Circus Monkey

 Circus monkey, my old beau

it's like muffins and ovens and kitchen windows

to see you purse your lips, then stretch them

into a grin like a drunk or a Jaycee

but you don't drink, you never did.

You just rode your trike in the rain

when the circus was closed and the place was quiet

and there you'd be, like a planet in orbit in the dark.

I'd come by with my unsold tickets--

"I got a million of 'em!" like a rich widow on a spree. 

My wagon was as big as loneliness, bright as poppies,

and I'd say Bobo my baby, come on in.

You'd bounce on the bed, the cutest knuckle-dragger ever,

wearing overalls and a yellow tee like a cheerful janitor.

You liked me without make-up, my clown face soaped off

and my striped dress on the floor but my socks still on.

I have been around the world, Bobo, and at night

I lie there thinking of all the dumb things I've ever done.

Everybody said, "Girl, you can't love a monkey" so I left

but now I'm back with a cardboard suitcase and a ukulele.

Can't you stop pedaling and listen? Yes I see, no hands,

they're over your ears, your eyes, your mouth--

I get the picture. I'm sorry I hurt you, Bobo, I really am.

Okay, see ya,  Mr. Monkeyshines. I'm a dope,

and right after I mailed your three rings back, I knew it,

My clown car's waiting. Sure ya don't want that I should stay?

We could really knock over some milk bottles, you and me.

I know, that's for the marks. Bye, sugar pea. Ride proud.

The Call

 There is moonlight

on corn stubble

by the side

of a highway.

The moonlight

is a Gypsy

a profligate

reflected child

and yet it kisses

the corn stubble, denied all wandering

except into death

where it has already gone

by the side of the highway

which only runs

east or west

north or south

this way or that,

never varying,

like an office worker who has been there

for far too long.

My bones are a tarmac

that I have traveled on from earliest memory

to this very moment.

I am an old barn, gone gray.

No one touches me

and I touch no one

except with these poems.

I write them

to keep from screaming.

I wonder,

where does this road end?

Am I a cornhusk doll

in the hands of time,

or am I moonlight--

a messenger from a mother a million miles away?

I have been a child,

a partner,

a parent,

a friend,

a cautionary tale

and rain in the desert. 

Now I am tired

though I still love leaves

dogs,

sunrise,

books,

poetry.

If I lay down in the moonlight

between the old rows

near where the semi trucks rumble 

going here

or there

could I rise

into firmament?

Is all of this some kind of holy circle

or would I just turn to dust

inside my flannel and wool?

I will ask the corn.

I will ask the traffic.

I will ask the moonlight.

I will ask the night

that has wrapped me from cradle to grave

and if it answers

I may get up in the morning

and call you--

yes, it's me

and I am as surprised as you are. 

________

River Song

 Here is the river--

the river full of stones.

The mourning dove and the dawn

come to hear the river rush

over the many stones.

The hem of my skirt is wet

as I cross the icy river--

the river filled with stones.

I have come to cross in the quiet dawn

across the passing years and the rushing river.

I am a mother who was never mothered--

a river rushing over the many stones.

My child and the mourning dove of dawn

come to watch me crossing

the cold waters of the rushing river.

Here is the river, clear and cold

like the breath I borrow from every dawn.

I am a mother who was never mothered.

The icy river flows and is filled with stones--

I step carefully, feet numb, heart rushing like the river.

Green House, Black Trim

 My house is lime green

with black trim

like a garden

for grave diggers.

Surrounding it on rainy afternoons

are rings of brilliant jade leaves

on shiny black trunks

swaying like boxers.

One of the spindles

has come out from the porch rail.

It holds steady, but

I don't trust it like I used to

when the noisy morning starlings

and the raucous ones in evening

sounded and numbered

the same. 

Mean Dog

 She's gotten loose again.

I'm talking about the mean dog I keep

behind the rickety fence

of my better sense. 

She's all mouth and teeth, 

dumb as a box of rocks.

Careful walking down my street--

first you're someone, then just meat.

Down in the viney valley, fragrant and wild,

came a mist-born baby, a minstrel child.

Down the bramble run, in the muddy black

that sweet babe wandered and never came back.

Down the alley, off toward the stacks

my mean dog rambles to hell and gone.

She lives on my tongue, not cute, not young

and I'm sick and sorry, whatever she's done.

Dying Man in a Yellow Suit

 

October, you are a dying man

wearing a yellow suit

voguing down the boulevard

pretending that cane is just a prop.

