No Eskimo

First, warm with words
(not too many. discard old or extra.)
add 2 lips
to 2 lips.
put them in the steamer.

add a cup of kindness
and a tablespoon of cayenne pepper.
whisk in a whisper.

take a head of baggage,
then cut away most of it with a sharp knife.
add two cloves of Mata Hari
and a dash of Roller Derby Queen.
shake it.

mix one finely grated anticipation
with hey batter batter from the softball girls.
place over a low flame for 20 minutes or until her voice thickens.

fold in one set of clean sheets,
slowly increase heat.
Marlene Dietrich til it reaches an internal temperature of 160.
Bettie Page any excess.

finally, sprinkle devilish looks over the top,
add ground temper for seasoning.
sweeten with oh honey.
temple whore to taste.
no eskimo.

(serves two)
_______

for Izy's out of standard challenge at Real Toads. 

 

angel for brick birds

i'm an angel for brick birds,
and a healer for the crack-toothed cats who catch them.
i'm a tall-shelf girl with the boardinghouse reach,
fetching orphans each a blanket and an anthem.

i stitch long blue feathers for my brick birds' backs,
and dog star tails when they fan them.
my oven bakes the bricks til they're light as morning mist,
then the ashes circle sun and moon in tandem.

i'm a weekday angel
whistling for the wrong,
the bruised, the broken,
the disowned in the dawn;

i mix a sweet healing balm,
turn the jar into a song,
roll it out into the street
and then i'm gone.
________

written for Magpie Tales #196, and dedicated to Kelli and Joy, who both like it when I rhyme.
 

Spotter

I have written often about astronauts,
and yet,
there are very few of them in my neighborhood
and none
in my bed or at my breakfast table.

I wonder if the loneliness of the moon
stayed on them and around them
like a gray empty dust,
keeping them from kissing anyone?

I have often wondered, too,
at the way they only endure my tender attention to their visors
with my lavender-scented cloth
and my blush.

Here you are, made of stars, taking my breath away
with just the swirl and fact of you.
Knock knock--
it's me.
There were dogs sent up before me,
and you loved them;
why not love me now?
I have the same easy eyes
and goofy logic.

"She's a space case," they say about me.
"She's way out there!"
but I'm not,
I'm right here,
standing on the bright red X of my heart,
up on the tips of my toes, searching the skies,
trying to flag you down
win you
spin you
guide you in.
__________

The Girl With The Arrow Through Her Head

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry;
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy'

I am the girl with the arrow through her head;
people treat me like some sort of cartoon,
a joke,
they think it's a get-up.

I can't wear hats,
or walk down the street without my neighbors Bob and John
telling me I should have ducked
and then laughing like dickheads.

Dear Excedrin,
I write,
I love your product.
Thank you for making it.
They send me coupons, which pleases me,
and I use them immediately.

I was Custer's girl.
I was there when he died;
it was awful.
He was blond, and brave, and beautiful.
I tried to stop them from desecrating him, 
but the Indian women tossed me aside like a dandelion flower
and I had to walk home.

That was in 1876.
I was twenty.
I don't know why I don't die;
maybe the arrow changed me in some way I can't account for.
I have dreams that manifest in my life the next day.
I dream that I am a girl with an arrow through her head,
and that Bob and John find me endlessly hilarious.
Then I am,
and they do.

I have to sleep on my back
because of the arrow.
I lie down in my yard at night and look at the stars.
They turn,
and I turn,
which makes the arrow turn, too, 
and I feel just like a new clock, right on the money every time.

Then I remember--
Autie is dead,
and I am a girl with an arrow through her head.
Tonight I will dream of eating a pomegranate,
and then an orange.
I will turn them in my hands,
and they will turn me with them;
something will be different,
and when I wake up, it will all happen as I dreamed it--

The pomegranate will heal my heart,
and the orange will contain endless sections, juicy and sweet.
Bob and John will not be home when I walk by;
the arrow will fall out,
and I will be free.
__________

quoted lines at the top are from "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti.

for the Real Toads birthday in December--Christina Rossetti. 

kindness

Kindness--
I aspire to it.
Think of the martyred saints secure in Heaven with their reward!

If it had been me,
I would have pulled the arrows out and made bones of them;
I'd have stood up out of the fire pit and made somebody pay.

I picture myself sanguine,
mild as milk,
but sometimes I get tired.
The day goes on and on as if it were The Train Of Infinity
hogging the crossing on some devil-hot day,
and at times such as those, it may become necessary 
for me to pat you on your head,
replacing the bloody divot I have taken out of it.

Look at my hands!
Soft and harmless, now, as unbaked dough.
I only ever have the best of intentions,
and that has served me well in my job with the Highway Department.

Do you think you could trust me again
some day,
in some bright future where mobs are made lazy 
by a surfeit of love and patient understanding?
Or will you will yourself to die just to get the ear of God
and talk shit about me?

Kindness
is my watchword and my natural way.
That's what I'll be explaining, hoping for acquittal,
pro se, having to do everything myself--
getting the pencils and pens,
getting my own glass of water,
getting the maximum,
getting the legal pads, the table itself, the chair.
________

 

lo tech

you smirked and whipped out the sun,
dangling from a chain like the celestial watchdog.

go ahead, try to hypnotize me with it.
try to blind me.
i will blink at the last possible moment.

your vision for us thus confounded,
and my own barely saved,
here we are--

two sundials telling time by shadows.
________

for G Man's Friday 55!

white bird

i was in bed
when a buzzing curled inside my ears--
it may have been music i forgot to turn off, in the other room.
it may have been roadwork down in the dirt-turned, workboot street.
it may have been your name
spoken from my dreams by a female priest,
wearing denim and flannel,
on her day off, smoking on the steps of Saint T's.

i get so confused--
one rain drop and i'm growing green skin,
building arks,
playing midwife, saving the world.
then again,
there are days when i would barter the world away
just to be in your arms.

i grew you a song,
carefully,
in a coffee can on my window sill.
that spring, each white bloom
had dove's wings and flew
across all of this blue-edged snag-hearted geography we call living.
i told them to go to you.
i gave them sweet jam messages.
i leaned out my window and screamed, hurting my throat for a week,
and then i slept until winter.

i woke in bed
with a buzzing in my ears.
solitude embraced me from both sides,
whispering a bitter catechism.
they hid your name.
they silenced all music.
they said, "you are ashes, dear,
nothing more."

that was when my bird-blooms came back.
all of them, soft and lovely and innumerable,
each of them bearing your reply--
you said,
"these came from you and to you i return them."
i finally understood, and that was when i went up,
vaporizing my weird guests but sparing the birds,
scorching out poems like some kind of vengeful torch.

my immediate world reduced to ache and feathers, 
carbon and snow,
swirling black
white
black
white
black
white

magic i own
magic i birth
magic i can't stop.
blue
indigo
black

white.
______

for Kerry's black-and-white challenge at Real Toads.