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Writer's pictureWilliam (Bill) Cushing

LA ROSA Y EL DRAGON (after Pan’s Labyrinth)


Terror rarely comes in thunder,

preferring a sinister waltz

of seduction, the single notes

of a piano, Bartok-like,

accompany the spiral stairs

winding down into the maze, echoed

 

by hammer-struck wire blossoming

out into chorus. Then, a voice

like violin strings descends in pitch,

looping in carefully placed steps

of a few seemingly random notes,

walking up scales and back.

 

This dance of tympani and plants

follows the labyrinth as wind

hums ethereal as an oboe

exhaling. A deep drop in tone,

a bassoon, then, metallic bones

clash in clanging vibrations

 

while strokes of plucked harp strings,

the heartbeat, first, steady, then slowing

to a perfect if ignoble end.

Ofelia, hearing the lullaby,

rests to find the peace of mind

found in the art of dying.

 

©Bill Cushing


BIO:

Named the “blue collar poet” by classmates at the University of Central Florida, Bill Cushing’s work has appeared in anthologies, literary journals, magazines, and newspapers. He facilitates a writing workshop for 9 Bridges Writers Community. Bill has four previous poetry collections: A Former Life, (Kops-Fetherling International Book Award), Music Speaks (2019 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Award; 2021 New York City Book Award), “. . .this just in. . .”, and Just a Little Cage of Bone, his most recent from Southern Arizona Press. He currently has two new titles available: Time Well Spent, a collection of personal creative non-fiction stories, and Heroic Brothers of the Civil War, an award-winning chapbook of historical prose focused on two of his relatives.

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