Postmodern Grimoire

A poem by Danielle LaRose

Carlos cast spells with framing rather than pulpits.
What ends and masters do we serve here, singing as we go?
How do we proceed?
Do we flush out the sluggish innards with metaphor and allusions, wield couplets and thesis as scalpels,
after drugging with carefully dosed aesthetics?
Enough of romanticizing
the vulnerable yellowness of marrow
or the “bleach white” of skeletons that are bursting forth
from the proverbial closets – we’ve flaked the body to transparency,
what’s left is superfluous.
Ornament as sin, ornament as lure,
what do we get when
the form becomes the eyes?
Does the new vernacular
have room for pluralism in design?

—

Danielle LaRose lives in Latham, NY. She graduated from SUNY Albany with a Bachelor’s in English. She currently works as a receptionist and fledgling grant writer. Prior to this, she successfully completed the 2009 “NaNoWriMo” contest. Danielle strives to apply the “critique-al” perspective that she gained in her studies to her work. Her work has appeared in Vox Poetica.