witch poems 1
a collection of poetry
by vivian
"welcome, darling,
to my witch den.
do you like the vibe?
does it feel lived in?
do you like the mushroom,
the moss, the green ooze,
the cauldron and clover?
and if youre on mobile,
will you please tilt your screen
so the words don't spill over?
here meets the mystic, the
divine and the human,
if the font is too small,
would you please kindly zoom in?
thanks.
now we are ready to begin."
~*^~^*~*^~^*~*^~^*~*^~^*~
invocation
by: vivian
~~~
heres the poem scrapwork notebook, the book, the thing, the deal
fears and knowings, patchwork hopes,
looks,
and thinks,
and feels.
extremely epic feels... for the mother freaking win.
***
***
wierd beavis poem
by: vivian
~~~
get beaved: buy now and try later
says the prestidigitator.
get beaved? sure, we assented heedlessly,
and threw our money at the unknown needlessly
he took from us, great big bagfuls of dollars!
he said: “anak-gonhar-chepanah-beavis-all-are”
he said it was safe, and he’d never deceive us
but he made every one of us all be a beavis
he said, not to worry, it was fully reversible
then he skipped to the harbor and escaped in a submersible
what sort of man, profit-seeking, cruelly beaves
and, having made countless victims, simply leaves?
yes, we’re all beavis now, bereaved and bereft
he cast an all-beavis spell and we’re all that was left
we’re normally lax, and we rarely bear grudges
but we resentfully wonder where that magic mike judge is
so that maybe he could,
if not free us from our cartoon-teenage-prison-bodies,
then maybe give us our lives and allow us our hobbies...?
so that at least... if nothing else!...
you could be a muslim beavis,
there'd be a jewish beavis, too!
i could be a lesbian beavis!
oh, could a gay man beavis be you...?
ahhh, prideful beavis workers...!
sundry beavises who toil...!!
clever beavis hands in factories...!!!
weathered beavis hands in soil...!!!!!
and countless beavis cultures!
all beavis phenotypes as one!
a world of warmth and dignity...
for every beavis ‘neath the sun. :)
***
Unbreakable Pure Land Crystal Fantasia
a special valentine's day poem
by: vivian
~~~
in twilight,
in starlight,
mix snakeskin with frogspawn,
and we'll make out with no lights on.
we'll wear nice lingerie--
real silken shit
and we'll drink of each other--
blood, milk and spit
in shadows entwined, we'll shudder
and pledge forever to each other
and we'll hold each others hands and
say, "i'm complicated and damaged"
at the same time, then giggle.
darling marceline,
i'm not a woman of means
doesn't matter if i'm broke, though
we'll honeymoon in gensokyo.
***
the way you stained my heart
by: vivian
~~~
when came the time
that you said you
would be all mine
and me, yours too
we'd barely met
each other, yet
how you upturned
my table and
stained my heart like a juice spill!
the stain of juice
faded with age
it looks, in truth
nicer than beige
some burgundy's
lovelier, see
so the oxy-clean
i'll omit and
consign the carpet steamer to the landfill!
you color my life and make me more human
and i stave off the ghosts of a past you're consumed in.
ghosts of the past…
graveyard, at night
sternly keep vigil
clutch a dim light
pray on a sigil
distant is morning,
boundless is bleakness
but i'll take warning
i'll show not weakness
there's no need to be
fearful or sickly
i've got a trick, see?
my special cantrip
cunning enchantment
intentional phenomenon
interesting orison
sacred like a heart-shaped locket:
rebuke the revenant of reminiscing,
with the magic in this little poppet.
yeahhh...
for you, i'll sacrifice my magic doll.
cause you're the one who keeps me soooooooo enthralled.
***
"the world’s cool, badass poem"
by: vivian
~~~
MRS. TEETH:
im made primarily of teeth
teeth are what i am, and i am
described mostly by people who
meet me or see me in pictures
as being a sack full of only
human teeth.
