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Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Bloody Jasmines
by Sheikha A.

The moon swims in Neptune;
she oversees the scorpion,

clad in blue fur. Blood spurts
from throats of those she sews;

she turns silver under the touch
of moonlight – glorious, ravishing,

enthralling – she decimates
as men avoid her gaze – Medusa

on wild ocean waves. She is statue
of Midas, potent and irresistible,

sinister like Poseidon’s stealthy foot
steps on water; like a lurking spirit

in corners of a room. She guards
mirrors and reflections of souls

she has eaten; time has vanished
on her scales, growing longer than grief –

void essence – shedding days
behind her. Her mirror creaks

a beckoning she has heard before;
the moon curdles scarlet-froth; souls

upon souls trapped like tree roots;
she slithers, her venom shimmering

and fragrant. His whisper is familiar
calling her name, urging like waves

surrendering to silken shores; she looks
into her mirror, his smile like the trance

she would cast; and his eyes sapphire
onyx – silent blue flames – consuming,

unforgiving,
as she turns to stone.

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!