I will be an upbeat newborn child

Eeek Love: Poems by Mary Bast

My enthusiasm for the skewed, the vanguard, the eccentric – artists, scholars, craftsmen, visionaries, shriek blowers, and ordinary goddesses – originates from a youth juggling the demonstration of "good little girl."Behind the ponytails I was a voyeur of the sensational.This gathering of ballads is a side show of entertainers from the carnival of my creative energy, the decent young lady unmasked.

Here's an example:

Tinker Toys

I will be an upbeat newborn child

when we kick the bucket,

enchanted,

murmuring with splendid delight,

unmuzzled, free,

pleasured in our play.

I am your trampoline, your best.

When you turn out with me

the rings we circle make us

lightheaded with enchant -

your shrewdness lips,

our free diversions

help me with guiltlessness.

You wheedler, you seducer,

my heart skips, hypnotized,

stirred unreasonably so that

I, a gibbering nitwit,

am on the chain of your eyes

what's more, you should walk me, drooling,

praise me on the head,

disclosing me to outsiders.