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Womannotated – And Thou Shalt Judge The Expiring Soccer Mom

January 30th, 2021

And Thou Shalt Judge The Expiring Soccer Mom

after Servant, Season Two, Episode Three, Pizza

Surveil from silk sheets your mortal estate.
On suburban streets, death, afterlife vie
behind grandiose gates. Above play dates,
teammates, cheese pizza parties, skeletonize 
with the greatest of ease.  Caretakers doze
in proximate chairs.  Delicate wraith
tiptoes upstairs in prim servant’s clothes 
with bowls of puréed sustenance.  Your faith 
remakes a cadaverous countenance,
nasal cannula dispensable soon. 
Expiring soccer mom circumstances 
avoidable if you only commune 
with a macilent maiden magistrate.
Worthiness for rebirth, she calculates.

Continue reading “Womannotated – And Thou Shalt Judge The Expiring Soccer Mom” →
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Womannotated – Big Teeth

January 17th, 2021

Big Teeth 

Deep in the forest in a flannel nightdress,
a little girl lingers without much on 
her chest, shame in her heart, much to confess.
Here she is safe, completely at rest.  Gone 
the behemoths of yesteryear.  Her cheek 
on chenille, her brain bereft of all fear 
inside this night sans starlight except a meek
constellation of which faithfully appears
from a bedside nightlight replacing a moon
which made her weep more nights than swoon.  Tonight
she looks no father than this light of her room
which is not a metaphor — means to write.
No beseeching big teeth inside these woods — 
it ends with her pen like make believe should. 

Continue reading “Womannotated – Big Teeth” →
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Womannotated – Pretty Maids All In A Row

Pretty Maids All In A Row

after Servant

Rambles past ringlets, ruffles, rouge to you, 
end of the queue, interviewed for the show,
television lady forgets your debut —
segment you are someone she chose to know.

Her fascinations are fleeting and slight,
provincially dressed princess one night.  Lives
she catalogues on oak shelves in plain sight. 
Decades of ingenues in her archives,

Continue reading “Womannotated – Pretty Maids All In A Row” →
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Womannotated – Atheist Barbie

December 19th, 2020

Atheist Barbie 

is unavailable in stores. Believes 
in Christmas trees, Taylor Swift Evermore
with little distinction between the motifs — 
cute aesthetics without fealty sworn. 
Like dollhouses dissected their families, some 
pink plastic posed preternaturally 
replacing puritans overcome 
with prayers, prurience, pageantry,
incest upstairs. A ripped Sunday school dress,
nothing beneath, long hair dyed forever noir,
fresh balsam wreath. Believer in kindness 
and twinkling lights, blessings in boudoirs,
tempestuous nights. deprived of her breath.
Nothing is deeper than sex, not even death. 

Continue reading “Womannotated – Atheist Barbie” →
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Womannotated – Oh The Places You Will Work Bitch And Not Be Free

Oh The Places You’ll Work Bitch

And Not Be Free

for Britney

For Disney, Pepsi, Bela Karolyi

(who USA gymnastics cut ties with

in pedophile controversy at the

remote training space, national forest

woods), Star Search, Broadway, Rolling Stone

(at seventeen in push-up bra, baby

blue velveteen rabbit inside her own

small town bedroom.), the 24, maybe

more, varietals of perfume; Sbarro,

Nabisco, HBO (Emmy wins for

concert docu shows), and their fathers, though,

even if estranged, legalities restore

a golden gosling to its violent cage

without telephone, medicated rage.

Continue reading “Womannotated – Oh The Places You Will Work Bitch And Not Be Free” →
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Womannotated – Hirsute

December 6th, 2020

Hirsute 

In middle school, bullied for body hair. 
Matched hair, eyes, contrasted fair skin, a shroud
I wear everywhere. Was so scared
to shave above the knee. Was told no one 
should look there anyway.  Was whispered of 
so many days in locker rooms by some 
with blonde peach fuzz which was what love
looked like, at this time, to me, Florida 
yellow/tan uniformity.  Was called 
a fiend, witch from another place, not of
the beach I breach, a plaited pouting pall 
their boyfriends chased, animal they want to taste,
shadow to hide inside this golden place.

Continue reading “Womannotated – Hirsute” →
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Womannotated – The Dirty Truth About Butterflies

November 29th, 2020

The Dirty Truth About Butterflies

It’s easy for a religiously bred

(misled) girl to make an Eden of

a garden, angels of winged soon dead,

repopulating in three weeks. But love’s

amino acids butterflies won’t find

in agapanthus nectar, waterfalls —

Continue reading “Womannotated – The Dirty Truth About Butterflies” →
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Womannotated – Radiant Heat

November 21st, 2020

Radiant Heat 

This is the time of day sunbeams cross my 

mattress, imprison flesh atop its breadth. 

