Turning Point

by Liliana Mendes Schneebeli

I am Liliana, and I dabble in poetry – just enough to be intrigued by its pleasures. I enjoy discussing it and welcome your thoughts and feedback, so please feel free to share!

In times of hardship, crises cloud the sky.
And weight the world and soul with shadows low.
Yet since your regal beauty caught my eye,
A cheerful cause within my heart does grow.
Your nursing hands my inner knot release
Such gentle nature – creature, you compel
My mind and pen to picture paths of peace
That I extract from your exhaustless well.
Love’s prospects in our mutual efforts rest,
Drawn from the depths your cryptic smile reveals
Where hope resounds to lift my quiet quest
In my ascent to fasten true love’s seals.

[You know, her smile has never been obscure
But more than half a thousand years, for sure,
The iron grip of covetous male eyes
Devised conceits, confined by frames of lies:

Of fair unmoving flawless fawns’ invites,
Of silent muses’ sighs for male delights,
Of that abyssal awe false love evokes,
Alone the master’s mighty line provokes.

As tacit objects seldom do object,
The most generic vows of his affect
Misuse immobile smiles to be misread –
But now: distort to rip apart instead.]

“Your words pour down like summer’s first fresh rain
So, all restraint is lifted, but you drain –

Your lines like summer’s fresh first fall of rain
Lack prospects that we truly never had

All false restraints dissolved, and none remain
And while your words cascade around my head
All false restraints dissolved reveal pure dread

And while the words you pour to bring to life
That tender seed malicious myths have spread
That fragile sprout propitious lies have grown
That brittle root self-serving vain has fed
Concocted seed of solipsistic zeal
Poetic torment sourced in dried up mines
Poetically thwarted from intent
Poetic backwash forcibly induced –

And like the weight of your creative press
A heavy blanket wraps me in distress
The wake of your insatiate gutsiness
Is nothing more than bad verbose excess
The heft of your ejaculative mess
Is swiftly crowned by your forlorn attempt
Your failed attempt to finally cement
These words you lay as cornerstones of love –
Recast, a peace, at least, I do achieve,
Your bleak attempt that gloriously fails –

The spark you thought to finally ignite –

That single spark pretense in verse ignites
my varnished skin – your coat of drool – inflames,
the dormant rage within now set ablaze
in flames I swell, unfold, and flare out of the boundaries of your
eyes expanding frantically
with centuries worth of boasting
to burst
into my monstrously living shape that I loudly recover
under all the pencil-blue gashes that
blend so well with my blistering red skin rubbing
against you.

Who cannot match my voice nor bear its fire –
I will not trim my words to their desire.”