Y'all wanna read some poetry?

[Bella Odessa]

 

 

I've been trying to find my muse again, so I thought it would be fun to post a few of my works for some fresh eyes to read. Keep in mind, I'm no professional, but I've won some cash, and is published here and there. Nothing too glamorous though lol

 

Let me know what y'all think!!! 
 

Spoiler

Underpainting

To me, the landscape of  the body is the land-   
scape of every uninhabited place.    It’s a map
that reads like some paragraph evening held in
place by    humid hands.  For every uncharted
vein, a      poem is written    for the tongue that
taste like      the wind,  or the wrists; a painting
in longitude, or leg.    These are things  I think
about when        go out drinking—a collar-mine
flower, a    centerpiece in  high-vaulted stucco
nights when      star chandeliers    glitter above
tobacco clouds.    And I sometimes know what
to say when I      crane my noodle  neck in mid-
laugh, when        my ivory  incisor/canine moon
on an oil canvas is      complemented      by art
collectors, flamingo con-men, and tourists alike.

Spoiler

Lover

 

We are trapped in the touch
of one another—
a pair of writhing rabbits
snared within the
last dying rays of sunlight,
and the night unfolds
with us slung helplessly across
its blue-black shoulder—lost
in the satisfaction of a hunter’s
earthly pang; hunger
and warmth conjoined
at the mouth.

We are large, obsidian flies
drowning in a green glass
bowl filled to the brim with
sugar water—our siphons
desperately scanning as
our slick arms and legs
try to climb one another.
Transparent wings instinctively
searching for wet carcasses,
or violet figs—mushy dark
plums, or honey; we found
heaven instead.

Spoiler

Papier-Mâché Moon

 

nesting in the
horizon’s soggy blue
hands,
a glue gun ghost—
porous, peeling
like an obituary onion
over a wave

Spoiler

Becoming the Moonless Night

 

She squeezes a cluster of
blackberries  raspberries  blueberries—
hemorrhaging sweet-sour slugs
straining their plump baccate
bodies through her fingers and
around her knuckles.            The trail—
the sticky cut as her pulse siphons
them—luna moth veins in
her warm summer palms
trembling under finger paint bruises.
Green wings to her mouth plucked
like a pearl—dried dusk-colored cuticles
eaten raw like bitter rinds.

 

[Bella Odessa]

Here's two from the last two weeks. I'm on a role:

 

Spoiler

Siren in the Bath

 

Soft archipelagos of blue
blouses, denim and black towels.
The white quartz-like skim of
diamond powder and suds.
Shampoo and soprano
hanging around her like steam. 
A helmsman’s deep sea laugh; an
anchor tattoo on his chest—
bare, gleaming backs. The
red shoals of saltwater tongues
                                gasping for air.

 

Spoiler

If the Moon

 

    It’s late—the bright blue-white
laugh of a cutlass smile floats
        like jetsam overhead.

Mother said that the night and
the sea would cocoon me like this:   
more blue if I played sailor—

more blue than a bump under
a tight muslin cloth, or a wooden
sword sticking out of the sand

after dark.      More blue than she,
who loathed lighthouses and
laveer—my father’s worn fishing

    boat bobbing in the waves...
Her bitter voice still echoes like
        oakum in my ears.

 

Also, one from five years ago (warning, explicit language here):
 

Spoiler

The Roost

 

we f*ck like birds
a 20-gauge Remington 
slug through our breasts

whiskey shrapnel
exploded
in a forest clearing

like two ghosts playing
Russian Roulette
in campfire embers

the backs of our
throats packed with
charred dirt and worms

we f*ck on the road
caught in the grill of a
pickup truck

like splintered
toothpicks in a blender
of kerosene

like beaks wet with
velocity and bile and
eviscerated caterpillars

plume molting
in the dust of
a drunken drag race

we f*ck under the
windowpane
back down

legs up

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Bella Odessa