Spiderwebs...

SPIDERWEBS…

Silk Skeins Woven by Moonlight; anchor the Queen to her throne.

Like the tendrils of our entanglements that trail off in the mist;

Strung somewhere between yesterday and forever…

She steps lithely from filament to juncture, unwilling

To disrupt her carefully aligned patterns.

Afraid perhaps that her footsteps may entangle her within

The transparent panes that harbor her;

Caging her forever as prey to another’s predation.

So too do we alight cautiously onto our reminiscences in retrospect,

Shielding them from the harsh glare of hindsight.

Unwilling to alter neither what is prized, nor reviled.

Frightened that like the spinster we may become

Victims of our own devices.

Reliving our pathos with the same determination

She imparts to her ethos as she repeatedly circumnavigates

The boundaries of her universe.

Cloud’s breath sways the branches that brace her foundation, and

Soundlessly she retreats to silk’s-center.

Stretching herself forth, she hesitates, prepared

To meet either foe or feast, not knowing which has entered her lair.

And we, our neurons set ablaze, in adrenaline enhanced vigil

Retreat within to await our next offering,

Served up in discourse and encounter, when next we creep

To the edges of Today, to peer upon eventuality.

Unlike the weaver, content to live her life in repetition,

We are not gifted such simple recourse, we

Strain fevered to escape our blueprint, unaware

That to recoil from that which defines us…

Propels us unto oblivion.

©Gabi Ruszczak 4/30/03

…and PIXIE DUST

Silently soaring, awash in Star-spray and Moonbeams;

Gliding upon the whispered wishes of mortals;

Androgynously perfect, these avatars of magic find

The humble Terran plane below, now tiny and un-encumbering.

Alas I am earthbound, and to mine eye the terrain infinite.

“Insurmountable”, I despair, and become truant in my sojourn.

Joined to infinity, they summon forth acumen un-bounding;

To navigate the existential, gathering all experience,

Like polished pebbles freshly worn from a celestial spring.

Discarding with abandon the unworthy happenings of life.

So too I survey the tracts of my life,

But am unable to slough away the layers of scar tissue

Scaling senses, speech and core. Pierced with dread

That this shroud shall constrict all future nourishment.

My ability withered; unable to move…

I shall expire; gorging on a rancid diet of

Yesterday’s Indulgences and Overwhelming calamities.

I bid them come, those winged masters of Arcana, to

Convey upon me their favor,

Engulf my form in sweet glitter, so that

I too may bathe at the spring of heaven,

Take flight beyond my memory, feckless

Ascend beyond horizon’s ribbon, to Cavort among the faerie folk.

Reborn each morn, as they are; to wondrous Expectancy.

To savor life’s fruit, unafraid of its poisons.

Cast off the chrysalis of timidity, and like the sprites

Manifest myself as magical; wondrous…

Embrace my life, and relish its marrow, as

Their mission done, they take flight into the brightening skies of dawn.

©Gabi Ruszczak 4/30/03

CANDYCANES…

Sugar cascades into boiling elixir, forming Sticky Sweetness.

Plummets as Ivory filament to the Stainless Steel altar below; where

Expert hands carve rivulets upon its landscape.

Irrigated with Scarlet syrup, anointed with exotic oil;

Stripes form and harden. Portioned and collected;

They await delivery to the Congregation of the decadent.

As we stream from heaven’s gate, and

Become engulfed in Life’s ocean,

We are crystallized. Fed to the ascetic. And,

Properly deceived into adhering to the world’s paradigm.

Stripped of our passions, we become little more than toy soldiers.

Their arrival foretells impending celebration; is met with glee by

The still un-awakened hedonists.

Languished for and savored upon by throngs of hungry devotees.

Parasol-handled seduction follows…

By contrast, the eroticism of our awakenings is repressed.

In defiance, arousal becomes crusade, rebellion its avatar.

Ever quickening desire leaves us panting, yet famished.

Unchecked, a narcissistic pathology awakens.

We commit any atrocity to reach our deliverance. 

Casting our victims in the gulley of our conscience.

How innocent their fulfillment, how malicious our Quest!

They exist to be subsumed by their hosts,

Never sentient to their purpose as mere vessels of content;

Held in natural esteem…sought after…

Reveling in their identifiable associations.

Abandoned by the propriety we covet, consigned to

An ignominious subsistence, we devour them in the hope

However licentiously larcenous; that we shall gain what they possess.

©Gabi Ruszczak 5/01/03

…and WINE

Bacchian nectar flows freely from Vesuvian fields, and

Scattered vineries.  Caresses with soporific swiftness.

Smites with addictions that enslave.    

Intoxication delivered in hues from primrose to carmine. The

Aristocratically sanguine embodiment of unbridled desire.

I have fallen prey to its lure, and that of its distilled brethren.

Liquid carnal lust infuses me with rapturous delight;

Sweeping aside both doldrums and misery. Without it,

I am barren. Unable to coexist with humanity alone,

It has become both companion and lover.

Submerging hatred, extinguishing agony.

Cultivated for millennia; dispensed freely, measured in gold; its

Perfection sought after by generations of Vignerons.

In lucid times, I plead to be released from its vise-like grip;

When melancholy, it returns as Primal Substitution for all injury,

And solvent for its pharmaceutical surrogates.

Gentle landscapes of its progenitor awash in purple and green,

Sway peacefully, keep time to breezes, and

Belie the insipid arrogance of its birth.

I remain, as well, covert in my affliction. Hiding from all

The veracity of my dependence. Its ugly head

Rising only when I am in solitude.

It will require more than 12 steps to avenge me.

I shall punish all who drove me to this nadir. As

Rage supercedes complacence.

I shall crush the vintagers of my desolation.

As seasons cast their pall upon their arbors, only to find

Boughs unbroken next harvest; ripe with fruit, so too

My tormentors will find me murderously resilient.

©Gabi Ruszczak 5/02/03