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Artwork: The Queen of Cups by Will Jacques

Babicka
Jessica Amanda Salmonson

"Dance, laugh, make happy,
that was Babicka."
– Karel Gott

"Sweet little Anne
Hid under a pan
Weaving black lace
Swift as she can."
– traditional

I.

White-haired Babicka
Such cookies could she bake
But stole horses to trade
For black opium cake.

She makes her own cigarettes
With herbs found near the lake:
Henbane, angelica,
belladonna, mandrake.

Her hair is like a smokey cloud
Her face a new-ploughed field
Her distant smiling eyes convey
Distractions unconcealed and
Abstractions half revealed.

II.

Slunecko sedmitecné
Fly away home!
Your daughters found
Babicka's stash
They've all gotten stoned.

Not a single one of them
Is apt to survive
Not even little Annie
Will be left alive.

Knocked over candlesticks
Set their skirts ablaze
Babicka merely watches
From within her muzzy haze.

**************************************************************************

The Descent
Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Let go of the rope!
Fly! Fly! Down! Down
Even pleasing things
only make me sad.
Isn't there a ladder
up there in the clouds
that you could send down
so I can climb out of the dark?
Will crawling about the edges
of the bottom of this well
ever uncover some secret egress?

Charlotte asked,
"What is it that moves behind
the flowers on the wall?"
Virginia replied,
"Lappin and Lapinova;
They've devoured one another's eyes;
they lay beside me weeping
as I pet their blood-matted fur."

All my fingertips
have little screaming mouths.

**************************************************************************

Dutch Tango
Jessica Amanda Salmonson

In the carnival's hall of mirrors
I sought reflections of myself
Sometimes I've been who I am
Elsetimes I've been someone else.

Who am I? Besides you that is
Who are you? If not me
I'm through pretending this is normal
Nothing of this should be.

We do the Fandango,
Tarentella, and the Tango
While the tenor sings and chants
To our Apache Dance:

Joyful birds of bedlam hurt
The doomful dogs of Nigh
Take me to the chieftain's yurt
Or leave me in the sky.

The arcade underneath the stars
Sells post cards for a dime.
We fall, to stench of stale cigars,
Eternal victims of the crime.