Imogene

Her name was Imogene,

She was serene.

She danced a dance that caught men’s eyes

And held them locked to her like arms against her body.

She undulated up and down, smooth like water running along porcelain,

To music that jarred the ears and did nothing for her dance.

She was not gorgeous in a god-like way,

She was no angel,

Yet she held them rapt and wrapped,

Moving her hips and looking with eyes filled with the starlight of passion and truth.

She took men’s hearts into the palms of her reedy, thin hands,

And squeezed with her long nails until they, wet and deep red began to bleed,

The sticky, globule-thick rivulets running along her knuckles,

Between the chinks of her vice grip. 

She would smile a come hither smile, slightly up-turned at one corner slowly,

Like the pulling back of a white veil, and she would convulse her hand as shut

As her mind was to their love and lust.

She would discard it after, it bouncing across the floor like a tumbleweed

It’s staccato rattlesnake husky sound punctuating the silence like morbid maraccas.

This was the sum of her life, if life it may be called…

She did not dream of karma, but karma came for her.

For she was written down, she was a poem crafted by my hands,

Hands with thin hard fingers that tap harsh against keys which make words which make life,

All driven by a mind with justice and belief and conviction and meaning…

She not knowing or knowing she was mostly words I wrote to make her, maybe all,

And she not knowing or knowing that karma came for her but she could not believe it,

Could not or would not or should not she did not know or knew,

What was crafted from the words was all of her or some of her who knows for certain,

But still she danced and locked men’s eyes and clutched their hearts like a vice.

Her name was Imogene,

She was serene.

She coolly flirted with the sophisticates and wits and wises,

She never made compromises.

She believed she was heading down a track towards success and Hell,

And that was the best one as far as she could tell.

She ran her painted nail along the lapels of dinner jackets and tuxedos,

Let her lips settle against skin with a bit of moistness and a lot of hot breath,

She enjoyed herself.

And when she was bored or tired she’d pull away and pull off and slide her skirt up,

Slowly she would to feel it coming back against her bare skin,

And she’d walk away without words.

She did not believe that there was karma, she did not believe that there was love.

She rarely worked, she sucked money from men and others,

She made a fortune and ceased the swindle, thinking good of herself for the future

And ignoring the past by turning away from it when she danced.

She bought into fads and trends and fantasies and everything,

Bought with money but not with soul, she’d dress up for the functions and learn from books about it

But she did not believe in believing, she did not believe in meaning, she did not believe in love.

And sometimes in the night-time when the moonlight came through the window just right and cast bars

She saw it and was frightened by its power and by a something in her,

She was frightened of something that refused control, that would obey like a child

Because it had no form to wield a power but it had a mind which could imagine other things,

And inside there was a turmoil of an erratic beating heart and veins twisting up and shrivelling down.

She felt like she would have a heart attack.  But she lived.

She didn’t believe in death.

And knowing or not knowing that she was what I put into her at least in some,

Knowing or not knowing that I, with my power and my life made decisions over hers,

She danced.

And then in a minute I felt satisfied and pulled my fingers out and away,

I decided I was done with the words and being fascinated with her dancing,

Which I had made and made so that I would not care for it,

But I let her live on with each passing day doing the same thing and not believing.

And love never found her.  And she never believed.  And death never came.

But life was meaningless to her,

And one day, knowing or not knowing if she knew or did not know how to be,

Knew that she faked the spark in her eyes which others saw but she could not feel,

I was kind and let her see that these last things, not believing or loving or finding meaning,

That existing without death and without these things,

Was karma coming for her by name.