Grendels
Grendel I:
You eat words,
Snapping and crunching
Until only the letters are left,
Hanging from your chin like spittle,
Or a necklace of spikes and spines and spills
Threaded together to make my efforts look like laughter
On the empty page; a silent kind of laughter
Enjoyed only by you, my great enemy,
The one thing I can’t kill.
Spitting and hissing,
I back down.
Grendel II:
You eat words,
Snapping and crunching
Until only the letters are left,
Hanging from your chin like spittle,
Or a necklace of spikes and spines and spills
Threaded together to make my efforts look like laughter
On the empty page; a silent kind of laughter
Enjoyed only by you, my great enemy,
The one thing I must kill.
Shaking and shouting,
I close in.
- January 2013
January 16, 2013