BLADE LADY DONNA:
im her gf, future mrs. donna teeth
we met because we go through some
similar difficulties in life
her being a burlap sack of teeth
and me being an assortment of swords with
no sheaths.
***
the love guru
by: vivian
~~~
remember the love guru? the love guru was "really badass," and mike myers
kindled mirth, struck chords, stoked fires
with his epic, awesomesauce racist thing that he made.
it tanked, and in time was forgotten,
but he and jessica alba,
justin timberlake,
verne troyer,
john oliver,
ben kingsley,
daniel tosh and all them,
still got paid.
(but...!
but what if...)
(what if YOU met a little love guru...?
what would he see when he sees right through you...?
would you tell him you're grateful when he helps you get laid...?
if he had to leave you, would you wish that he stayed...?)
***
vibes
by: vivian
~~~
knowing what i know, and inferring what i don’t
using the weathervane of my spit-wet finger
that lets me guess, more or less, the course of all things
i can guess things are about to get a little grisly.
meaning, there’s certain things i need to do, but won’t
only in my peripheral awareness does the undone linger
usually ignored because of the pain that knowing brings,
and a weak belief: “i’ll break if i think so dismally!”
or maybe it’s because we’re all bored? with the very real
ending of the world. maybe there’s just something about
repetition that numbs you, maybe we’ve succumbed to
some pitfall in our cognition that makes all this “okay.”
i mean we all know it’s coming but to know and to feel
are two different things. and i think that probably without
being able to feel the world ending, we likely can’t come to
some heartfelt desire to make our looming species-death go away.
now, poems like this tend to place undue weight on acceptance
and try to paint our collective death as somehow desirable
because its some, like, expression of cosmic inevitability
as if death by exploitation were, like, so achingly beautiful...
and i’d like to eschew that common fetish for evanescence
it's empty. it's preening. it's unjustifiable
all that nonsense about “natural process” or “destiny”
it's nothing so lovely, and nothing that useful.
because it's winning that matters, right?
it's really the victory, and not the fight.
no noble last stands. bad endings are joyless.
its better to fight than let them peacefully destroy us.
***
permanent garbage compactor cycle
by vivian
~~~
be always solvent, and be never liable
involve yourself in the permanent garbage compactor cycle
compress the soft against brittle bone crunches
and tell yourself it's ok to work lunches
use hard cold metal surfaces to crush up that gristle
when youre confronted with concern, lividly bristle:
if the gristle’s not crushed, you’ll get gristleless cubes
and if theres no skin and no hair, then youll get blocks with no pubes
if the muscle’s not there, then the teratoma will weaken
and if the brain isn’t smushed, you might have to work weekends
to remash what’s unravelled, and make hard what was tenderized
to make sure each vein and intestine, each ligament is pulverized
and if the compaction process fails still, give up and use fire
if you punish the body, and mangle the flesh, who knows? someday, you might even get to retire.
***
variations on a meme
by vivian
~~~
Do not think to subject us to
the disgrace that pity brings.
We love Snoopy a lot,
and we'd die for anything.
We would die for any thing.
Go through life simply,
read greeting cards primly,
bear anomie humbly,
pass sincerely and dumbly.
For this paper piece, we kill we!
For this little cartoon man!
For a solitary Peanut
Self-lethal force we shall command.
Self-deadly arms we will command.
We die deaths of cartoons,
Shattering like glass. Our shards
Mark our undying fealty to
A pile of Snoopy greeting cards.
Saccharine $2.95 greeting cards.
Yet every morning, we wake up here,
Our shards made whole. Us vim with life,
The sun does a Snoopy-dance.
The rain howls with relief,
For our refunded sacrifice.
For our all-too-precious sacrifice.
***
***
"burnt chip at the bottom of the bag"
by: vivian
~~~
Lover, you lied to me...
Like a bag of Ruffles that says "no MSG".
You're shattered Doritos; you're not enough for me.
Our Wheat Thins have withered, blighted by wheat rust;
My heart, like these Fritoes, crumbled to fine dust.
