Sheri Harper

Nightmare

Sheri Fresonke Harper

With claws like toothpicks of steel,
lilac-colored eyes,
sweet smell like cheesecake
rotted,
you're a survivor, liar,
cheat, steel without the street
slippery
shady as an elm
with head barbed
like an elm seed
and a heart
heated by Agnes of God.
You're beaten by Spartacus
into some misshapen David --
all kingly,
but you let loose
control
like the left-over
big bang
and destroy us all.

Cemeteries –

Sheri Harper

They surround you,

hide beside freeway onramps,

are overgrown with sticky weed,

collect behind the screens

of the house next door.

Neighborhood cadavers

eat themselves down to bone —

hair white, skin cold,

unable to maintain

roof overhead.

Some resting places are manicured

with marble headstones,

carved with gaping-eyed skulls

or angel wings.

Others are found up a goat trail

in the Kesara valley

with uptilted stones

and ransacked wealth.

Sometimes the roof came down

when mud flowed.

After centuries, turned chalky

green, tuff breaks off,

reveals saber teeth

unable to bite,

and whorled shells of forgotten beast.

But the worst cemetery of all

is a mind lost of all memories —

people loved, aided,

but now departed.

Forgotten in our daily lives.

PROMETHEUS'S GIFT

Sheri Fresonke Harper

We break our last meal—

bees buzz to their homes,

wasps wallow to their eaves,

songs whisper their unspoken,

fires tamp down.

We tie the God's own

to the backbone of earth

after harvest.

We let bald eagles soar

down onto river's edge,

flap and tuck under, there

to pick and pull at salmon

carcass,

or give thanks

to the defiant one

who never yields

but gives all in friendship

to the world of man.

He makes us eat fire

out of hollow fennel

and burn for less and carry more.

Sheri, about herself: My poems, stories, and articles appear in a number of journals, most recently in Whispering Spirits E-Anthology and Kinships. I'm working on my second science fiction novel. See www.sfharper.com for more information.