4 poems
from A Sybil Society
Katherine is a 2020 winner of the Test Site Poetry Series Book Contest
Mistress of Honey
I do I do
live in
dream time
thoughts consumed
by the mystery
wherein the mute
can hear both
a distant noise
& a subsuming
declaration
or any emerging
note
an antibacterial
skin seal
from the mom canal
Did the pastors know
if they spent
any significant
mind sleeping
that the living
would convert
& don shirts
of a pleated & mtn’d
cognition
a habit as incongruous
as the pineal expulsion
when dreaming
a model
of the groin
in the dose
Did they plan
for the symbol
avatars to
discover
the keyhole
& stick fingers
in it
flicking
a switch
as we subsist
w/in the mini veils
We smushed
up on the access
holographic
of the idea itself
the battery in hand
gelid at first—
then a bee
shaking its pollen
leg pouch
after it
entered the center
gently inserting
nectar into
an office
like a word
makes mud
mutable
for the nest
by vibrating
Tripod Lockdown
Celibacy is my zone guys
fasting alone
via literate hoodlums
supported by loam sisterhood
scholars will wander
at the elevated vulva.
Bow to appalling instrument
or a plectrum
that makes speech
& applaud earth with gawkers
so I may be upright
on the hyped-up tripod
that emanates herb fumes
the pneuma tithing either
as gas or water.
Plutarch thought
emissions
weaken wordplay
but I am dancer sweet
& my sweat stature
blazes the turntable.
Watch my lips hit the pipe—
whoa it razzles my crotch
wherein cradled in the mtnscape
thesauri dot
future stairways.
Mycenae, Founded by Fungi
My throat sends an alert.
The mushroom picker has come.
Thirsty, he will make his pruning hook a divining rod
shaking it all the way to the citadel.
The site a sight.
A citation of the city’s ages & usages.
Beneath that, my subterranean spring adores a discovery
for it to flush & flow once more.
When Perseus confronts the mooing sisterhood, we hiss & moo.
A pentatonic scale, the lowing of the cattle our sound.
We call the moon down, relatedly Io.
This type of plucking will be conducive to his purse.
Depending on the substrate, the matter & habit
determine how much bloodletting will ensue.
The lions indicate a femaleness.
A foreign name refound the town:
Mystae, even. Mykes in Greek.
Mukānai, Mykenes, My keys.
Willingly I let go of my head.
I may never forgive the man
who faltered & fulfilled his oracle,
he who let the cap fall off his own head.
Visions of the city all around him.
His thirst a replacement for wonder.
Helmet Dressing Room
once the objects said
vote for the proper codes
my outer triangle
insisted on
advancing a shell
so yo
spiral yr own
axis from plane
to pupil
may-eye
follow you back
ditching crowns
but what about
yr pinecone
noose of
ripped diamonds
crip up dimension
to let it shine
let it shrine
this little tetrahedron
of mine
Katherine Factor is an editor and educator that has read poems at the Nevada Test Site. She earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa and has held writer-in-residence positions at Idyllwild Arts Academy and Interlochen Arts Academy. She is a recipient of grants from the Iowa Arts Council and the Arts Enterprise Laboratory for publishing young writers. Her poems and audio work exist online and in print at The Conversant, WFMU, Wave Composition, Quarterly West, Poets for Living Waters, DIAGRAM, the Colorado Review, and Coldfront’s Poets off Poetry. The author of Choose Your Own Adventure's Spies: Mata Hari, Spies: Harry Houdini, and Spies: Spy for Cleopatra, more about her can be found at katherinefactor.com.