“With Only the Reflection of Moonlight in Your Smile” © Bill Wolak

 

Shadow World
After Tori Amos’ “Girl”

From the shadow world
She crawls out
Clutching her heart
With a message for you

She’s not your girl anymore
She’s not for you to own
She’s not your girl anymore
She is her own girl

Bloodied at the knees
The blood redder
Than fallen cherries
From cherry trees

In her heart winter thaws
She’s found her way
Out of the shadow world
She is her own girl

No longer strapped up
In the winter chair
This is the one day
She’s found her own way

Fold up the white coats
Close up the drugstore
Outside of the shadow world
She is her own girl

 

Guns For Christmas
After Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes

Aftershocks
tossed the yellow bird
from its nest.
Its fragile wings kept
it soaring
as the next
aftershock
took down its nest.

At the shooting party
the hunters
tried out
their Christmas gifts.
They took aim at black winged
birds as they
soared through
the sky for their last flight.

Life is pain.
Each aftershock
is a reminder
of the big one.

The poor birds
hate being shot
down by the deadly
Christmas gun.

 

Born in Mexico, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. His poems, artwork, and drawings have appeared online and in print journals over the years.

Bill Wolak is a poet, collage artist, and photographer who has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared recently in the 2020 International Festival of Erotic Arts (Chile), the 2020 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, the 2020 Dirty Show in Detroit, the 2021 Rochester Erotic Arts Festival, the 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival, and Naked in New Hope 2018. He was a featured artist in Best of Erotic Art (London, 2022).