Paperweight Poetry

You can't say there isn't beauty in broken things Until after you have seen crushed shells mollified to sand Until after you've seen tears splatter in sweet pangs And felt the separating space between the fingers on a hand For mosaics are made of fractured glass And a sky split open by the branches of a tree Just as the earth cracks into blades of grass  Are just a few of the things you can see That are as beautiful as the things that are whole  So don't tell me that beauty in broken things isn't true Because then there wouldn't be you.  -anna sluder

The Wild drags me by locks of hair, tresses and scalp oozing  Scoffing me from my corner he seizes me out out out  Out of my chest out of the warmth and into the icy white light Like a turbulent current of wind and sun  Pulsing against each other, warmth fighting frigidity  Fingertips dug into the ridged wallpaper of my throat  The Wild convulses me over and over until I am quaking and ticking  Like a broken clock throbbing irregularly out of time On the floor  The gong surging back and forth clacking noisily  Even those it is not the end of the hour  Even those his hands are already gone But the Wild is a ghost, the swelling opaque breath against the night  The night not just as a time but an absence of light a place and a feeling Drawing me not so kindly out  Out of myself until I am howling From the Wild inside.  -anna sluder

They tell us to duck and cover our heads As we hear tree branches swatting against the sky Brace yourself they tell us, as we hear the sky quiver its trembling lip Yet lightning and fire never arrive  Just an estranged rumble of thunder humming between our bodies The rattling of bones.  -anna sluder