the travesty

life spins its ironies like a menacing cloud of buzzing bees

around her maggot filled brain. whispers poison words. she halts

midstream, hides her corrugated tongue, and carries on.

as if all was hunky-dory.



the bitch is cold dead: you wouldn’t have thought her cunning

eyes once fluttered with fresh washed curtains. rose petal patterned.

now they hang, lifeless, faded, dirt stained. hidden behind

them she crushes flower buds.



in a show of self-denial. secretly she hates their fresh colour,

their tender skin. she tears. she rips into them with her hooked talons.

flower buds will not be allowed to bloom. each torn petal strewn around

her gnarled feet, an insipid slaughter. she strikes an injured pose



in ragged finery. the crone moves her toothless jowls to work on

the curses that escape in frothy spittle through her blue lips. her

face contorted in tear-filled rage, collapses,



disappears in the mass of quivering drool. her skin like crumpled

hide left out too long in the brittle sun. her face cracks open in a gaping grin. she

rejoices in the travesty. called life.