yuh gyul chile go get it instead, d power didn’t really mind. Dat was before mummy even tink bout boys, far less havin a gyul chile, so she steups an say simmi-dimmi bullshit again. So when I eventually pop out ten years later, feet first an d ting over meh eye, granny take one look at me an tell mummy to make sure an sen me by she every weekend so I could learn d ting proper.

 By d time I was five an ready for big school, granny pull me aside an tell me that woman wicked for spite an when I went in school I was to be careful an not let nobody play up in meh hair cause if they get even a strand, they could wuk all kinna ting on meh an I wouldn’t even know. I went tru primary school, an pass meh O’ Levels an everyting was nice, passin everyting, making sure all d teachers like me wit a lil help from granny, an never really havin any trouble wit mummy cause according to granny, mummy was a lil bit frighten of me. But I never really test it, so we was jus normal.

 So I reach form six now an me an dis gyul who was in my school for basically d whole ting but we didn’t really get close till form five an so by lower six she was always in meh house an knew nearly all meh business. So I tell her I was learnin obeah from granny but she jus laugh an say she didn’t believe me so I say aite from den I start to move lil different. Not enough for her to notice eh, but enough that if she do some shit, I coulda handle dah scene. So when she spend d night I take some hair, her toothbrush mysteriously went missing, dat kinna ting, a kinna back-up plan, just in case.

 I remember before I used to hear stories bout her takin people man an jus doin shit but I never really study it because we was rel good nah, but a day she tell me to check her facebook for someting cause her internet wasn’t workin an I see, big an bold, dis bitch talkin to my man on chat! I say, nah! She cyah be movin so, she was probably askin him where I was or someting so, so I open d ting an I see is sweet talkin she sweet talkin him!

 But I say, okay, lemme check an see waz d story behind dis. So I ask an firs she laugh an say she would never do dat kinna ting, but then she start to get on an say how I movin so wit she, like I doh trust she an all kinna ting an I remember d play we learn for lit an is like, d lady doth protest too friggin much! So I tell she to jus stop talkin to him cause we would rel fall out if she continue to jus play up. I musbe have Miss Mary Jackass write on my friggin forehead cause d nex time I check her facebook d bitch was still talkin to him! Clearly she tink I dotish. D man I will deal wit, a lil sweat rice will calm his straying ways, but she, I go do for she. Instead of laughin like a ass when I tell she I does do obeah, she shoulda take it as a warning. Dis will d very last time she will play like she pullin up on people man. I will make sure.

Frustration

I’ve been feeling it so long

I’ve forgotten it’s name.

It comes and it goes,

Like the tide

With its ebbs and flows,

Like the moon

It waxes and wanes,

It is never really gone,

Just lingering behind sight,

Lulling with monotony

Like waves crashing

Against the shore,

Till I’m waist-deep

In despair, waiting 

To cycle out.

Ode

*NOTE* this has been edited. and i'm much happier with the edit.

Ode

Your voice is sweet and slow like honey dripping off a spoon,

And the way your lips caress each word; parting is such sweet sorrow.

Your scent intoxicates my being

With its murmurs of power,

Hints of vice

And the lingering notes of fixation.

Your pendulum see saw hips hypnotize my eyes

So I play right into your smile

When our eyes meet, time moves poco rit,

As you weave your spell on me

And when we touch,

the heat crescendos, my heart beats staccato allegro

And the blood plays fortissimo in my ears.

Posting

I haven't been posting lately, and I'm incredibly sorry. I've been having difficulty coming up with something for the last fff, and generally, I haven't been writing, (though I'm working on something currently).
You can keep up with whatever other random things that interest me on my tumblr Wander Lust and Fever Dreams, where I sometimes write about things that are important to me, but aren't fiction.
I DO INTEND ON WRITING SOMETHING FOR FFF 38. I just haven't figured it out yet.

Best regards and apologies,
Ishara LeGreat

Flash Fiction Friday #37: Une Nuit Dans Les Bois

fff#37: (inclusion) pair, pare, pear, peer, père, pier.

 “They just don’t respect us any more, Anansi. Hunters come and go as they please, and they don’t tell the stories like they used to. Ask the children who Papa Bois is and they think is some guava switch to jumbie them into behaving good in school!” His leafy beard rustled as he shook his head.

 “You complain, Bouchon, but at least they talk of you. You know who they replaced me with? That stinkin’ Brer Rabbit. A rabbit! What part of Anansi the Spider-man did they miss? Cho, thinking about all that foolishness have me irate. You have any pear to calm me down in this big old forest of yours Père Bois?”

 Pears?” Papa Bois asked in confusion. “I can’t really leave the forest in this condition.” He glanced to his pair of cloven feet.