Step inside the boulangerie.

Sugar melts, cakes grow stale,

but being in the case is like being on stage--

it's "let's pretend" in the sweetest way.

Summer hasn't been kind to us.

There is chewing gum on our soles,

our skin is a disaster, our regrets numberless,

yet we reflect in store windows as clearly as royals.

October, offer me your arm and no one will know

that you are not just being gallant.

With each step, another day ticks away

and when you lie down with me it will be as a near-ghost.

No matter, don't give it another thought.

I am here, once almost-pretty,

my spirit a genuine drop dead knock-out babe

and all yours until November arrives

in its ferryboat, and if you brought no coin

I've got you, allow me, you with the kindly moon in your eyes.

______

for my dear friend Dora at Dverse Poetics: Tripping the October Light Fantastic

In the Rhambangle (new version)

 In the Rhambangle, the climbing vines

looped themselves up and through the latticework
like emotions falling from a dream.

You loved the hour-bound birds who made their nests
in the high corners; feathered keepers
without ceremony, counters of our soft seconds and all the rest.

I liked your boots, especially tucked beneath a wicker chair
in the moonlight, lost to your feet
but called a curious thing by the avante garde among the moths of local wing.

I haven't said it well, I realize. My irises kept the words
after I first saw them in morning light.
It's a fool's errand, so they say, making these sounds no string nor key would own,

but I keep trying, because I love you down to the detail, the divinity, the dissonance, and the bone.

____

original version HERE. It was written for a prompt demanding made-up words. Here I have replaced them all except for the title word. 

Four Leaf Clover

 Four leaf clover, talk to me

Tell me how my luck will be.

In the rain 

I'm the girl

with a flower garland in her hair

I'm the ball 

that someone left

dangerously on the stair.

 Four leaf clover, talk to me

Tell me how my luck will be.

In the fall 

I'm the girl

with a jack-o-lantern for a face

I'm the book 

on the bed

but I never think to mark my place.

 Four leaf clover, talk to me

Tell me how my luck will be.

In the night 

I'm the girl

with a yellow candle burning bright.

I'm the stray 

in the road

watching all the passing pretty lights

 Four leaf clover, talk to me

Tell me how my luck will be.

_____

I Heard That Song Today

 I heard that song today,

the one I played a thousand times

in the days after you died. 

I was a seed on the wind,

you were the river and the shore

the border that my heart was heading for.

I heard that song today

and it all came rushing back--

the shine of the face I loved

and the ache of missing that. 

______

The God People

 God People are at the door

loaded off of trucks

where they slept under tarps.

Kids, no

I know she looks like Madison's mom

but she's

a God Person now.

God People are at the door

having just walked through

the spiritual car wash

and they're coming for you,

Barbara.

They want to eat you and leave no tip.

God People are at the door.

Bobby quick go wake up daddy

and tell him

to bring

the Tikka. 

_______

My brother uncharacteristically contacted me twice in mid-August trying to get me to be "saved", which I don't believe in. It took me a minute to realize that he probably believed all that booshwah about the Rapture happening in September. (It didn't.)  

Tikka is a popular brand of hunting rifle.

After

 November is the lover who leaves--

December is the long nights, after.

Trust is the toddler on the tracks--

Experience is hanging from the rafter. 

Hope is a prayer whispered in the dark--

Truth is the unexpected laughter.

Is it wrong of you to wish her gone to Hell?

Maybe when you get there you can ask her.

----

I took the opening couplet from a poem I wrote in 2012 and raided for parts. The rest is new. 

Wishbone

 Little fox,

I've come to confess to you

though I know your church is the chicken coop

and your Christ is appetite. 

If there is mist up on the mountain,

it's my spirit wandering.

The rest of me kneels here,

before you in the brambles like an overturned cup.

Alone in my bed, I have wondered

why I hurt my lovers, why they hurt me,

but I think it's because

angels are so similar to layers

especially when a spray of white feathers

in the air is all that's left.

Little fox, here is my spirit 

riding wrapped around your slender black feet.

Let's test our hearts and pull a wishbone--

you've got plenty cast aside.

If I win, I'll change my ways and skew to kind.

And if you win?

I'll call him, saying let's try again

knowing what will happen, and how sly my words have been.

While I Stared at the Moon

 While I stared at the moon

summer slept with death's black rooster,

her garland tethered to his three toes

with their talons sharp as testament. 

