Shackled

© Shackled

It happened the same way
That a sudden curve in the road
Sends you down the wrong path,
A path full of secrets never shared.

It was never something planned.
Pinwheels spun, aroused by a cloud’s
Summer breath; then one became many
Clouds casting shadows full of doubt.

It came at you from nowhere,
From a place where life does not exist,
Released from a prison to let dreams live
While decomposed vines clung to each other.

It no longer haunted your mirrors
Nor searched for approval
The way ink floods pages as
Wretched shadows performed inside of books.

It snatched your existence; It dragged you
Into a foreign world, one without
Wonder and color and thought where
Death, for It was Death, held the key.

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved
(painting: The Field Of The Slain by Evelyn De Morgan, 1916)

One Last Smoke

I was working on a scene where love had gone south, but it is the male character who is sad. Sadness is a strong emotion and I couldn't let the scene go with only the words: "She left him without a note or a goodbye". I want the reader to feel his shock, his pain, his hurt. This poem was written over a couple of days and I switched the characters around and it is the man who has walked away. This is not close to what I wrote in my WIP. It is a poem. It is shortened and, therefore, each word counts. 

© One Last Smoke

Standing in this river outside your hotel

Wondering where you are since you told me farewell;

I’ve been wishing on a star, hanging onto Jack Daniels—

He’s soothing my broken heart, stroking the shrapnel.

God’s sitting on his mountain having one last smoke,

Satan’s here beside me laughing at some joke.

I…I wish I could look into your eyes,

Know everything will be the way it should;

If you looked at me without turning away,

You…you would see tears welling in my eyes

While I make promises to God that I will be good

If He’ll just bring you back and have you stay.

And Hell’s not heaven, and I’m dying of heatstroke;

Satan’s still laughing so it must be a good joke.

Before I throw out the empty and tear up your clothes,

I’m leaving these photos…I’m not the one you chose.

Will you remember us and getting sick on avocados

Will you remember me and all my goofy fiascos?

I never told you but you’re the love of my life;

I only wish I’d never laughed when you wanted me for your wife—

I wish I hadn’t laughed and caused you such strife;

I wish I hadn’t laughed and let my words run rife.

God’s sitting on his mountain having one last smoke,

Satan’s here beside me laughing at some joke.

I…I wish I could look into your eyes,

Know everything will be the way it should;

If you looked at me without turning away,

You…you would see tears welling in my eyes

While I make promises to God that I will be good

If He’ll just bring you back and have you stay.

And Hell’s not heaven, and I’m dying of heatstroke;

Satan’s still laughing so it must be a good joke.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

(Painting: DarkWaters by Julio Reyes)

Standing Alone Asking One Question

© Standing Alone Asking One Question

The pole is secured to the tree; or, is it the other way around?

Or, does it matter since they are both vertical?

There is a position THEY can agree on.

The THEY, which are humans, will soon decide to take the tree, or the pole, and advance in slow degrees to their present position.

That says it all.

Life is a circle.

You’re going nowhere fast.

You can’t get there from here.

Blessed are THEY who go in circles…THEY shall be known as unidirectional “big wheels” taking the world by the tail.

I seem to be standing alone and asking one question; can you tell me where the world’s tail is located?

Mimi Wolske

All Right’s Reserved

Viscid Thoughts of Loss

© Viscid Thoughts of Loss

The bitcoins fly, the guys are high

I’ll wager you’re here to procure

If you think you will win tonight

Know you are not the man to beat

Mascara streaking down your cheeks

Because you lost love’s lottery

For you, darkness comes all too soon

The road ends before you can see

When Eden becomes decimated

The bubble will pop around their world

How will existence continue when

No one hears viscid thoughts of loss

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

(painting: Loss of Virginity or Girl with a Fox, 1890-91, Paul Gauguin)

VIP 001

© VIP 001

I’m an old soul in a new moon,

educated by good ol’ boys

wearing their blue suits, under the

thickness of a reflected gray

sky and the eddying shocks of stirred

water and whirling moonlight. Beating

down my baffled soul, they left me

climbing back up from a sunken

path only to see them riding

like aristocrats in sedans,

sedans permitted only to

the most privileged of humans.

Where is the hiccup for this man’s

misfortune? Where is that pretty

penny? That swagger of ego?

