Tinker Bell Gone Bad, by Brent Terry

Fairy Tale, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2018

Tinker Bell Gone Bad
 
God made me from Miley Cyrus’ rib, 
deemed me wee, winged…wicked.    Lush, 
my pixie-dust gets all the lost boys high.
They fly like puppies, a frisky litter 
of fits and starts. Pheromones waft down 
from their loosey-goosey formations, 
pollinate my woods with mortality and funk. 
I am pink, punk, pouting, naked 
as a wrecking ball, nary a fuck to give. 
But then Pete leaves and I descend 
into the real anguish of imaginary beings: 
Our Lady of the Butterflies, shepherdess 
of cherubim, my throne a toadstool, 
my ponytail flick the prick that once drew blood. 
I am tiny, but my heart, my heart is titanic,
a sunken ship. I breaststroke its broken 
chambers, drink deep of its seething, its bitter 
pirate wine. Fairylight, effervescent, 
my floodgates unhinged, I let fly with belch 
and giggle, a twisted husk of sob. 
So my yearning’s become my armor, it’s true,
but now who will protect the world from me? 
Wendy - the thief - is beyond my reach, 
my ken, so I murder Disney Princesses 
with a glance, feed them to the ticking 
that talks in my noggin, sing Crocodile Rock 
as I pick my teeth with their bones. Oh Petey, 
my pixie dust, it got you high and now 
you’re never coming down. But still I stare 
at the sky between my leaves, still I sing 
those old-timey lyrics, so maybe you will find 
me in your dreams: Second star to the right, 
my love, straight on ‘til morning.
 
Brent Terry

This duo in a larger collaboration between writer Brent Terry and artist Lorette C. Luzajic is a kind of reverse ekphrasis:  Lorette created the collage-painting to respond to the poem. It is from a larger series slowly underway of poems inspired by her mixed media paintings, and paintings inspired by Brent's poems.

Brent Terry’s poems, stories, plays, essays and reviews have appeared in dozens of magazines.  He is the author of the poetry collections yesnomaybe, Wicked, Excellently, and the recently released Troubadour Logic,as well as a novel, The Body Electric.  Among the honours he has garnered are a fellowship from the Connecticut Arts and Tourism Board and the 2017 Connecticut Poetry Prize, as well as nominations for Best of the Net and Bettering American Poetry.  Terry has worked with writers of all ages and abilities, and currently teaches creative writing and literature at Eastern Connecticut State University.  He lives in and runs the trails around Willimantic, CT.

Lorette C. Luzajic is an award-winning artist whose collage paintings have been collected in over 25 countries. She is also the author of Pretty Time Machine: ekphrastic prose poems, and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.