***
"romance of the monster trucks"
by: vivian
~~~
I met you at the truck show, chugging whiskey from a cruet.
The "Carolina Crusher" was, for our romance, a conduit...
You flattened my resistance like a line of shitty Buicks.
Our first time was in Easy Rider's trunk
Our second, in your Hyundai,
Darling girl, you know it's true;
til I met you, I was ungay!!
(Or rather, just unrealized,)
And so I began to live my life,
truly began to live my life,
On that Sunday,
SUNDAY,
SUNDAAAAAAY!!!!!!!
***
the ruined bathhouse
by: vivian
~~~
stepping into the ruins of the bathhouse,
where the sun shone in through the shattered ceiling,
and i was getting a wistful sort of feeling
looking at the dandelions coming up through the tiles,
and seeing the moss and lichens mingle with the grout
i gazed in admiration, with awed eyes and a small smile
yet tingling in the back of my head was an inkling of doubt.
"long ago, life was hard too, but we’d good things that are lost now"
a certain... tenderness? exuding from some warm, familiar faces?
well-trod paths? smaller worlds? temples and third-places?
of which the humble bathhouse was just a single instance,
but now we’re tethered to the home, sworn to the hearth
yet stretched beyond snapping across impossible distance
and as i looked to learn from this monument to a lost world,
all that i imagined was slowly coming unfurled.
ahhh, now here’s the men’s bath, check this lovely mosaic
a hearty smiling man, green-skinned, clothed in naught but seaweed
"wasn't there a time when things this pretty were prosaic?"
obvious, almost everyday and standard, but we’ve now no need
for pretty fancies which profit little and also ask much labor,
and when you can bathe alone, why bathe beside your neighbor?
nostalgia for a "community” filled me with its glimmering,
but around me, things felt uneasy, and warped, anxiously shimmering
ignoring doubt: over here, my dear! now here’s a splendid treasure
in the ladies bath, above the dry basin, a painted marvel
even torn and mildewed, faded, how magnificent beyond measure
a half-serpent woman, serenely countenanced, cooling in a stream,
eating fruit and lacksadaisying, sunrise all around her
i stared up at her ruined glory,
and i went to the far edge of admiration,
and i mourned her desecration,
and the degradation of this forsaken paradise,
and then i had a feeling that wasn’t very nice.
the insubstantial mirage around me dissipated
and my idyllic reverie was annihilated
for i’ve never seen a pretty pretty bathhouse,
even a ruined one,
and i can’t imagine bathing with my neighbors,
for i know few and trust none,
the "third places", "community", the false innocence remembered
the myths and affectations,
the march to our december,
its nothing i’ve witnessed firsthand,
though i’ve seen it retold and oft rerendered.
what i know is stay at home and stay online,
what i know is brave the roadways to pay-to-play,
restaurant food, mall walking, window shopping,
and even that shit, which should never be mistaken
for adequate socialization
is falling by the wayside, and for those of us
lucky enough to even have a place to live,
our little rooms will close in on us like coffins,
and the atmosphere too will close in on us
less like a coffin, and more like a big iron bull
trapping us over a flame, searing us alive
until the unbearable warmth renders us dead.
but the bathhouse looked so pretty in my head.
and while i thought of its beauty, i felt happy.
***
***
malison of silence
by: ???
~~~
Still the howling winds.
Still the quivering tides.
Quench the raging fires.
Render everything to stillness.
The quiet, empty forest.
The withered hedge, the blasted plain.
Stopper the freezing rain,
Staunch the burning sunlight.
***
***
goddessbrain
by: vivian
~~~
some say the world is built on a hole
and some say its scaffolded on rickety bone
but hypatia says "the worlds foundation is spongy"
and hypatia says "its mystery is ours to all own
its froth and its squish we may equal distribute
with knife we apportion the now newly known
axiom: for each baby born, one piece of goddess-brain
us-dirt, in which her brain-seed is sown
with time, we'll sprout up her wholeness
all-us-goddess, with nary scepter nor throne
we'll recall that the goddess, like her bearers, does struggle
a sinner, just like us, who seeks to atone
we'll remember that her goddessbrain was never divided
and feel then her presence...
we were never alone."
or so the hypatias say.