Don’t hand me a suit of blue and

Cloak me eternally in your

emotional, egoless guilt.

I possess the resources you

married to intent; your prison

psychosis is not my whole world.

Selective amnesia of your

past is not my disease. Release

me from your tango in the grass;

I am an old soul in a new moon.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Breezing By

Fill Me With Your Love

Fill Me With Your Love

There’s a bunch of men in most cities
who are handsome as can be
and they’ll take you anywhere you want
for a nominal fee

But you, you only wanted
to dance me to the edge, and
you promised, with your whiskey breath,
it was me, only me

Wrapped me in your blanket
danced me with the stars above
until the earth tilted on its axis,
then filled me with your love

Whiskey and blankets
and stars winking from above
won’t you dance me to the edge and
give me all your love

Whiskey
and
blankets
and stars winking
from above
won’t you dance me to the edge
and
give me all your love

You loved me as if we’re out of time
Love me now as if it were a crime
Won’t you love me
Love me as long as a lifetime

Whiskey and blankets
and stars winking from above
won’t you dance me to the edge and
give me all your love

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

As If It's Real (a poem by Mimi, your Tumbleweed Contessa)

As If It's Real

Having me some Leonard with my coffee
and my memories of you,
there's nothing left to do
when all our wishes are through.
my mind wants to read,
my hands want to write,
my heart wants to paint
my brain tells me--just sail out that door and have some fun.
don't we all live our lives as if they're real;
don't lose your grip,
don't let them press you to the limits,
don't slip or you may end up in my masterpiece.
never any broken promises too deep
that left time for us to weep;
I guess you'll always be the gift
I was never meant to keep.

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved


(painting by Eric G Thompson called Good Morning)

Taking A Chance

LOVE

It is an enormous risk to make yourself vulnerable to another person.
You may have faced these risks of hurt or rejection when you asked someone to have lunch or dinner with you, dressed up for a date (possibly giving away how excited you are about the person), said "I love you" for the first time to someone, or made the first move with a kiss or a touch.
Did you take the chance? Did you roll the dice?

©Taking A Chance

Rolling the dice in any relationship is taking a chance;

But, doesn’t love always come conditionally?

With expectations?

With disappointments?

With you losing your heart

Or losing your mind?

With misery and mockery?

With endurance before isolation?

With objections before rejections?

The worst odds could be better

Than anything you might imagine.

Love comes with a price.

Mostly you pay... then again,

It’s a game you know you will play,

You know you are going to try,

So go all the way; you just might win.

There’s no other feeling like it;

It will be the ride of your life.

You will fly with the gods

Or you’ll go down in flames.

C'mon; roll the dice. Take a chance.

by Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved 

© I’m Sorry You Walked Away

When You Lose Love:

MYTH: The pain of losing love will go away faster if you ignore it.

Fact: Trying to ignore your pain or keep it from surfacing will only make it worse in the long run. For real healing, it is necessary to face your sadness (or grief) and actively deal with it.

MYTH: It’s important to be “be strong” in the face of loss.

Fact: Feeling sad, frightened, or lonely is a normal reaction to loss. Crying doesn’t mean you are weak. Letting your true feelings show can help you.

MYTH: If you don’t cry, it means you aren’t sorry about the loss.

Fact: Crying is a normal response to sadness, but it’s not the only one. Those who don’t cry may feel the pain just as deeply as others. They may simply have other ways of showing it.

It’s nearly two in the morning.

Come take advantage of me.

I’m on my third cup of coffee

After chugging a bottle of wine.

I already threw the empty at

The email I was writing to you

To show you I was drunk... and vulnerable.

Don’t you want it?

You used to want it.

You used to want me.

I’m sorry it took me too long to realize it.

I’m sorry I will never send that email.

I’m sorry I’m willing to degrade myself

Just to get you

To come back,

To touch me,

To tease me,

To stay here — with me.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

(the photo is not mine. It is the property of the owner)

© Guest Starring in My Life This Year—

He said we were no longer parallel...

Well, duh! We’re a-cute angle now.

© Guest Starring in My Life This Year—

You. Your theatrical presence so intense,

It is almost blinding, my Dear.

The disease of love you dispense

Puts me in danger of the contagion,

but I’m dying to be weakened by you.

