These are a series of poems written for a class I took as credit towards my creative writing certificate. They have been through series of rewrites and modifications, including a workshopping process

1. This Smiling Figure With Molted Skin
His long-cherished wish
Fell among the thorns
But lived among the tombs,
Unseen graves over which
People unknowingly walk
Whose tread left not a trace.
Wandering through the corridors
The bewitching serpent conceals
A dangerous love.
Waiting for an opportunity
To take a child
Of cursed flesh.
A beam of light will burst into bloom
Incomplete and hazy revolutionary…
Incendiary… an explosion!
Plagued by a new curse
Orochimaru became too devoted
To his desires.
His love for her never waned
Etched into the hard rock
An impenetrable wall.
Snakes slither out from Orochimaru’s mouth:
The white flower blossoms captive to an
Illusion hidden within a paper blizzard.
Haruka fell pretty to
An eternal hell created by
A mysterious aura strung on a thin wire.
If only the black circle might
See the light of
What we cannot speak.
Jiraiya casts his pure-hearted wish,
“Light in you not become darkness”
Her splendors shine
Rushing into life out of
Unknown antiquity in whatever form,
Quite perfect purity and imperishableness of the product.
Orochimaru shows his true form and attacks yet
Jiraiya refuses to give up despite

2. A chipped bone and physical coercion.
“Dead at my feet” his words always
Reverberate in the hearts of more
Or less fragmented criminal tendencies.
Love of the hero holing up this castle in
The sand sees beyond the borders of
Night and her stars under
The bending dome of day.
Haruka flushed and took a deep breath as Jiraiya sighs
Parliaments of love.

3. Kelly Burke
One-hundred seventy-four years gone,
One survivor left to weather time.
One crimson gown, lined with unraveling black lace,
One nose completely eroded,
One hone in the spongy chest, erupting with decayed filler.
Two dead eyes encircled by jaggedly uneven inky lashes: one
Stuck staring right, the other
One drooping down the face, hanging by a single thread.
Two apple cheeks: one
Retaining the rosy glow of its heyday while the other
One so broken that the hollowness of the cavity is exposed.
Two miniscule porcelain hands: three
Fingers missing in total while
Seven fingers remain intact.
Two brittle, cracking legs: one
Lacking a portion of the calf beside
One shattered at the ankle.
Ten auburn ringlets scattered in a matted fiery frenzy,
Thirteen places that stitches haphazardly bind together: three
On each limp arm,
Three on each fraying leg, and
One around the base of the grey rotting neck.
One pale mouth professing:
Zero truths
Zero lies
Infinities of silence, ringing in the back of your head.
Unexpected Discovery
Past the wooden plank bridge that bends at ninety-degree angles and
At the end of the abrupt stone path crouched a young man,
Observing something we could not see.
“What’s there? Is it a rabbit?” asks mother,
To which he calmly replies, “Snakes.”
The tender young babies crawled forth from the verdant bushes,
Their eyes wide and their mouths forming a perpetual smile.
They brazenly slunk by the man’s feet and rushed
Forward, to greet me and make their presence known.
Small and fearless, they slither by me without a hint of timidity or malice.
Why should such creatures go about so complacently
And not snap at the ankles of those who intrude upon their grounds?

4. Endings
A child of fragile disposition cries
Concealed amongst the reeds and high cattails.
The others in the frolic laugh aloud.
The number three unendingly ruptures,
Becoming clusters in uneven pods,
The group of two against the single one,
Alone, the friendless single fades away.
A game of hide and seek just ended now.
An innocence haphazardly combusts
As rays of light from behind the hills decline.
Just like all games are bound to terminate,
There is no life after childhood ends.
{Please Dispose Of} The Springtime Peaches
John,
I’m dreadfully sorry to say
That the plump springtime peaches have now expired.
They
Lie decomposing in their crates
Like corpses decaying within wooden caskets, flesh bruised
And
Soggy, patches of hairy skin
Clinging by nothing but a flap. It would
Be
Best to throw them out
But I’m sure that if you cut them
Open
They will still ooze red
As the blade moves ever closer to the
Central
Stone, unmoving and cold as
A heart postmortem, no longer beating in repose.