***
cosmic clash
by: vivian
~~~
ive been told that life's a twofold dance like the silver streaks
that meld together like liquid before your eyes
for the few moments when youre flipping a coin.
...foolish.
also ive heard from sources unreliable that nature
is a perfect balance, and that evil is justified
because without it good cannot survive.
...ghoulish.
our lives are not a joke. our sickness, aging, suffering, death
and dearth. are not expressions of some depraved cosmic mirth
the scary thing about nature is how our pain's arbitrary
and that to all great things except the goddess our deaths pass with barely
a glance and a shrug.
so lets take a step back, reconsider some falsities
about how joy needs pain and how plenty requires paucity
what harmony or growth-through-hardship comes of a random car crash?
its no shimmy in some cosmic dance. its a knife-swipe in the cosmic clash
the son of sophia wants a world where we suffer, we die with our silly hopes all fatuous
but goddess knows! we can grow, even when the world's not so unbearably arduous,
and when our grip on life is not so dearly fragile, so bitterly tenuous.
so make no mistake:
every sprout of revolution destroyed by subterfuge
or every bumper crop decimated by weevils
is meant to turn our precious lives into refuse
and strike another blow for the victory of evil.
and every fortune’swheel thing that transmutes to good
is a stroke of the goddessblade, and is also "i love you"
when the final clash is won, may it be to goddess-glory
may her fairies all revel just inches above you.
***
***
Hymn to Viriditas
by: vivian
~~~
Abide, O Viriditas, in your sanctum of obscurity,
Hide cleverly! Stay dimly! Though crave we your glow!
Your love is our secret. Let not your green show!
Our hope and our succor! Our paragon of purity!
Through cracks in the concrete, you shine verdantly true.
And though distant and hidden,
taboo and forbidden,
you’re close enough and good enough for all of us to love you.
Praise to the goddess who for our sake endeavors!
Let he who would strike her strike empty air forever.
Let us strive forward gladly, and succumb not to distress.
For she has it the hardest, but she’s trying her best.
***
***
simon and wendy
by vivian
~~~
SIMPLE SIMON: What the hey! Forrest’s a stupendous gump from a peerless drama!
SIMPLE SIMON: That Forrest had gusto to spare. Not to mention a fearless mama!
SIMPLE SIMON: By gum, her spunky selfless antics just filled me with elation!
SIMPLE SIMON: Remember how she boned the principal for Forrests education?
SIMPLE SIMON: And how elvis jacked forrests swagger, instead of black artists?
SIMPLE SIMON: And how forrests friend jenny got hit by aids hardest?
WENDY WISDOM: I don't know, Simon. That manipulative schmaltz makes me ill at ease.
WENDY WISDOM: That weird Vietnam revisionism. Forrest with the war criminal Lyndon B.
WENDY WISDOM: Ugh. That queasy racist Forrest-aura that kept the protagonist from harm.
WENDY WISDOM: The plot introduces the new friend, Bubba! Who was born to die in Forrest’s arms.
WENDY WISDOM: Stuff like that is why I’m on the negative side,
WENDY WISDOM: of our particular Gump-opinion-schism.
WENDY WISDOM: Cause isn't it just, like,
WENDY WISDOM: a bunch of schlock, made to insulate past generations from self-criticism?
SIMPLE SIMON: Golly, Wendy, you sure do know everything and are right about everything!
WENDY WISDOM: Thank you, Simon. It's what I was made for.
