Guest Feature~Body’s Raw Wound~Lance Sheridan

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bodys-raw-wound

The dark moon shadow stalks me down,
Its dust bags of light scar me;
In a touch, flesh, bone, blood quickens,
I pick off the worms, drunk from a lick.
I walk the night, haggard through the
White street lamps, singeing filaments
Cataract my eyes. Obscure vision

Corkscrewing down storm drains. And the
Shadow, like a black wolf, each paw on
Me a brier; my doom consummates a bodily need;
It snares me, hungry, hungry. It eats
To satisfy a need, I am gutted to an undertaker.
Blood floods to a spot, purple; the rest of me
Is whitewash board, stiff as I crawl down a sidewalk.

Its tread is a weighted enemy, my heart shuts,
It peels me like linen; its breath anesthetizes and shoves
Me into a bad dream. It feels like hell;
Charred and ravened in snarled thickets of ash.
I disappoint them, I pray for a heaven,
To a god. This earth I rise from, let my soul writhe in like dew.
I am stepping from this skin, featureless into eternity.

Copyright © 08/14/18 lance sheridan®
You can read more of Lance’s work at, Lance Sheridan ~Plaited Poems~

22 thoughts on “Guest Feature~Body’s Raw Wound~Lance Sheridan”

  6. Pingback: Guest Feature… « Lance Sheridan

  7. The vocalizations of werewolves in the typical tale are typically limited to violent snarls, threatening growls, and long sad soulful howling. Lance Sheridan has presented us with the beautiful and wrenchingly painful translation of those utterances from which we could only heretofore only vaguely divine the heart and mind of the werewolf. The careful precision and soul of his art is revealed in the manner in which this translation only heightens the visceral burning terror of these transformations despite being outlined in three stanzas of perfectly metered septets. While the werewolf is often an engaging literary archetype, we are rarely if ever presented with the universal implication of the werewolf from the perspective of creature, rather, such commentary is usually left to some outside shaman or elder who interprets the signs of coming doom to the bitten changeling-to-be. But Lance has spiked the vivid pain and alienation of having become the unwanted beast straight to our own wild hearts. We see not so much the death of the self, but rather its total subjugation to the emptiness from which we once had the hubris to emerge. We cannot avoid the uncomfortable realization that we share the common bond of the predator in order to make our way in the universe, this need to consume is inescapable and cannot be forever hidden under a smooth pink skin in these lines where we are told that the…
    “Shadow, like a black wolf, each paw on
    Me a brier; my doom consummates a bodily need;
    It snares me, hungry, hungry. It eats
    To satisfy a need”
    …while also realizing that the energy which drives us to hunt and feed on the earth, the air, the flesh of other beings is but a part of the cyclical rearrangement of energy and matter in a dark universe, and entropy itself stalks us…
    “Its tread is a weighted enemy, my heart shuts/It peels me like linen”
    …even as we become more aware our place in relation to its cold directionality – the bad dream of consciousness at this point feels like hell, and it is here that the wolf seeks for a power, a cohesion, a meaning, a god that can deliver – in the end to be dissipated and turned from raging fury into mere drops of dew and unbound featureless eternity.
    We all feel this beast upon us, mortality stalks us, while we rage against the change and loss of body and autonomy. We are robbed of our reason, and often will lash out while grief at our demise and strange new status silences or in worst cases destroys those we love. As I look out tonight at a round August moon, I ponder the beautiful but tnder gift that Sheridan has given me tonight. I can live now as I feel its light upon me, and howl a little at the change I know is coming, and hug my pups a little closer, and maybe enjoy the moment with them with a little more actively, secure in the knowledge that this moment is chased by the person I will become in the next moment and the memory of this sweet time will soon lie among the silent dew reflecting rather than gazing back at the moon. Perhaps I can choose to live, secure in the knowledge that each of us will someday shed our skin. Thank you Lance. Lona.

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  8. Welcome to MP, Lance.

    That’s quite an entrance you made with this piece. I love the aching tone, the structured rhythm that harnesses the reader so we must walk with you, feel the pull of need along side you. The shame of compulsion keeps this piece grounded so we feel its burn: it may brand a different name into each of us but none are without.
    My favourite line for all its power and simplicity:
    “It snares me, hungry, hungry. It eats”

    I hope we see more of you soon, Lance.

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