Please, let us destroy the weapon

They used to destroy my faith in you.

By Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

(painting by Malcolm Liepke)

© You Are My Favorite Self-Indulgence

Long distance relationships never work, the colloquial wisdom goes.

Not true, according to a small but growing number of social science studies. Long-distance relationships are, in many ways, stronger than relationships between couples who live together or close by, shows a new study published today in the Journal of Communication.

The edges of our distant love are softened in

the streaks of the heated blur that disguises

the passion demanded by our naked bodies.

You have turned me into a kissing masochist and

I still find it amazing you can make me dance

from miles away and change my world with your lips.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

(painting: RENE  MAGRITTE, Love from a Distance)

©Rules of The Game for A Windup Girl in A Dystopian World

Each of us is our own novel 

until our very last page, no one...

not even us...

knows how our novel will end, 

otherwise, who'd want to read it

It seems everything has fallen into place;

not quite what I had in mind,

but, nonetheless, I suppose it’s mine.

And how disgraced I might be

if I went where I pleased and

toppled all that has fallen on me—

only to suffocate underneath.

For those battered and broken

over time, I remain a mystery,

someone who lives alone with

nothing vying to grip my mind.

Endless soiled linens falling—

the devil threw us into the abyss,

the height dependent on the age of

the stains on our gowns.

I look up, passed my rising breath,

to the place where I might forget

my guilty naiveté and dry my

flooded eyes with tears of the lost.

I am Alice out of Wonderland and

there are rules of the game for a

windup girl in a dystopian world.

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

Old and New

Shelley said, "I change but I cannot die." ('The Cloud', line 76). 
Deepak Chopra said, "The next step in mans evolution will be the survival of the wisest.”

David Vann said, “Even now, I still believe metamorphosis is the greatest beauty.” (Aquarium)
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis)

©OLD AND NEW

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

It was at the corner

of Old and New

the first time my eyes

captured his image,

the first time my heart

beat that old tattoo—

Flight or Fight—

the first time I

didn't know what to do.

His head was tilted back

in hardy laughter and

I saw his breath escape,

dance around the crowd,

seize some, and then

it gripped their souls;

his laughter stopped.

Unable to abandon

my position, I watched

his every step

leaving scars on the road

as footprints, as memories,

as warnings to those

of us left, frozen in time

between Old and New.

(painting: detail from Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvadore Dali)

(video: 30 seconds of The End by The Beatles)

Mimi - Mona Poetry: You Could Have Been My Electric Toothbrush And Made My World Spin

©You Could Have Been My Electric Toothbrush And Made My World Spin

Mimi Wolske

2016 All Rights Reserved

Wish I was your portable vacuum

so I could breathe in all of you,

but I heard that you fell out of love

or near enough...that was tough

Wish I was the portable heater

making you hot in your basement bedroom,

but I understand I was too patient

for your urgent manly needs...indeed

And all of that love dust plus some

that floated around from the vacuum

burned like paid-for crispy sighs

and missing but needed goodbyes

And all I could be was

Suddenly freed

Suddenly freed

Suddenly freed

Wish I was your addictive devotion

sharing all my emotion motion

but I learned the tide had rolled out

with nothing settled, nothing given

Wish I was your fantasy dream girl

the playgirl you wanted to unfurl

the one who could make your world twirl

be more than your down-south cowgirl

And all of that love dust plus some

that floated around from the vacuum

burned like paid-for crispy sighs

and missing but needed goodbyes

And all I could be was

Suddenly freed

Suddenly freed

Suddenly freed

Mimi - Mona Poetry: I Can’t Get off The I-Love-You Merry-Go-Round

©I Can’t Get off The I-Love-You Merry-Go-Round

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

It began one evening so

chilly that when I gazed

through my lacey-frost-adorned

window to unwrap the sunset,

like some obsequious lover,

the tender presence of your

memory carried me to that

moment of lingering sighs

at dusk and stardust dreams.

You are an endless dream

from which there is no waking.

I fear I have dreamed of you

for so long you are no longer

real; that the feel of your lips when

we kiss is a phenomenon,

and it would be as unfeasible

to press my lips to yours

as it would be to feel

the warmth from a stranger’s.

