Anna Cates


Enlightenment

My father was the second youngest of twelve children. That being the case, I always had more cousins and second cousins than I could keep track of.

On one occasion, my four-year-old cousin, “Bernie” (not his real name), was whining to his father. My uncle, busy in his apple orchard, with no time for any of his many children, turned sharply to answer his pleas. “Meditate!” he bellowed, then hastened on through the trees to resume bucolic duties.

A young child myself, I considered the remonstration inappropriate for little Bernie. But not daunted at all by the rebuke, my cousin tottered along after his father, as if meditation seemed a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Already, he was poised to become the perfect yogi!

peepers . . . the vivid colors of dreams



NPD

Narcissus worshipped it, his own reflection in the stream. But oh, the pain those ripples wrought!

One cannot truly own oneself. To want is not to have, neither is to see—the world dangling on a string. We try to master it. We reach and reach, yet it is always just out of grasp!

human
shadows
shifting
skyscrapers
personality
disorder



Cacophony of Sorrow

Vampires chase the darkness down labyrinth corridors. Ghosts utter reckless oaths in empty rooms. Knights in tin foil armor battle zombies while indigents bleed and bleat but are more blessed. What should we make of this mess?

Some consult cultists in turbans pink as plastic flamingos, set to sail paper lanterns, or light wish balloons. Eyes redden over crystal balls.

Don’t wreck your fingers with worry beads as if all of that were strummed harmony. Crows and sparrows alike take flight in fright. We can only wonder to where they fly.

sky a dark bruise
still warming in the egg . . .
some monstrosity




Anna Cates resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her cats, Freddie and Fifi. She teaches college writing and literature and graduate education as an online instructor. She is author of the following collections: The Meaning of Life and The Frog King (Cyberwit Press), The Darkroom (Prolific Press), The Golem & the Nazi (Red Moon Press), The Journey (Resource Publications), Love in the Time of Covid (Wipf & Stock), and The Poison Tree: A Peace Play (Wipf & Stock).

 
 

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