This is not a love song

[randy_byers]

Under the influence of Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves and yearning, yearning for another woman across another ocean, I wrote this strange poem in March 1991. I think my sense of humor has improved since then, but I still like some of the imagery. Shades of Angela Carter, too!



Hunter/Planter

Unnamed voices of feeling convey signals,
promises, threats. I sniff the air. Am I grown blind,
or have they disguised their careful steps
in the uncontrolled beating of my heart?
I track them, feel like hiding, feel visible.
It's true: I'm hungry and afraid of being eaten.
I eat myself and dream
of fish rotting all around,
a pregnant moon,
blood curdling into soil I take root in,
impersonal fantasies of escape and destruction.
Vision dismembers memories of a simple past.
Unnamed voices of feeling call out signals
of connection to the sources of life.