Linda M. Crate | Randomly Accessed Poetics

in love with egypt

when everyone fawned over the tropics

i was the girl that fell in love

with egypt,

and i wanted to know all her secrets

to see into the heart of pyramids;

and to discern the wisdom

of dead and ancient pharaohs—

cleopatra stole my heart when i was twelve,

and she and her country have never

given it back;

i want to see the nile but i can go without

seeing it’s crocodiles,

and i want to see the pyramids

ditch the tour guide and find out secrets that no one

was able to decipher in the past because

mystery intrigues me—

want to dig out the heart of egypt and see what it

means,

to see with pyramid eyes

dance with pyramid legs and feel the rays of ra

against my face.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015.

Copyright © 2016 by Linda M. Crate

i want to break you

i want to break you into all the hearts

you shattered, and slam your

spaceship into saturn

make you dizzy on her rings;

and then when you think it can’t get any worse

have jupiter’s eye swallow you whole—

you have little regard for anyone’s emotions

except your own,

and you utter lies of insincerity and play

mind games that are dizzying and cruel and so

i want to rid the world of your presence

no one deserves to be broken into all the stained

glass pieces that you shattered my heart

into—

you fancied yourself a wolf,

but wolves are loyal;

you’re just a dishonest fox that hasn’t grown into his

fur yet,

and i hope a hunter skins you for your hide

because as beautiful as it is your soul and heart are blacker

than obsidian or coal;

if you thought you were going to crash my ship

submerge my body until i drowned so you could steal my dreams

think again—

like a phoenix i rose from my ashes

maybe one day heaven will let me burn you.

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015.