While I stared at the moon

frost made love to my bones,

each on its proper shelf like dishes

in a house with snakes for silver. 

While I stared at the moon

half-dead men danced with half-mad women

though neither was excited, and neither calm.

Roses twined and cut them both with promises.

While I stared at the moon

my fetch sat down on a river stone,

grinning with the morning in its pocket.

I wept and the night ate my heart like a truffle. 

_____________

Yellow Mums

 yellow mums

little dark green shadow

to june's

boastful, favored roses--

they have all

turned to twisted thorns

married to

the clippers' blades

but you

love the autumn

and are

humbly lovely now

aren't you,

yellow mums?

Winery

 Love has gone mad, like you my dear

and keeps night in a wine press like a caged bird.

I will save it, says Love, turning the handle

to birth a morning with broken wings of red curd.

Everyone here keeps their mouths in jars

to prevent you influencing their palates, dear.

Anyone with any sense has placed locks on every vine--

all that grows down the rows is the silent brooding volunteer.

Morning whispers madness through your skin, 

and wears a crimson cloak made of feathers and strange paste.

I will marry it, says Love, hand in hand with Oblivion

serving wine heavy with grape skins and an odd metallic taste.

I cannot love you anymore.

I cannot argue, not another word.

Love has gone mad, like you my dear--

enjoy together your strange vintage

of dark mornings,

heavy tannins

and Love's dead, wide-eyed bird.

Liars Love the Moon

 liars love the moon

and their worst lie

is the one they tell themselves

that it will love them back

or

that it even could.

it will slowly drive them mad

and in the end can make them

drink and

drown themselves,

shoes left neatly on the sand

in the pale light.

(for Carole Landis)

My Love of the Morning

 My love of the morning

my love dressed in dawn

My love early risen,

and risen, so still

My love whom only

the noonday could kill

My love of an hour

my love in the dust

My love who only 

does what she must

with a folded lily in folded hands

my love whom the afternoon reprimands

My love of the dusk

my love of the evening

My love barely listening

my love barely breathing

Who is my love whose love only leaves her

and lingers in shadows where no one receives her?

My love in the night

who desires the moon

and the stars all gleaming

through tired trees leaning

My love of the earth, my love of the grave

my love oif the sky, the blaze, the wave. 

Molly

 Raking leaves--walnut, maple, mulberry, ailanthus--

I saw how it was.

My dog Molly--sweet, skittish, a rescue--

knew the Aussie was the favorite.

She hid his favorite toy in a pile of leaves,

but not well enough--I saved it.

When we were finished, all the leaves at the curb,

the toy was gone, second time the wicked charm.

When you lose something, you lose the place you were

when you first saw it, who you were with, what you were doing.

Fragile things can fall and shatter and when you see them broken

your heart can break a little too--and there's nothing you can do.

I am thinking about broken things, lost things, hidden things,

The leaves have fallen, grown again, fallen again.

My Aussie is gone and the clear pure blue of September sky,

the lofted toy, and Molly too, have all passed.

Today I sit outside, careful with the mug on the chair arm,

even knowing that everything--and I as well--will fall in time.

___

Sunny

 When I met you, you were day-sleeping in somebody else's car

and running around scrapping all night.

With your shaggy hair and that roll of your shoulders,

you made me jelly-kneed right from the start.

Sunny, you kept your loneliness hidden from your running buddies,

your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars in the Texas night.

I kept you coming back by feeding you, like some Italian mother

with a full pantry and a real bad crush. Come onna my house, birichino. 

You had nothing, expected nothing, and were fearless, so fearless,

but when I fussed over some new cut you turned boneless as butter.

When I drank you turned to a rumor, gone like smoke, hating the stuff

yourself, and somehow above it. You made me want to kick loose of it, like you.

How did I charm you into staying, my gorgeous one? 

How did we teach other what love was, with your silence and my words?

Til the day I die I know my heart is full of you, and all that you gave me.

I held you in my arms as you gasped and ran free, in the black hour of your end.

Oh, I learned to care again, about life, about myself, about it all,

but it took a long terrible while. and it was the hardest thing I have ever done.

Girls always fell for you like autumn leaves, light as sighs, stars of a moment.

I know how lucky I was to be the one you gave your heart to. 

It's been thirty-two years and I still say your name and picture your face

every day. Even the angels won't be able to tame you--I won't let them.

