INTO THE MYSTIC

Words betray us 
Crying sun June 
Days invent new misery 
Carelessly loving the lover 
As if they had bloomed inside you
Drunk and nauseous with that grief 
Which grows around you 
Planting its pit inside your skull 
Afraid of its own effervescence 
It made us bewilder 
It wasn’t normal 
Its factory
Was the thorn 
Oracle and demon that chokes on tiny violet clustered flower 
I am rampant in white lace 
And quite ferocious occasionally
Choosing fragrance over god 
While preferring the insufferable conclusion 
Of this space 
Given not to Adam 
But to eve and the devil and twin trees 
Which were all laid down upon in agony 
At the betrayal of reversal from sensual to intellect 
A dead end for sure 
The highway kind of love 
Always getting off at the next stop 
A new road to plunder 
There is no grace in this kingdom 
Blackness pools in violence beneath the oceans floor 
It’s forgiving you 
It’s resenting you
It’s becoming 

SERAPHIN

lilac is my color
the cardinal is back
I watch the dust burn 
as i heat my chamber
so grateful
so sorry 
to bore
Emily Dickinson
was buried 
with a fire red lady slipper
at her throat
and a powdered heliotrope
in her hand
I keep calling myself an angel 
it’s sort of been my thing
this winter’s blue door
keeps me at it’s helm 
golden sphinx 
the 12th house
i realized it’s not death 
but the unseen realms 
something about secrets 
& emotions 
& another bad dream 
about being healed on a ship
only to be ambushed 
poison ivy leather jacket
i was full of terror and relieved
just like the first hyacinth of spring 
have you ever
dragged a dagger
to the bark of a white pine? 
the red curtains fell
like pregnant snow
I was wishing for that
message from god
I bought a medallion 
and played the video
winked and kissed right back
through heaven & hell
one twin rises like a egret
the other is settled in a green mountain 
bountiful beneath the ocean 
covered in the most beautiful oakmoss 
sapphire hair & eyes
if i get to this place again 
let me off into the white 
dumb & abyss-like 

The Sunken Garden

Without sacred flowers
The dungeon
Is a heart
& all the the things we prophecy 
& carry through dreams
Ruby slippers now recklessly 
Running away 
And towards that deep void in your voice
The philosopher’s train ride
so slow and then my life was over
The dramatic love haunting these grounds
These houses giving blood, calling names,
The sunken garden
Shakespearean theater burned to the earth
Which I wander and tend to
A prisoner myself
A lifeless avian at my bare feet
The empty eyes of the brittle dead
While you sit for me, pose for a photograph 
Lush in the oak grove
Awakened by the kindness of longing
Forgetting, these characters we played
This corset I bound myself to its architecture 
Pink and shell like, still forging, still terrified,
Still beckoning platinum ghosts with the shift of my iris
They have kept me here
In your heart, I’d believe in heaven
Here in the sunken garden

Juliana Ward is a poet living in Northampton MA. She is the author of the chapbook Venus in November.