Cyberus & the Ramblings of a Mad Woman

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Isolation Desolation

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Cyberus the black dog, creeps in under Mary’s skin, licking his lips, penetrating her holes, gnawing away at her sinewy tendons and succulent bones.

He rapes her subconscious crawl space, probing his wet nose into her closet crotch, sniffing out the buried remains there like Cujo; gnarled lips, protruding tongue and crazed eye stare.

Mary pricks her ears, Cyberus howls at the April blood moon, his mourn calling her out from behind her silvery veil, behind her mindful interludes – moonbeams bleed crimson and red rivers pour from her nightmares blurring the edges of her days.

Cyberus spreads his malaise like a disease.

He infiltrates cavities and grey matter mimicking the ebb and flow of tides; dopamine highs and serotonin lows, squalls hovering on the horizon – the ramblings of a mad woman batting her eye lashes, baring her sharp teeth.

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Mary flatter’s her fans upright for .50c an hour to satisfy Cyberus’ insatiable appetite, gulping down terabytes like an insomniac slip streaming strip scenes and Mary rubs herself raw, learning how to love the hands that feed her.

The water slides off her duck downed back, down valleys and cracks her bareback fingertips squeezing every last drip from her drops.

Mary turns off the shower, wipes away the steam from the window and peers outside. Two stray dogs have escaped lockdown, causing havoc on the streets.

She would take them both in and give them a good feed, if she had a backyard big enough to bury bones.

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Tom stands outside on the pavement, peers up at the window, his threadbare trenchcoat just as superfluous as his empty pockets, except for the cornerstone content bulge. He watches Mary’s jailbird swagger dance and sway behind a steam curtain.

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Cyberus can feel her skin crawl, he allows himself to rise – settling in between her mind and the blurred edges of breasts, buttocks and inner thighs.

Infared penetrating his night vision.

© Copyright 2020, Poetry Out West, Jodine Derena Butler Files. All rights reserved

A Mummers Dance: Demeters Descent into Hades

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What will become of her?

The three Fates furiously pull Demeters hair / dragging resistance, weaving fistfuls of slate grey strands into knots through gnarled fingers. She struggles to break free.

Their mummers puppet, refusing to stay a decision, deciding that nothing can be done that hasn’t been done before.

Demeter in her craven mind, reluctantly resigns & begins her inevitable descent into death / succubus airs sliding down around those slippery steps like a mortal wound.

What terrible unknown awaits?

Letting go, becoming a ghoulish nightmare / a back-lashing monologue of regret that terrifies her waking hours leaving nothing else to be desired.

Oh the fury!

How ill-equipped her gaze, stripped bare of stippled ends & brushed strokes / all hope is lost, perished in the long-black-abyss of eternal sleep.

She remembers Persephone, in her full bodied beauty & wails at the indignity of brittle bones & a peeling river of flesh falling from her ancient body, with every maudlin step.

Demeter stumbles. Trips. Her fall from grace crash landing at her own feet / anything is better than another mask, in the pantomime of lifes abomination.

She finally meets Persephones gaze / a ravaged maniacal stare, steady amongst the carnage of after-birth strewn all about her.

There is no escape.

It’s here her malicious appendages thrash / manipulating moans & pathetic misery, chaos finally falling on deaf ears.

If the end must come, make it swift!

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A hard, fast jolt into the after-life, where the ambrosia of a ravaged soul is drained from existence / that rancid elixir of a life less loved, can finally be laid to rest

& lost for all eternity.
© Copyright 2018, Jodine Derena Butler & Poetry Out West. All Rights Reserved