Wait for me. When my hours are over I will find you. I will come running.

_____

Girl Lindbergh

 oh that.

that's just my habitat.

some women

take up counted cross stitch,

others

--with scorched souls--

even like golf

as if the order and pointlessness

were balm

for their frightening wounds.

me,

I have my habitat.

it's filled with

a green growy tangle

and those cries

like animated bells

that made you open the door

in the first place.

every night

I go in there.

most mornings

I come out again

either elevated

or barely alive.

either way, it keeps me fresh

like tennis

except

my medical bills are enormous

and my poetry

keeps getting sharper and more feral.

now that you've seen it

I know you won't be back anymore

or else you'll want a piece of all of this

mistakenly thinking it, 

and me, 

exciting.

people want

to spend time in my habitat

like wanting to space walk

without gear

or training

or

a Houston to rely on.

my habitat

is my own private

supermax

funhouse

and I am just Bluebeard's wife

glad he's gone off to sea

while I

merrily 

open the door

to my habitat

and disappear into it

flying solo

like Girl Lindbergh.

Mountain Climbing For Morons

 do a checklist before beginning:

helmet

harness

shoes

carabiners

webbing

cords

oxygen canisters

fuel food

etc.

check weather reports.

set up a base camp.

in the helicopter

the blades reminded you

od the ceiling fan

in the hotel

in Bangkok

last year.

all right

up you go

(as your father once said

handing small you

onto the monkey bars)

this is it.

the world now boils down

to snow

ice

crevasses

ridges

storms

whiteness.

at the summit,

you're as winded as you were

when she left you.

you needed a challenge

and here it is, so

pose

for a picture

plant

a flag.

be Sir Edmund for a minute.

but

Tenzig Norgay knew

that everything

worth having

was

back in Lukla

Kathmandu

Casablanca

or Hometown, USA.

even the cat

knew that.

why didn't you?

2 New Short Poems

IN THE TIME OF SHORTENING DAYS

The crickets have come

to sing summer out,

smooth black invisible chirring

like planets spinning.

I have fed the little rat

who tips the tray--

each of us awake in differing skins,

on a yellow-leaf evening

under white stars

_________________

EMAIL FROM MY BROTHER

Hearing from you is like being operated on

by a blind doctor

trained in church

by the deaf dead.

_________ 

They Always Get Jesus In Prison

 

I see where David Berkowitz got Jesus in prison

like they always do.

Now he runs a ministry, adept as he always was

at delivering

succinct

sermonettes

delivering people to God.

He was a postal clerk, always involved

with the Message.

Such converts always have a carnival of explanations--

the Devil

the neighbor's dog

and other invented booshwah.

Susan Atkins got Jesus in prison too

and wrote a memoir

about her redemption, her will turned over

from Charlie

to Christ

but it could have been Moonies or Ekankar.

There is a rat who lives in my garage.

He hasn't heard the Good News

but he never

hurts anyone.

He has published no book, leads no prayers.

He likes to hang out behind a shovel

that has never dug a grave.

The authorities let Leslie Van Houton, Caril Ann Fugate,

and Nathan Leopold out.

Karla Homolka changed her name and might be anywhere,

at services maybe,

holding a bible and smiling.

________

Conspicuous Christians

 

The conspicuous Christians

fill 4 booths and keep the waitress hopping.

12 adults

5 young children needing highchairs in the aisle

17 orders, all different

5 special requests

2 plates sent back

1 spilled coffee

separate checks. please.

After an hour, they leave

dishes, napkins, crayons, sticky syrup spots,

and

1 tract

with

2 crisp 1 dollar bills tucked neatly inside. 

_____

Dreams of Shiva

 

There is a thing I wanted so much--

a thing always denied.

The evil and the angelic made a pact

and placed this desire in my heart

like a ticket hidden in a boot

worn by someone desperate in a station.

I tell people this desire is over--

that I visit its grave on holy days

to leave woven weeds,

but there is no grave because it is not dead--

only paralyzed like an aster when there is no wind,

no sun, no moon, no garden.

There is someone coming up the stairs

to hurt my heart, and they are so lit with beauty,

such an ordinary marvel.

The hallway floor is wood, the light there yellow in autumn.

It is morning, but the birds are mute.

My heart stops, the visitor walks past, the world ends,

but no one notices. There is no fool like an old fool,

no desire that cannot exalt or destroy,

over and over, in silence, like Shiva in a recurring dream. 

______