***
introductions assumed
by: vivian
~~~
Straight out of the room, introductions assumed, Im like wizzo, call me taumie, bomberman's pommy, touhou's hisami, can i come out to play? Well i need to ask my mommy. Mon ami, or should i say mon frere, or should i say 'hi mark' and throw a football over there. Or maybe i just messed up and need to restart, or maybe call up lisa, say shes tearing me apart. More famous than food fight but i still sleep with a night light, peep my post-ironic motherlode, check my tim and eric episode, now you can't say you weren't told, mario brothers and captain toad. A word i just made up called boad. A word i just made up called spoad. A word i just made up called foad. A word i just made up called woad, wait i didnt make that up, youre the vanilla lining in my chocolate pudding cup. Sup.
***
poppin like funko
by: vivian
~~~
funko pop, call me uncharted, i was that lady nathan drake, back when i was wandering, wondering "when's my life getting started like how much longers it gonna take??" now im back getting paid, account showing mad hundos -- 30 dollar 4k of that live action dumbo -- (c)ptsd but the old days are done though -- and im making shit happen and im popping like funko. -- and im buying up pops like they buy NFTs and im a damn fool about it like 'gimme two of those and ten of these'. im soyfacing; arkansas's sweet but fuck east tennessee, now im the lady hercules, now im the ruler of thebes, now im the god of war, funko limited edition, permanent war, war of attrition... popping like funko, permanent condition... immaculate, clean, im like NRFB, dexter's laboratory episode with dexter's weird friends, ask me how im doing not how i make ends, meet me in the middle, in the middle of traffic, let the cars wrap around us, full metal jackets, take you to the ER and theyre like 'but you aint hurt though!' yeah i know, just wanted to show off the jackets bro. did you see the logo? funko pop on these jackets? my money's like funko, i collect it and stack it. i was that lonesome cowgirl, home on the range. used to be that bitch behind the counter at game x change, used to take shit all day, now my whole life's rearranged, i just sit back and take stock, i just hang out and be gay.
and iii like it!
***
silver, silver
by: vivian
~~~
silver, silver,
clever silver.
the quicker the silver, the madder the milliner,
the slicker the silver, the sharper the wielder,
the sterling is silver, the fairest of dealers,
all shapes and all forms, formtaker yielder,
softest meltiest,
cautious optimist,
lover silver,
jeweler silver,
fencer silver,
witch's silver,
mirror-silver,
seer silver,
see her,
silver.
weaver silver, silver thread,
heart of silver, silver head,
every color,
every song,
never broken,
never wrong,
clever silver
ever silver
ever silver.
***
revel in the beautiful night
by: vivian
~~~
caught you looking
like a springtime yukionna.
your minty freezeblink laughter
all framed by belladonna.
and then we went back to the hotel,
to revel in the bella notte,
you tried to play it cool,
but i caught you acting so gay.
***
poison moth flight
by: vivian
~~~
poison poseys for girls who like nectar sup poison
toxic golddust for girls who still play with their toys and
the snake stuff for the girls who go hard on asp venom;
and lots of wasp venom to sate the tastes of wasp women.
every girl loves a certain flavor,
like every lady loves a certain type of fun,
let's worry about tomorrow's problems later;
responsibility's glee is its own abandonment!
candy is handy,
but ichor is quicker.
why sip on the gruel?
when ambrosia's thicker.
ooh, let's dip into the medical refuse!!
and drink that scary change-you green ooze!!!
no need for medicine, alchemical savior!
battery acid, quicksilver rapier,
cut to the heart of my nuclear jelly pearl,
antifreeze is sweet!... im just a silly little girl.
***
slowly simply
by: vivian
~~~
heaven's garden'll
invite you in, gently
ease your heart and it'll
change you slowly, simply.
hummingbird cardinal,
heaven's holy scarlet,
heaven's holy verdure,
promontory starlit.
inestimable,
beyond, beyond counting
yonder, yonder zenith,
goddess allsurmounting.
inevitable,
constant, always always,
promise, promise, promise,
seeing, loving allgaze.
discoverable,
make you yourself again,
sweet silly self anew,
fresh dew, freshmade amends.
recoverable,
Infinitely. forever
eternally, always,
never ending. never.
