Voodoo

💜
A song about an iPad can change your life.

Not in a hugely noticeable way.

First one I heard, so there’s that.

And the color is candy-pure

Imagination. Spring blooms.

Storm clouds foregrounding summer

Lightning down south somewhere.

And the beat is purple voodoo.

And the lyrics shake you up

Like a tumbler of Las Vegas

Dice, fresh and new and rattling

You right up until the toss off

And win. The poetry, even, remembers

The lure of the Gamble. The

Energy is micro-explosion after

Micro-explosion after micro-

Explosion. So there’s that, too.

And then, there’s this

Guy on the left.

Talk about voodoo—

Or two, please.

Ya. My soul’s dancing

More than usual.

And I hope this beat

Goes on and on.

——

(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

Poem Untitled

Pain is standard issue
Joy a fleeting thing
One betroths a wish—
The other, broken wing

——

(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

(Art: Marina Stanford)

Savior Love, A Ditty

(NBC)

for JJCQ, w 💕

——

You derail me—
Like a cool freight
Train and I lose
My way veer so far
off track
We both know
I won’t make it
Out
And you just keep
Rolling on
You
Have agendas
Depots
Promises to keep
I fall down through
Flamboyant green woods
Dark and unfamilar
Trees snap
My wake scarred earth
And fuel leaking
ember sparks flying

Heap of coalfire
Twisted iron glowing
Glass and heart pieces
Like Parade candy
All over the ground

Torn wood catches
And I am aflame
Like a silly Valentine
In this absolution

Savior Love—
Is speaking
His licking tongues
Sharp and hot
As any devil’s tail

Choking smoke
billows can be seen
A hundred miles away
From this wreckage

And you—you
Just keep on
Keeping on

You got agendas

Depots

Promises

(To keep)

——

(c)2022 by Sanguine Woods

A little ditty ✨

One is one and never two.
Two is four, encrypted; seed.
Six is title, ombré; swing! the
Cleaver lays you three.

——

(C)2022 by Sanguine Woods

(Gaia)

“L” is 4 the way u 👀 @ me… #lovepoems #poetry

Love says trust me
And your heart breaks
Again, like a stone
That isn’t supposed
To fracture,
By some ponderous law of pain
Or physics—I say
If breaking my heart
10 times or 100
Pushes me, like a
Demi-urge, toward a kind
Of deeper
Love more meaningful
Existence—then,
Yeah.
I’m ok with
That.

(C)2022 by Sanguine Woods

for JCCQ
*and Sophia, gratzi

#lgbtqia

Photo (c)2022 by JCC Quinn.

Last Train

(Public Domain)

——

Tonight—on this eve
of wind and frozen
white, nothing curls
warm and right,
souls are shivered
ice. A last-one-
of-the-year night;
empty tracks are lost
in snow, tumbling
like forgiveness
from an endless sky;
no stars, only pride,
sharp and aching
for a fight; and
Time sinks down
for the weight
of it. A train came
and went, once,
on New Year’s night;
its lone whistle,
crying—and I am
still here at the
depot; no one
is coming on
the next train
for me.

—(c)2021 by Sanguine Woods

Gospel

(Etsy)

——

You, there, that
torch in your fist,
stone-green stare like
a lady of the sea,
indigo water lapping
at your feet. I met you
in a vision
from Battery Park;
a painting from the early
Hudson school of
trappers, selling fur
to hat-wearing women
in corsets laced by
whales and expectations
strolling along the
Avenue of Freedom.
I remember my little girl
touched a gilded replica
of your crown—spikes
sharp as sunrays—not
brassplate; copper;
like new pennies:
Honest Abe
watching (heads);
peering out between
Memorial pillars
(tails); like a man
unaccustomed
to karma; kept
like a prisoner,
confused—looking out
for an eon, now two,
from behind those
white marble bars.

Untitled 2015

It’s clever, pure love;
like a rare bloom, plucked
pale blue roots and all
from a jungle, where
it always rains.
And you pot it—
on your windowsill,
ring stains marking
where you watered last,
in New York City.

(c)2015 by Sanguine woods

#mypoetry #poemsilove #love #human

(gardenista.com)

Sunset, July 5th, Long Island, New York

Photo by Michael Fallon. Used by permission.

——

That’s like a poem.
About pink.
And warm.
And ending.
And ice cream, peach.
And laughter dying out
Slowly from every summertime
Get-together everyone
In the whole wide world
Ever had on a holiday
With family and pinwheels
And little red white and blue flags
Sticking out of the short green grass.
Its peachfuzz voice says:
We’re still free, People.
And then it goes to bed.
And we’re tired, too—
After all the talking and children
Playing and ladies laying
Out for the first suntan
Of the season…
Where you fall asleep
Right there
In that cocktail light
With or without
A reason.

—(c)2021 by Sanguine Woods

Malefic

A coal-black tar
and feathered clinging
to your soul—it croons the sigil
ouroboros gnawing
at the moon—aghast and
punctured, full—a rotting
gibbous rune—an end
of opalescence—
a stylus tipped
too soon—

(c)2021 by Sanguine Woods

(Tattoo Image: Pinterest. Photographer/artist unknown.)