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POETRY BY DONNA DALLAS

DONNA

Donna Dallas studied creative writing and philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School under William Packard, founder of the New York Quarterly. She resides on the North Shore of Long Island with her two husbands, seven children and two dogs. She wanders the beaches endlessly searching for lost words. She has appeared in a plethora of journals, most recently Horror Sleaze Trash, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Opiate, Beatnik Cowboy and Burning House Press. She is the author of “Death Sisters,” her first novel published by Alien Buddha Press. Donna serves on the editorial team of Red Fez and New York Quarterly.

She can be found on Twitter at @DonnaDallas15

 

MID-DAY JUNE

The bay
sucks me in
with its chops and cuts
that foam over
its many mouths - many masters
I forget it all
mindless
on the edge of such an immense
water hole
wind travels
separates every strand of hair
whips me
with water and longing
try to scoop it
grasp it as it rushes to me
wave after wave
water runs through my fingers
trickles along my arms
dries against my skin
leaves me salted and grainy
every day the same ritual
at the rim
June through August
forget it all

DARK MATTER

Didn’t want this to start
this slow killing of our earth
although we’ve ruined it…us
beyond repair
with…and without
knowing

It oozes into
our atmosphere
all it took was more darkness
more bloodshed
love is so convenient
when it’s love
murder when it’s hate
yet they are one in the same
because when we achieve the one
we long so hot
for the other

Dark matter
creeps
into our universe
pollutes us into thinking
we are
nothing
or worse…
everything

Yet I would churn
again and again
if there was any way
to sustain
something
so mediocre
as
our human life

THIS MOMENT I RECALL THE SMOOTH, COLD STONE OF MY FATHER’S GRAVE

I wish I knew what lurked
within me
I have tried so hard to dig it out
like shirking a mussel from its shell
it’s too twisted in me—the thing that I am
whether it be monster or angel
it dwells
and flowers inside
like a fetus
but it never comes forward…
it lingers often behind the cold stone
of his grave
or wraps around me
in a gust of wind sweeping my hair
sometimes seeps in
through the dryness of my skin

Perhaps when I sleep
it ventures out with my breath
hovers above smiling
because it has taken me over completely
later enters back inside
and I awake as if nothing
yet know
this something (that is nothing)
is all I have

I go back to the cold stone
smooth as time unending
his tomb will be there
through my death
through layers of
countless deaths

Yet the stone
icy
with grey marble
his name engraved so deep
it’s blackened…the granite stone
I touch
year after year
to pull out
a small granule of sanity
this marvel of rock
brooding in front of me
where the end begins