The bodies have been thrown,
face down,
in the dusty, amber mud.
Their boneless chests
and pale, pearl bellies
hang
like dying vines
over silent hills–
with
arms outstretched
in praise of a master
both dead
and alive
in the heartless sky
“For Him” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: “The Hills” by Patty Maher
in the african twilight
an abyssinian nightjar
came to me
mournful
and
broken
for he could not speak–
he stepped into my palm
cautiously
so that I could hold
his silent will
against my own–
and we were two
voiceless creatures
alone
together
” I See Myself in Him” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
When I walk with my sister,
her brassy nose pokes
at the jumbles of space
between today
and yesterday
where growth begins.
Her steady eyes
lurk
Behind violet skin
and sunburned chins
to stop my spirit from
reaching too high.
She
is the ‘Never’
that slaughtered my ‘Perhaps’.
“Sisters” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: “Twisted Sister” by Brooke Weeber
http://society6.com/bweeber/Twisted-Sister-5HZ_Print
The Facing by Patty Maher
Arthropda by Nicholas Lockyer
And They Will Lean this Way Forever by Suzanne Koett
Double Take by Kieran Sperring
Beware of the Obvious by Michael Harford
Honey Art by Bryan Olsen
Normalization by Eugenia Loli
I feel the dull but insistent teeth of your dinner fork
tugging at moth holes
in my sun dress
asking for me to be more bare
for you
more raw
for you
and so I let them needle away
until the threads are unknotted
and the cloth falls to the floor, and
I am
all that you want me to be
“Your Toy” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: “Sleep When You Die” by Kieran Sperring
Folded up
in this wrath that
flows like
a river from my lonely gut,
is a purple wound–
unhealed–
that cries and cowers with your children,
pleading for the pain
to die.
“In Me” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork: “She” by Steven Quinn
You see
her apricot shoulders
dressed with auburn wisps
that —drift—- drift
like feathers into the clouds above.
Hovering over your
hungry stares,
delighted,
she parts her plum, puckered lips
to free a stirring sigh
that breaks your body
and blurs your mind.
She
is the most heavenly dessert
you will never
taste.
“The Voyeurs” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork by Alicia Ortiz
A necrotized
claw has sprouted from the
neck of my favorite lace gown.
At first, it was a pool
of strawberry syrup
as bright and red
as a freshly skinned knee–
And then,
under the hanging tangerine fog of a Sunday afternoon,
it melted upward
into a
nagging,
sickled flower
of bloodless quiet
anticipating its reflection
in me.
“The Grim” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse
Artwork by Sarah Cruce
The Show Tell Project 