Sheila E. Black

Candida Skeptics

Candida skeptics escort desire   wait     serious embodiment breaks cover leaving innuendo behind—

a pious contradiction

investigates dreams  

saves democracy poised in the wings

and ruptured

waits to be seen

 

instead pragmatic phenoms like scorpions sting us all

lodging the proposition in our protesting throats, the steely point in our necks,

sticking us with proposals like scheming taxmen into every secret orifice

we thought was hidden.

 

Only distance now, keep skeletons in our closets

Finding lost communions with our fathers

umbilical cords uncut, our scripts built in concrete.

Martydom, patriotism, tradition, guilt & remorse,

greed our new taboos.

 

We’re barking up the wrong tree, though.

We’re barking at nature now using our principles as e-ternal subversions. 

Help us, Mother.  All our speeches even crowed from bowed branches are not heard. 

The distance is killing us.

I’m watching from a juxtaposition imposed on me –yours and mine. 

 

Can you hear me?   Can you hear Me?

Sheila E. Black has been teaching English at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma for the past fifteen years.  She also teaches Creative Writing workshops to the elderly and writes a blog on creativity and mental illness called Cultural Blanket.  She has been published in Big Bridge, Sawbuck Journal Online, The Texas Observer, BigCityLit, The Living Arts Press, and Haggard and Halloo in Austin, Tx.  Sheila has participated in as well as organized poetry readings in Tulsa at several different venues every year for the last ten years. In late March, she will be the Curator for the annual Oklahoma Avant Garde show at the Living Arts Center.