Poetry

The Ghost of Downtown Northwest D.C.
By Kathryn Preston




She’s the ghost of downtown northwest D.C.

Gothic Shaman,

Madonna in blackface.

Dragging her death-drapes

outside society,

beyond reality.

She sings and shouts her free-street-speech,

invoking urban-tribal rhythms

at aware but wary passersby.

Averted eyes, leering gazes,

some ignoring, others scolding.

Tell me, who has lost their humanity?

Who is this spectral soul,

haunting the streets

of downtown northwest D.C

and me?



Dream Reality
By Kathryn Preston



I escape the hullaballoo one day

racing down the highway.

Fields of sunburnt daffodils seduce my senses.

I abandon the straight and narrow

knowing I’ll find

what I wasn’t looking for.


Relaxing into the afternoon

under a surly Oak,

whimsical winds caress my hair.

Hypnotized by moody clouds,

I think I see my mother’s face.

Spooked, I run.


Tearing swiftly through tangled branches,

lupine ears upturned,

ancestral whispers strike my drums

like ancient amulets,

crescendoing to chaotic climax.

Trance-like, I am transported

through the crack in the universe

to another point on the continuum.


I climb a spiral stair into the void,

toward the unknown.

Emerging,

I straddle the brink of two worlds.



The vista: endless, undulating:

like fragments of earthenware,

sculpted by hands of ancients,

strewn across time.


While red earth flows through fond fingers,

My soul’s laughter howls across a full moon.





Sleep’s Soliloquy
By Kathryn Preston





Pining for her piper,

who’s composing passion’s play.

She’s longing for his star-song

like a maiden in the hay.

The tune that leaves her swooning,

the tune of this crooning,

Appalachian balladeer.



In her loins she feels hunger and pain,

will the lightning ever pierce the rain?

With ruby red lips

and buoyant boudoir hips,

she hails the Lord of the dance.



Surrendering to sleep’s soliloquy,

her Lord appears quite mystically.

She dreams of love sublime,

of bodies and souls entwined.
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These she cannot tear from her mind.


From the Grail of communion they sip,

into the chalice of primordial passion they dip.

With soft undulations

and ancient syncopations,

our maiden and her Lord eclipse.