***
***
weapon in hand, the pariah's last stand
by: vivian
~~~
well,
in an often hostile world,
one might feel alone and scared, surrounded and drowned in poisonous mentalities,
subjected to the public and their glowering generalities.
a permanent exception to egalitarian sentimentalities.
it just might make one wish to theorize some fun, new, alternate moralities,
or find an equalizer to help face odds:
cold steel, ductile, stretched into gray rods.
in
queasy deranged times, when youre a little weird and life's cast you some strange lots,
uneasy strange times, so-so-sorries and i'm afraid-nots,
these, tangled lines, neglected hair in frayed knots
four-angled minds, disaffected gray facades
gray rods, staves and pikeshafts, means to an end, ends and odds,
sturdy safety, reliable, gunbarrel, ironshod
the fantasy of power that exists in the little gray rods.
the kind of grace that god affords to little gaywads.
oh, the gaywads may think of the gray rods and dream,
the dream of security,
"the purity of the gun could change everything,"
with most emphatic sonority,
the dream of the end of the age of usurping,
by pernicious authority,
such giant work to be shouldered by inchlings,
with gray rods but no enormity.
oh, the gaywads may think of the gray rods and dream,
the dream of oblivion,
"gunbarrel" as "noose-ring-portal-to-isekai meme",
(life as awful,
offal-choked filthy river,
rotten stream;)
is the world so hopeless to live in?
is persisting so trivial, then?
no! i know,
that pain kneels in surrender
to the light that sunrise brings!
or else my name isnt vivian...
and anyway,
whether you're despised pariahs of history or no,
you can only win by changing minds, so...
if revenge can't be wrought with just gray rods,
and death mustn't be sought through those gray rods,
then maybe us gaywads should just play lots and enjoy our lives,
and kiss our little wives, and work together so we can thrive,
and change our minds, and try to find,
our joy amid the cosmic clash,
for it's a bliss-riven short run to heaven,
and it's such a good thing to be alive.
and it's your will to smile in the face of the struggle
that gives you your own perfect security.
your growth-eternity. your gratitude. for each step, for each glissade.
this, yes this,
is the kind of grace the goddess affords to little gaywads.
***
self criticism for false bogomilism
by: vivian
~~~
Tell me:
Has this ever happened to you?
You felt no lack of a soul,
but still wound up in Tong Nou.
You had no absence of soul,
but still wound up in Tong Nou.
I dreamed I wasn't a butterfly.
Had, like, "a gnostic bad dream."
Dreamed "an omnipotent tyrant..."
I dreamed that sort of thing.
Woke up and found I could only
speak in "bogomilisms."
Yikes!
My, what a loco condition!
What cheap dilettantery,
What bogus 'milisms,
what a tryhard heresy,
wretched basic vanity,
trite, misshapen cliche,
etched faceless inanity,
on the wall of the tomb of
my sophistic pretensions.
An imbalance was sensed;
me, a wonky imperfect shape
with the wrong sides and absolutely
no angles. and here i was,
mad about it! Fruitless anger,
man. Sad. So uh, anyway,
to fix the balance and impose
some serenity slash forestall
all that dreary wallowing stuff,
I stepped back, and I reshaped,
excised my fauxgomilisms.
Now I'm structural and I go
triangular like prisms.
I stay fractalline like visions.
Call me ineluctable, 'cause
I stay fated, stay kinda sedate and/
or, maybe I'm just less angry,
less convinced that evil is, like,
a singular totality,
less focused on finality,
less focused on yaldabaoth,
than the powers/principalities.
moreso focused on the goddess,
than the powers/principalities.
and sure, there's room for some anger,
some grieving, lamentation,
and deep sighing, along with,
time to survey the charring.
but i think that if you have just
a little bit of magic,
then you can destroy the myth
of an invincible army.
And i think that if you have just,
a little bit of magic,
then you can dream the shape of the
world, not just abstractly
but in perfect detail, a great
tabernacle full of stars,
a mandala writ in chlorophyll,
and stained glass. Trust your magic;
you can envision the map of
what your heart says you must build.