Anna Donovan

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Anna Donovan is a psychologist and educator currently residing in Texas. A multi-cultural background provides her with a definite sense of identity. It also supplies her with a rich source of myth and legend to spring from as well as a catalyst with which to absorb and resolve life experiences.   

 

 

The Blade

 

You called and I sat

unsteady on a hard bar stool,

stared at your back

and heard your words tempered

by grinding sounds

steady on a whetstone.

 

I have something for you

you said,

and the glint of steel

spoke of gliding on soft flesh,

pliable and nude.

 

You sliced sweet peppers,

held each deliberate sliver

to my lips

and I knew the taut ease

of fingers round 

a blue Lace Agate handle 

as my blood gathered

in a gush of silence 

to seize a blind knowledge:

 

I want the smooth silk dance

on the blade's beveled surface,

the tongue taunting premonitions

gilded and heavy over sharp metal.

 


   

Sweat of Days

 

The sweat of days

    weighs

Hematite heavy

on disheveled shoulders.

 

Overhead, 

the city's tepid breath stirs smoke rings

round a damaged lace moon, 

and her frail steps scrape a trail

of decaying blossoms.

 

A wanton red muscled chaos follows 

moving vehicles in the random lotto of mishaps

down a mired vine dressed freeway.

 

And we hone on home,

tune to its beacon 

with wax cone longings

of dust and pollen,

as the carnage pulsates inevitable and twisted,

in a blare of diffused madness and distant bells,

disembodied from lucidness.

 

Clouds woven veils unspool

live and layered 

to a brittle full flare

dispersing slants of gilded time.

 

It whispers to cloistered swallows under bridges

where snarled magic falls in bottomless honeycombs

and travelers steep in exhaust and shadow

wafting into the deep white noise 

of a dying night's last words.

 


 

Love Census

 

In Valentino red and the persistent 

redolence of slow blooming carnations

the love census comes to my habitation.

 

They are stoic, they are melodic,

they lilt and ripple

through my spaces 

in thick rimmeled poses

and riddled phrases.

 

Is there desperate love?

love consuming to the bone?

trial by flame love?

doomed, beautiful love?

 

No, no, no, and no.

This dwelling is love proof,

love purged, 

all evidence destroyed 

with flawed finality.

 

They confer, huddled as the fates,

their speech sparkling a melancholy

rich and flitting 

as stringed instruments.

 

They lament in unison

how love has gone

the way of haute couture

and the last emperor's

sequined soirees.

 

I walk them out,

and their Valentino red

fades into market shares.

 

And I fade into a pale bedspread,

sink into a dreamless

sort of dreaming.

 


 

Visna Perdis

 

Visna Perdis worries about me,

problem is, I'm not Anthony,

and I don't know about Anthony,

but I don't care for women,

hot or cold, not in that way,

of course body temperature

is of much importance

and I dislike extremes,

if women are burning somewhere,

it must be stopped, 

they must be helped,

but I'm not Anthony.

 

Visna Perdis confuses me

with her concerns,

she does not want me 

to slave away all my life,

I should follow her link

and earn $300 per hour,

but Visna, I'm not Anthony!

I hate to take 

such an opportunity away from Anthony,

for all I know he is pale

forlorn, and jobless.

 

Visna, please stop,

every day you tempt me

but I'm not Anthony,

now I worry about Anthony,

millions of dollars at his fingertips

and he is nowhere to be found.

 

Visna, with all the time you have to email, 

won't you please find Anthony?

 


 

Cantaor 

 

His voice is

dark as bruises,

sharp with ironies

and counter-melodies.

 

Fluid gestures sift

sun and shadow,

as ancient spirits pass

behind his eyes

and in passion trance

vanish into flame.

 

His shadow eases

wind and moonlight glints

dense with quince trees.

 

His eyes burn

moody as Moorish facades,

an amber consonance

of narrow alleys

and torch flames.

 

Framed by midnight's

ivy canopy

his ringlets follow

their own directive

and trail at will

down a sinuous, strong back.

 

He is languid lust,

the sweet spot linger,

paradox of causality swiveling

on jagged base notes

and spellbound love

on the verge of involuntary 

double jointed howls. 

 

 

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