shattered mirror

shattered mirror
see the faces of evil in the glass
pick up shards
cut at skin
do minor surgery to heal major illness

the stillness hangs suspended as a moment freezes
see yourself in slow motion
hurl arrows and screams at the ones you love
go mad
drag blackened tar from the pit of Hell - your soul
turn it into words like brimstone and fire
don't think, just rage on and hurl the words

but the mirror shows your slow motion jackassery
in a thousand images, replaying in a shattered chorus
of insect eye lenses
all ten thousand versions of you at once
a multiplicity of shame in shattered mirror shards

and you broke that mirror
because you saw the Devil's face staring back
he never goes away
but you tried to keep him at bay
by pretending he doesn't exist anyway

but his breath
is hot
on your shoulder
everyday

so sweep up the mirror
discard those shards before you are tempted
to slice long red ribbons into your arms
the point is not to cut the Devil out
you never can - and you never will

the point is to find another mirror
and look at yourself in truth
remain whole
watch your soul

and never let the Devil take control


nicole nicholson (Milwaukee, WI, 1976)

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elegy

I wish that I would have been there to follow you to the bars
to hand you pen and paper to capture your stars
instead of clowns handing you demons inside glasses
that made you more evil with each passing possession

been a tape recorder for your burning vibrant mind

been the sky for you to speak your stars onto

been the blank storyboard for you to glue your
cut-out cartoon characters and captions onto

been the empty notebook pages for you to sing
the symphonies of your mind and heart onto

been the film for your camera eyes to burn
hot stares and hotter pictures onto

captured these flashes of brilliance

caged your words before they flew away
to islands of forgetfulness to roost forever out of reach
and then released those words onto your mind's island
to where you could travel, aboard ships of your imagination,
to call their names -those birds- to your hands
to sing once again to you
to project those songs into the skies

but now, those birds will never sing for us
we will never hear their songs in your words
we will never hear of those other trips to your inner islands
or to the outer streets, vibrant and charged with electricity and souls
we will never even know where to find those birds to call out to them
to have them perch upon fingers
to educe lost, fragile, unknown songs from their throats

because the map to your inner islands - it was stolen
by those demons inside glasses
lifted from your lips before you could even
plot the coordinates to draw that map
stolen from inside your mind
melted into candle wax puddles
drowned in the alcoholic flesh of those demons

so we -I- will never find the way to your lost treasures

and I can only hope that there is some truth in reincarnation
some way that souls revolve in grooves on records
are songs spinning back around to be replayed
in diamond needles as the records turn

because if that be true
then maybe one day
I will hear you sing again


nicole nicholson (Milwaukee, WI, 1976)

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