5. The Winding Drop Off
We walk side by side along this bike trail, speaking
but my mind drifts off as I take in my surroundings.
The black path of asphalt winds through half-dead
woods, the lower foliage bursting with life while the higher parts
of the trees are still bare, skeletal fingers that claw at the sky.
To either side of the path lie precipitous
drop-offs
that are crowded with crooked and snarled branches, bent at
odd angles like
snapped necks
after the noose has been removed
from around
the body of the hangman.
I walk closer to the center for fear of
F
A
L
L
I
N
G.
As we progress, I see a peculiar plant, a weed perhaps,
Comprised of rounded jade leaves with two red fronds lying in their center, like a bleeding heart,
A flash against the green, brown and black backdrop.
I search, in vain, for yarrow or thistle, for there is none to be found.
When we reached the end, I wished to continue on to the cemetery, but mother says
that it
is too far away
from where we stand
so I hesitantly agree
to turn around, heading
home to keep company
elsewhere.
Back the same way we came, no surprises in store,
And although there is so much vital energy here, I cannot help but
Find each and every thing that hints at…

6. El Palacio del Científico
The towering white-washed arches and corridors are imposing
Until something more potent hits you:
It clouds the atmosphere like intravenous blood clots,
Nearly visible, shades of intoxicating purple, green and pink
Creeping into your lungs, drowning you from the inside.
At first it is sweet, like a fruit medley,
Mangoes, strawberries, papaya, oranges, and coconut
(“Mangifera indica, Fragaria ananassa, Carica papaya, Citrus sinensis, y Cocos
nucifera, yo creo…”)
With hints of floral undertones,
Honeysuckle, white lily, roses, violets and gardenias
(“Lonicera, Lilium, Rosa, Viola y Gardenia jasminoides. ¡Qué encantadora!”)
And things far more synthetic, such as
Perfume, cosmetics, toothpaste, scented lotions and wall plug-ins resembling ornaments
That the vain scientist himself insists we keep around
(“¡Belleza es de la esencia!”).
If only artificiality was solely saccharine, because
The stench is far stronger, consisting of
Machine oil, solder, formaldehyde, boiling rubber, heated electrical wiring,
The decaying epidermis of expired test subjects that were denied preservative fluids and
Held unworthy of alphabetically arranged specimen jars,
Perspiration and tears of the underlings I never bother with,
Rusted scalpels that nobody cleans, chemical burn and insecticides.
(¡Por el bien de ciencia, hahaha!)
But when it has progressed past the initial shock,
You are left with nothing but the
Hanging emptiness of sterility, much like a hospital,
A dentist’s office, or a morgue,
Cold, white, stainless steel, latex gloves, cloth face masks,
A gamut of disinfecting cleansers and sprays, and starched lab coats,
A nothingness that somehow manifests itself as something tangible to the olfactory.
Ésa es vida.
(Hablas tonterías, mi querida psicópata!)

7. Combatant Symphony (In the Barracks)
I sit here in rapt attention like a conductor before a philharmonic.
Section One: Doors here always swoosh open, groaning through their tracks
As the bamboo floorboards squeak underfoot, pressured by the weight of
The combatant men, who bark insults at each other,
(“You weakling! Is that all you’ve got?!”
“You’ll never be able to beat me with those techniques!”)
Or sometimes just cry out unintelligible expressions, enraptured in the ferocity of the duel,
More beast than man, shrieking sounds with no name other than
“Hyaaahhh!” or “Yaaarggg!” or even “Raaahhh!”
Like snarling wolves or a roaring bears.
Section Two: The metallic clashing and clanging of the katanas as their blades collide,
Screeching and grinding, sparks sizzle from the impact,
While others prefer the less lethal bokken,
Which clank and knock when forcefully crossed,
Their wooden shafts much less dramatic, but no less painful, if used correctly.
Section Three: I hear a muffled thud and a wretched hack as a man goes down,
His bones creaking and his tendons snapping like taught rubber bands,
Clutching his abdominals as if he’s about to tear in half like a sheet of paper.
One idiot down for the count as the melody builds.
Section Four: The paper screen slides to the side with a whoosh, like a kite caught in a draft,
And footsteps, heavy with authority and ability,
Enter from behind as the jingle of eleven golden bells
Ring over the other sounds of the ensemble.
He asks with that familiar laugh (“heh”) in his voice,
“So, what’s for lunch today?”
The room is so suddenly silenced that the dead could be heard turning in their graves
Before the final crescendo in this gruff cacophony is played:
My straw sandal, worn down by years of use,
Smacking the side of his face like a clap of wild thunder.
.

8. Santa Teresa
Bulging eyes raised toward
the sky, the heavens,
with arms stretched overhead,
posed to beg for divine intercession,
lean from want, and
curved like scythes.
Emerald hood lying draped across
the back,
rounded wings displayed for show,
crimson and gold flecked with ebony adornments
surround an all-seeing eye.
Verdant armor gleaming under the burning star,
and antennae sprouting from the heart-shaped head,
inverted, outward-turning crescents hovering,
two radar, or fractured haloes,
orbit a face enraptured by fervor
as she clutches the severed head
of her closest confidant,
her mate.