Each breath, bee balm, bids eyelash butterflies 

vibrate; no body lies in wait bereft 

its pleasures just because it is alone

but moans all illuminations shone through nude 

windows. Your radiant heat upon bones,

Continue reading “Womannotated – Radiant Heat” →
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Womannotated – Macabre Burlesque

November 14th, 2020

Macabre Burlesque 

I live in a genre the aged read.
Decrepit men tell their mendacities 
before a final tomcatnap beneath 
cracked granite mausoleum roof.  This squeezed 
social register, not quite weatherproof,
trickles on nipples; a drooping sundress
exposes flesh, rose, only ghosts reprove 
or molest, witness this macabre burlesque.

Continue reading “Womannotated – Macabre Burlesque” →
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Womannotated – Holding Pond

October 7, 2020

Holding Pond


Kristin Garth

Gills desiccating, you glide through his house,

hair towel dried, Oxford shirt, slouched, secured 

with belt made oversized dress — yours doused

in his tank, under duress. Damp, demure

while you saunter down bifurcated stairs,

some guests the servants were unaware, out

his front door then driveway, street. Unprepared —

Continue reading “Womannotated – Holding Pond” →
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Womannotated – Texting Shakespeare

November 1, 2020

Texting Shakespeare

On the side of a road atop a stump

you seem cinched in by sunshine while you are 

slumped over a cellphone screen, bare goosebumped 

décolleté.  You ignore the people, cars.

You have something to say.  Instrumental 

Continue reading “Womannotated – Texting Shakespeare” →
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Womannotated – Weeping Trees

September 19th, 2020:

Weeping Trees 

Follow creek through the weeping trees until 

it narrows and you cross with ease.  Keep mum

along the rivulet cascading still

through thicket of thorns  you will not succumb.

Continue reading “Womannotated – Weeping Trees” →
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Womannotated-Girlarium

Two Girlarium sonnets:

Continue reading “Womannotated-Girlarium” →

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Womannotated – Death In The Air

August 16th, 2020

(Content warning:  horror, death, suicide, some discussion of Midsommar with what could be considered general, mild spoilers)

Death In The Air

A scent in twilight past breaths of the beast 

who stalks the edges of forests on the 

phalanges of feet, quickening heartbeats 

of little lost girls, panting in pine trees 

near the end of the world.  Pale hirsute ear 

you peer where the needles are bare.  Eyes straight 

ahead, mutter pieces of prayers.  Fear 

Continue reading “Womannotated – Death In The Air” →

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Womannotated, Dirty Dancing Saves Your Life

Dirty Dancing Saves Your Life

 

When you are raised by fundamentalists,

at slumber parties you resist. Approved-

of-girl, goes to your church, sly fantasist

whom no one hurts, her mom insists

you stay the night — both look sufficiently up-

tight, lacy collars, skirts below the knee.

Continue reading “Womannotated, Dirty Dancing Saves Your Life” →

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Womannotated, Crow Carriage

 A Crow Carriage

Sonnet Double Feature:

 

Mistress of Malice 

Ten miles upon a tufted seat, elm trees

to village path, discreet, a beast will ride

to seaside town.  One hooded straggler by

him found, too young this hour to be outside

indecent bodice, brown eyes wide.  Fingers Continue reading “Womannotated, Crow Carriage” →

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Untouchable by Kristin Garth

Untouchable

Tiptoe in a dead man’s house, cobwebs snared
upon a ripped lace-trimmed blouse, you walk into Continue reading “Untouchable by Kristin Garth” →

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Womannotated – I Was Blythe

I Was Blythe

I would do anything to not be cute,

fifteen, though it’s, without dispute, what I am,

Blythe doll eyes, wide face, small limbs a brute

could hold in place with fingertips.  Brown eyes Continue reading “Womannotated – I Was Blythe” →

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The Believer by Kristin Garth

She sleepwalks in your washi house in crin-
oline, emaciated mouse weeks you
forget to feed, a nibbler, toenails, skin,
until feet bleed free, soil sheets, bamboo
floor, trafficked hardly anymore except
somnabulistic scarlet toes who
map labyrinths, shake off bedclothes, accept
razored teeth in pale furrows.  Ankle chewed
until, unconscious, she seeks the ground.  Bandage,
next time you come around — rose macaroons
gunpowder tea — into a paper cage
fantasy, unbolted door, girl you freed,
six months ago, believes enough to bleed.

 

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna, and more. She is the author of fourteen books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), the forthcoming Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press), The Meadow (APEP Publications) and Shut Your Eyes, Succubi (Maverick Duck). Follow her on Twitter @lolaandjolie and her website kristingarth.com

Covert art credit: Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash

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Womannotated – Calpurnia

Calpurnia

After Morticia Addams describing Wednesday’s
role model (“Wednesday’s great-aunt Calpurnia.
She was burned as a witch in 1706. They said she danced
naked in the town square and enslaved a minster ..
but don’t worry. We’ve told Wednesday: college first.”)

Young girls require a patron saint — aunt’s
abysmal ashes antiquate entwined,
Massachusetts grave, with God’s servant
whom she enslaved. Impious mind
in clerical cravat a town square dance
(performed in only raven plaits) bewitched Continue reading “Womannotated – Calpurnia” →

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