 “Not dat kind of pear, man. Avocado pear, what unno call it around here? Zaboca.”

“Ah,” sounded Papa Bois. He snapped his fingers, and the two old men peered into the darkness of the woods. 

 The rotting leaves of the forest floor quieted the backward footsteps of the small childlike creature that delivered the dark green avocado to the pair. He tipped his brimmed hat at the gentlemen, then disappeared back into the thicket. Anansi gave an exaggerated shudder. “Dem douen always disturbed me. I don’t know how you take care of them.”

Papa Bois sighed. “I don’t like them either. And I leave the minding to Mama D’leau. They like the water anyway.”

He tossed a small hunting knife to Anansi, who caught it deftly and began to pare his avocado.

 “How did you get here anyway? Surely not by flying, I know you don’t like to go any higher than a coconut tree,” asked Papa Bois.

 “I have my ways,” said Anansi mysteriously, pausing for a moment, then laughing boisterously. “No, I came in by boat, then took a taxi in from the pier. And the taxi driver made sure I wasn’t going to hunt.” Anansi cleared his throat and continued in an impeccable Trinidadian accent, “Doh try an hunt out of season eh, ‘cause Papa Bois go well do fuh yuh. I had a breddren who-”

 “Yes, yes I know. He had a ‘breddren’ who I caught and punished,” interrupted Papa Bois with a chuckle.

 “You see Bouchon? They didn’t forget us completely yet. Now eat some zaboca and enjoy the night.” 

Flash Fiction Friday #36: Charisma

fff#36: (inclusion) paw, poor, pore, pour

It seeps out of your very pores,

What ever it is you’ve been blessed with,

You’ve been anointed with,

Your cup is overflowing with it,

And the poor fools that

Paw at your feet

Lap up the lagniappe that pours

From your chalice.

Call To Worship

The artist has no comment.

I come to your temple to worship,

I’m on my knees at the altar,

Give me the wine,

Let me taste your body.

I adore with word,

Thought

And deed,

Let my lips sing your praises.

Let me worship at your temple,

And when I call your name,

It will never be in vain.

Flash Fiction Friday #35: Rites Of Passage

First fff written for the new year. (not the first given eh... this one is a good 2 and half weeks old.... but it was hard to find something that wasn't dirty....)

fff#35: (inclusion) spank, drank, thank, stank, rank

 “Drink it nah boy!”

Jason hesitated. The clear liquid in the purple plastic cup stank. In fact, it smelled almost exactly like the methylated spirits his mother had used to clean his grazed knees last month. The same mother who would deliver the spanking, no, it was safe to say he would receive a cut-ass for this, if she found out what he was doing now.

 It all begun when Kwasi, the eldest of their group, decided, thanks to his older brother, that alcohol was what really separated boys from men. So the vodka had been borrowed from someone’s liquor cabinet, and Jason did his part by bringing the plastic cups he knew his mother wouldn’t miss.

 “Yuh ‘fraid or what?” someone goaded.

That was enough. Jason drank it down in one gulp to the whoops and hollers of his friends. The cup was refilled and passed to the next boy, and Jason was once more secure in their ranks, until some new stipulation of manhood was discovered.

Fruition

(Clearly i'm on a roll today! must be the no sleep).

The words form like fruit in the tree of the mind,

If left too long, the birds of distraction

Peck away, leaving only, and even then

Only perhaps, a husk to make more fertile grounds.

Pick it too soon and hope against hope

As you force it to ripen that comes out right,

But the skin is too green and the flavor is wrong,

Though sometimes you can catch it at

Just the right time, and nurture it in a

Paper bag, and when it is ready,

Even through the slight tartness,

You can barely tell the difference.

And sometimes, the fruit falls,

Perfect in it’s form, succulent in

Its cadence, from the tree of the

Mind, directly to the mouth.

Insomnia

They promised that insomnia

Would bring words

Like long awaited rain,

But instead it

Keeps you awake too late

With your distractions

And makes you miss your thoughts,

Then sleep long enough

For the days

To seem one.

Insomnia only brings

Diversions,

Frivolity

And agitation,

And when that

Wears you out,

A sleep too black

For thought to thrive.

Insomnia doesn’t bring rain;

It is the storm grey

Cloud that teases

And threatens,

Then flitters away

Whispering promises

To come another day.

Tricks

i'm really not amused. must this really be the theme of my first piece of the year? sigh. also, i've added a like button to all content. feel free to use :)

I know your secret.

You wait until the taste

Of you has 

All but faded

To spring forth

And remind me

That you’re still there,
To make sure
I never forget.

I know your trick,

But that doesn’t

Mean I don’t

Fall for it every time.