Petra Vanfossen

Teeth, unnaturally shining in an amiable sickle. Shaking hands light one wick after another, #taper dripping beeswax in a rain of faint honey. You can’t force love to come back through the door, even with the old magic. Nostalgic scarf in hand and, even softer, the apology. #vss365

It’s easy to be #sanguine later, at the riverside, when the coffee has its hot milk fingers in your mouth. Watching the young lovers pass, the sweep of a leather jacket over his back, her hand curled like a bird nesting at the collar. ‘It didn’t work out because you would have hated it.’ #vss365

The body sings its summonings in hues of blue, electric greens and the blushing pump of veins. The spell of want is cast, and its giddy spirit flies to me, #esoteric is the holy quickening of flesh, alone with one another we are the magic and the witch’s fingertips. #vss365

The door creaks a sliver of darkness into the hall. And the child within pricks up its neglected ears, sees something, a waver, a flash of a long white dress. A finger pointing to the tree in the field. Logic laughs like a steel pan, #intuition gets to its feet. #vss365

You can, if you wish, rake over the old soils. Crops stunted, with deaf and weaselly ears. You can put the currants in your mouth bitter, bitter. Or, knowing the secret heart of the universe, you can go to the #moonglade, eat the silvered apples there. Become drunk on resurrection. #vss365

Four months on the heart is brittle still, paint peeling from the carmine sill, its wretched congregation of plants viridian once with daydreaming. Silence bangs from the walls. My phone, too, quiet as a young nun. Scrape my heart again, make of it a #palimpest, water the dry shoots anew. #vss365

The sheets were buttered with late September and no one needed her, feet warm like twin cats beneath them, hours of lazy solitude sent to #console her. When the sun finally dripped under the sea, she had eaten her fill. #vss365

RIP Wendell Berry. I've thought about this poem. 'Our Real Work', a lot since starting on Confluence with @julietgutch It reminds me of Paul Valéry : “Une difficulté est une lumière. Une difficulté insurmontable est un soleil." : “A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun”.

‘Two Birds.’ #Drawing by Maurits Cornelis Escher (1938) #art

She knows something, a secret handed down through a strong red line of broken hearts. That lipstick is #empathetic, Satin-voiced: ‘Oh, honey, I know…I know…’ He jokes, says: ‘I guess it’s called warpaint for a reason!’ Meanwhile, the temple doors gleam anew the colour of bursting figs. #vss365

What I wouldn't give to be somewhere it all still felt possible. When you, ice-blonde and stoic as rocks, still had years ahead of you. I wasn't loved by anyone then, but I had Time like toffee in my teeth. Like an irritant. Stuck to me.

#vss365 #wax #poetry #BookSky

Bank Holiday Monday: 🖼️ Catherine Nolin

There Are Mornings ~ Lisel Mueller

The curse was sealed, dipped in black #wax. Hair glued together inside, she pushed it into a forest of nails. ‘You’ll rue every tear that I’ve cried’ Beyond the world, a ripple formed, grinning, blood on its teeth. #vss365

‘Do you know what to do with this?’ His eyes were almost orange with contempt. The wooden handle like a brown bone in my hand. ‘I think so,’ I said, and sat astride the #broom. My feet left the floor.Through me, a thousand generations of women laughed with their teeth out. #vss365

I left the #glove in your office on purpose. Smelling of amber, of warm woods and train rides stood too close together. Of the seconds spent watching the underside of your jaw as the wind blew my hair out like a flag. I hope it strangles you without moving. #vss365

You can fight it, defend yourself before the black-hatted judge of 3am. But between you, me, and the sheets, the lies come apart, like meat cooked for so long, like the pink #tissue of carnations. #vss365

Turn me under the wheel too, the moving on of yellow fields. Unveil the mysteries in leaf rot. I want the cold in my bones.

Hello! What to know about me: I dont make enough art and I smoke too much and I'm trying to change both. And I always firmly believe that