There is a belligerence within me
which seems beyond my control.
It squirms and writhes, and refutes
common sense, like a devil
let loose. It wants, crookedly,
to have what it wants, to have
it all. All desires, all cravings,
all of what it deems it needs. It haunts
my soul, promises, with fierce
facetiousness, anything, and worse,
if I will comply with its allure
to destroy myself, since
that is the nature of devils.

There is a defiance within me
which tells me I am more
than mortal flesh. It whispers
its wiles into my head, asking
if I am satisfied with death unlived,
because, there is life after life,
and it wants me to travel among
its peers. It wraps me in corners
of undertones, shuffles my reason
without rectitude, proclaims
the heights I aspire to as moot
in the force of cosmic aptitude.

There is an anger within me
that can’t stand imprisonment
of my soul on an obtusing world.
It swirls and snakes and agitates
any calm I obtain in diffusive
understanding of the hopeless
rearranging of my parts. It
smothers and smoothes my attitude
of survival. And, hollows tomorrow’s
acquittals of nonsensical riddles.
Where rhymes aren’t worth a dime.

There is a repugnance within me
which shows me there is no way
to proceed without bursting my seams.
It slithers from under my wings
while hatching hateful images of tarpit
apathy, hissing an ordure, which reeks,
of all things, of me… How can this be?
With latent, lateral questioning of harbored
ages of reap-ening – there is no raincoat
big enough to hide my darkest thoughts.

There is a dagger within me,
its lovely keenness fragments everyday
as night lights up my heart’s dismay,
since falling down now requires a sacrifice.
I must commence the rites of sight,
stagger with each stab’s delight, pondering
a nothingness while abilities to comprehend
humanity’s end slip past my guard.
Damn that guard! The wall is falling…

There is a propensity within me,
oh, so dear and tightly clasped with hooks
of mental steeliness, of earth-bound fear
eating me alive, I watch Sci-Fi. The
flagellation never stops, no clocks
have flogged another’s gift into such seas
of filthiness of self-examination
as to worth of ‘acrimony-high’.

There is a disgust within me,
laughing righteously, mirroring my mirror
of thoughtlessness, my wasted time,
and effortless non-giving of the core of
my being, because, I’m scared who I
might find there – duality will surely demand
to see the receipt of where I was bought.

There is a calmness within me
which squeaks with frightened memories, illusive,
in a TV tabloid sense, and rare. Silly
flatness stares into space, debating confusions of
who to place the bet on, oh, wait, that’s me
all the time, riding the contour of the circle.

There is a me within me,
and I cannot stand its knowledgeability,
its power to unnerve, to awaken
the trumpets of self-explanation,
to equalize the equation of the written word.

There is a terror within me,
the terror of being recognized, accessible,
never-alone-while-singular, wailing
and weeping songs of cremated homes.

There is a fever within me
which freezes my complicity into a ball of dust,
volumnized, and stuffed into my empty skin…

There is an infant within me
developing its Passport-picture personality.

There is a belligerence within me...

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 8/7/05