Virginia Aronson – 2 poems

The Erotics of Violence

In her pink wool suit, carrying
a redolent lilac spray
he’s in an old brown corduroy
hair a shock of jet—

what she fears is what
she wants, thirsty for it
to drink the well dry
the grouse’s head bashed in
the dead rabbit in a stew
the moors harsh, bone cold
wind funneling around her heart.

Before the heath, they lay together
under sweet blossom cherry trees
on river banks in summer splash
making love in purpling meadows
drinking wine on red-plaid blankets
writing on rough-hewn tables
in a mystic conjunction—

she saving him from cruelty
he rescuing her from conformity

dark face to her pale smile
a prediction like the Tarot
her doom and his lovers
all hags and stone skulls
an electric trill in the blood
on milky green mornings
or while searching for owls
in the starless dark—

he full of ancient fury
on his panther prowl

and she with her nightmares
sinking again into blackness.

Ominous

Back to the dour, the fusty
the squalid flats of London
cold stingy light, huddled
near the best of the best
poets, publishers, Eliot
and the like closer to the bone
a baby on the way.

Overexposed like an x-ray
he panics
at sudden fame, literary
life, that small windowless cell
where invisible eyes watch, stalking
the stalker and he feels cut off
and alone
in the dangerous microclimate
of his own unsettled atmosphere.

She homebirths, breastfeeds, marvels
at the flour-dust face, blue eyes
sweet girl, a burden, another life
cursed with womanhood
she is distracted
by the mother she is
from the writer she wants to be
the continuous smoggy menace
unspooling in the helter-skelter
demands, duties, she’s cut off
and alone.She slips out to attend
the last day of the trial
for Lady Chatterley’s Lover
applauding the public victory
for literary freedom
dawn of the sexual revolution
not realizing where it will lead
them together

and alone.  

Virginia Aronson is the author of many published books, both nonfiction and fiction. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and in books from small poetry presses. Itako was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in 2020. In 2021, Shanti Arts Publishing will release Hikikomori. Originally from Boston, she currently resides in the lush and lurid tropics.