Two Poems by Kristine Esser Slentz
lilly demons, lurking
It’s true.
Pacing back with delicate greed, I submit this heartfelt damage:
I am a demon to you.
The system knelt to us with a distorted masculine scent,
feeling like a screw, we chewed its loops of ravaged mirrors.
Then the exposure of his paws risked torment into back-slide
so that phantom pain trills and heavy vermouth became ritual.
Twitching winged evils will always accrue here on earth
with our grime-covered-blank-faces mimicking each other’s sins.
So, we feed drops of pain on to one another’s heart bulge,
a cue that all subliminal souls are flagrantly mismanaged.
Those devils are undaunted in subduing us humans.
Every living being is just satan’s squirming baggage,
it’s true.
I am a demon to you.
ceremonial of spouse
late-night breakfasts waited up
between time to traded chairs
moth-bitten kisses broken cup
to share
hard-pressed counter sweats
and ∞ wishes barreled stare
teething packs silver cigarettes
to share
with living destroyed luck bare
passed long-lasting rib to share
This week, we will be reprinting the work of poets from Flower Song Press. Get their work here: Flower Song Press. It is fantastic!
KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ is the author of woman, depose (FlowerSong Press). She is originally from northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) from City College of New York (CCNY) where she is currently an English Department adjunct. KRISTINE is a Pushcart Prize nominee, finalist in the Glass Poetry Chapbook Contest, Flash Fiction Contest finalist for F(r)iction, and recipient of a CCNY English Department Teacher-Writer Award, Rifkind Fellowship, and former Poets Afloat resident.
