Her Inspiration and A Fateful Flight.

• Author: Portolano, Marlana
• Position: Poem

An afterthought's refracted glimmer swims

To her, minnow-darting under reflections

Leaping patternless; the flames of rage pillage

Recurring dreams for Reason's sake. She breathes

To speak, to spurn the fire, to hum unease

And trembling fingers into lull and strokes

The stem before she takes the glass of wine

To waiting lips.

But now the hatching fry

Of poems in vitro tickles where those songs

Of rage in plays unwritten writhed. She drinks

The inspiration in, and every draught

Is deeper than the last. Intoxicating sweetness!

Swift as fishes dart away in fear,

Those wriggling flecks of light, too small

To recognize, too swift to stop, dart

Deeper than daylight reaches. Something grows.

Monster of madness, creature of dreams repressed,

Or misty form of spirit, hidden artifice?

What waits, now that waiting lips are wet?

A Fateful Flight

with apologies to John Donne

Spiteful, greedy plane,

Tyrannic tin can,

Go pick on some gray-suited man

Or get lost in a black Bermuda rain,

Worthless metal scrap!

The nation's rat-trap,

Washington, D.C., is miles from his embrace;

Why hurl me towards that wretched, noisy place?

My wish will cause no newsworthy harm:

Let me quietly stay in my lover's arms.

Six long years,

A crash course in life

Equally weathered with jealous and shameful tears

And seasoned with storms of unending strife,

Have done what you

Yet unjustly do

By tearing me back to that urban exile.

Till I see him again, I will not smile,

But clench my teeth in a growl to meet the face

Of anyone who thinks he can take love's place.

I've learned enough!

Now take me back

To...