Cressa Moore
Portfolio
Pollock’s Apprentices (After Warsan Shire)
Personal poem
In dedication —to all who gained entry.-A body, a background. Your canvaslays beneath youdodripdown,dip your brush —strokes: languid, livid.My white, wood easel easily upholdsYour unique rhythm;The primal patternof creation. Childish splatter. However,This piece will be a dichromaticSensation. A splash. A flash of contrast.Call it — an abstractionof lust. A postmodernist’s perspective.A limited-time installation.-Sadly, sometimes a body is a house,mine’s still my studio.
Nine to Five
Commissioned poem
Do it everydayuntil it’s done to death.The quotidienne,charm never ends.She to me is a squadron of lipsticks,Reserves in sterile bullets.The near-uniform boxes quiverBegging to remainUnused. Untouched.Maybe I’m a lipstick, in that way.I wonder what number is under my feet?My gloss— my shadeWill I shine, will the stain fade.I am lipstick in that way, a servile bullet.We stand, poised in the light,Bright shopping chamber,Irreplaceable once fired.
Signature Scent
Commissioned poem
Imagine me, my ennui,Sick of sneezing, sniffing,Spritzing, blitzing bottles,A sensory menagerie.-My friend’s favorite: FrenchScents lasts all night.Atomizer nozzle chants:Down-up-down-up.A quick release decants,And just as fast recants.Gag.Pray, this is the spray,To stick ‘n stay, all day,Base, middle, top — trinity.Head up, a misty speckGrazes down-neck,A mazing trace.Ornate orbs bottled byGraceful swan-slopes.Sweet down, dries upThe middling muskNotes conduct in triple time,A simple rhyme of sorts. SleeveThe slightest dot: Lily leavesBergamot loomsCrisp brusque velvetyVetiver fleetingly weaves,“Why not float forever, Bloom Breeze?”Just be twenty-two,Little-old me,Whilst enticed by the woven threads.Memories, they seam,Are stitched like old-factory Blue dreams.
Girls, girls, girls
Commissioned poem
Contort. Cherry knots.Searing shots,Syrupy. Girls, (bare)LY BBY, legal girls!Very hot!The lot retort:“We are not taught to be.”Pillars of sugarIn a snow of assault.
For Fall
Commissioned poem
Your nips gently beckonThe little love bites of winter.I almost forgot the world is cold, patiently,You remind me, "Once again,Summer’s fibs, those emerald promises made in sultry heat?Lay auburn and garnet. Citrine city streets."Layers of dormant comfort, soft foliageRemind me, while you peck politely,Then shamelessly crack my lips.
Black Beauty
Personal poem
Within the bluest eye of the beholder,How I wonder up, above a star so high,About an older twinkling, drinking gourdSkies over the marvelous, great grandgravel:Why is this soil bad for certain kinds of flowers?Having made sweet outta being brutalist built,Potted-snipped, replanted-plucked.Your type of pretty’ll be whacked— the sun-nectar center—sucked.‘So no more grow, y’know?’The ‘weeds:’ little brown fingers,Flower stems, darkDandelions splay splendacious ends.My Petal, thou wiltNever, ever bend.
Kiss of Life
Personal poem
I press myself to the warmth lingering in thewindows, the big ones,Kiss the end of day into me,I bet it was astoundingly pretty.And teardrops will coat the grass ofThe fertile morningsun.
Windward Word
Personal poem
How would the wind sound, if it didn’t have Things to run into? You know, people, places—Things.I believe, it would sound like breath,Tersely exhaled through pursed lips.Poised, pretty as a penny,Dime-sized whistlingWind would scream slammingInto adjectives. HowlingLowly, imperceptiblyFast, but oh, so tediously slow.How would it flow,If it could reverberate verbs verbosely?There once was a man that spokeof winds, of change.I don’t know what he meant.The wind hardly changes.It blows, it goesOn as it always does.
Microclimate
Personal poem
Among the trees,The threat of rainsprayReveals spring, the May Queen.Sun smatters, yellow glaze,A vague memory,An autumnal haze.When white clouds cast cover,Verdant, lush-grays.Occurring over andOver and over again.A happy interplay.All in an hour, all in a day.