That cold night ,when

looking out my bedroom window,

I found you out of reach

in my reality and an

illusion in my dreams.

You have been so much a dream

and for so long, I’m unsure I can

get off of this I-love-you

merry-go-round or out of

the nakedness of this dream—

I just wouldn’t know how.

Mimi - Mona Poetry: Who’s Reaching Back for Me?

©Who’s Reaching Back for Me?

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Running insane in the pouring rain?

You’re a standup dame; please give us your name,

Then future this when the milk is gone—

Time’s not secure when overdrawn.

All hurts fade in the light of day,

But night pains thrive in your résumé.

I was the one lured; by Spring spurred

Into annihilating kisses from disencumbered

Itinerant male tenants,

By Summer seasoned into extravagance,

And by Autumn encouraged to winter in

A nobleman’s embrace, and then

Came the meaning of Winter’s meaningless

Misery to my mind’s hopeless mirthlessness:

I was being left behind the we,

Wondering who’s reaching back for me?

Let me be the one who remains mononymously

The only name you call —exclusively.

(painting: Auburn, 15x24 inches, Acrylic, Graphite, and Oil on Canvas by Michael Shapcott)

Mimi-Mona Poetry: Swallowing A Widespread Carpet of Burnt Umber and Sienna

©Swallowing A Widespread Carpet of Burnt Umber and Sienna

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Is there a way to swallow

the sands of the desert

without becoming the desert?

A habob storms in, runs away.

Your footsteps are no longer

seen; the feel of you beside

me suddenly disappears...

Left are the dust devils

carrying your memory.

After years, it was your

spirit I let inundate me.

Now when the wind picks up,

I feel the grit of the desert dust

and swallow the sounds before

I sink into the widespread

carpet of burnt umber and sienna.

Mimi - Mona Poetry: ©Two Is Not The Aurora Borealis Draining The Ocean of Red

©Two Is Not The Aurora Borealis Draining The Ocean of Red

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Your heart,

an acorn

in the night sky,

became

surreal...

broken reality

stored by hopeful

lovers

in alabaster jars,

hidden behind

a crest of lips

filigree-etched

on an altar,

possessed

by the gods

and blackened

by their fire.

My alien bones,

in the universe’s

cracked mirror,

lay beached

just beyond

the sea’s foam,

crushed,

multiplied

like so much

scatological

obscenity

collected by

beachcombers

for you—

saved to net—

another

unseen

gamboling

sylph

inked and pinned

into the boxed

collection

of ancients

from the air

to be revealed

in this high-tech

low-battery life;

my fluid

coagulated

like the dust

in my mouth...

a mouth

that once

ranted

my dirge

for freedom.

There is no

universal will,

no will for a

universe

masturbated

from your last

test

-a

-ment:

a hieroglyphic-

painted

conch

standing

the test of time,

left to testify that

the micro-waved

third planet

will be left

disinherited.

Mimi-Mona Poetry: The Upbeat of His Bipolar Shift

Know Someone Singing That Song Just Another Manic Monday?

Is That Your Theme Song?

There are shift doctors who can help when someone suffers extreme shifts in moods: mania and depression. 

©Before The Upbeat of His Bipolar Shift

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

It was always there, always.

The reality of it following the last beat,

the beat immediately preceding

that upbeat of you bipolar shift,

that feeling you long for; not

that downbeat of despair you dread.

She always imagined it

being like a foot in suspension—

on the rise but not quite there—

and the anxiousness you felt

unknowing whether it would descend

for another downbeat of despair

before reaching the longed for upbeat.

This is the worst time, right?

The timing of grayer skies and

shorter days when you find yourself

under the same influence as that great

statesman Churchill’s own black dog—

the one still under controversy discussion,

the one many know as manic depression.

Just as so many before her, she never

understood why there were never displays

of affection, of love...of intimacy. What if

she finds out? What will she say? Will she

tell others? Will she?! Fear brings the downbeat

and the predator eats well for another day.

She watched you pace and pace and pace

and count, count everything. She

constantly asked if you wanted to sit.

Did she know you could not sleep—

for days—because there was so much

energy you knew you would explode?

It was always there, always.

The reality of it following the last beat,

the beat immediately preceding

that upbeat of you bipolar shift,

that feeling you long for; not

that downbeat of despair you dread.