Shay's Word Garden

I Was Not The One

2012-01-30T21:12:00.000-05:00

I was not the one who poured the night and all its stars
Into the cold curve of evening's cup.
I was not the stupid virgin
Working up her nerve.
I was not the one who fetched or served.

I was not the one who brought the bile or the blade
And not the one who baked a loaf of death.
I was not the cook
Who wrung the rooster's neck.
I was not the portion nor the plate.

In my gaze find the small gloved hand;
In my words sleeps the fox.
In my veins find the sweetness that killed
The bantam in the laying hen's box.

I was not the one who sent the master down the mad-path
Or the one who set him swinging from a tree--
But the one who slipped her son
Past the sere red eye of dawn,
In the silent early morning, that was me.
________

for Real Toads OLM

A Few Lines From A Couple Of Canines

2012-01-29T08:43:00.001-05:00

Sheila: What a party! I can't wait to get out of these heels.

Buck: We'll be home soon, lambchop.

Sheila: Take the thruway...it's faster.

Buck: I think I can manage. We live three miles away. It's not exactly "Incredible Journey", you know.

Sheila: Sorry, dear. Drive on. Did you enjoy dinner?

Buck: Mine tasted like week old kibble.

Sheila: Really? You should have had some of mine. It was delicious and the portions were enormous.

Buck: Same as our hostess.

Sheila: Bucky! You devil. She likes you, you know. The way she came rushing at you before we were barely to the door...anyone would think you were the mailman!

Buck: Bite your tongue, darling!

Sheila: Buddy certainly didn't. I thought he was going to bore the entire table to death, going on about his show ribbons.

Buck: Not impressed, my pet?

Sheila: He's overbearing. Thank god you studs all went off to your little preserve in the den to have your chew sticks.

Buck: We have to, darling. If we had to stay and hear bitches going on about puppies and flea bath shampoos, we'd all start howling.

Sheila: Bucky, what a thing to say. If any of the wives have got fleas, then I'm sure they got them from their husbands. After all, who knows where they've been?

Buck: I don't know about that, lambchop. We're all kept on dreadfully short leashes.

Sheila: And you love it!

Buck: I'm going to pull in at this gas station. I need to use the men's room.

Sheila: You always drink too much at parties.

Buck: They had flavored water! And a fully stocked bowl!

Sheila: All right dear. I'll just run in to the ladies' and check my collar.

Buck: What for? We're only going home.

Sheila: I've got plans for you!

Buck: You sweet Jezebel.

Sheila: You animal!

Buck: I think I'm just a lucky dog.

Sheila: Oh, Bucky...
_________

for the Photo Challenge at Real Toads. Photograph by Daryl Edelstein.

The Smartest Gals In The Room

2012-01-28T08:02:00.001-05:00

Sometimes a bird gets inside the house.
Sometimes they shoot a man into space,
And oh, the look,
The look on their face.
Some haven't got the sense to stay home,
And some can't tell
Up from down,
Their ass from a big damn hole in the ground.
Some don't know
Their butt from next week,
Much less their place, and oh the look,
The look on their face.

Sugar pea, check out the trees--
It's spring, and everything is in bloom;
Everyone we see
Wishes they were you and me
Like Angel 1 and Angel 2
The smartest gals in the room.

Sometimes a dog goes off its chain,
Running hell for Tuesday down the lane,
And oh, the look,
The look on its face.
Ladybug, ladybug, why rush to go home?
Your husband's asleep,
Your children are grown,
And the condo people will keep the lawn mowed.
There's a mint on the pillow,
A magnum in place,
When you blush, I just love the look,
The look on your face.

Sugar pea, check out the trees--
It's spring, and everything is in bloom.
Reality
Is just you and me,
Angel 1 and Angel 2
The smartest gals in the room.
_____

photograph taken by my friend Daryl Edelstein!

this poem linked to Real Toads Photo Challenge.

Aphrodite

2012-01-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

Aphrodite came out of the sea,
Barefoot,
Wearing jeans, a shell necklace,
A bunch of bangles at her wrist,
And nothing else.

I was there, on the beach,
In the first gray of morning,
A little ashy bonfire of a girl--

I was writing poems,
Which I considered, by turns,
To be well worth fucking me for,
Or,

To be the stupidest,
Most scorn-worthy scraps of weasel crap
Ever to insult an innocent blank page.

All these things depend upon
How recently you have stretched out on top of me,
Smiling;
Or how fresh your indifference,
Thorned into my borrowed shell.

"Aph," I said,
"Tell me,
How is it that the waves always come this way,
Wearing stones down to sand,
And yet...

I remain as dry as driftwood,
Smooth and silly and flat on my back,
Waiting to be carved?"

Aphrodite complained that she had lost a bangle in the surf;
I have seen many women's backs,
But hers, when she turned,
Was so beautiful, it reminded me of yours.

I know she didn't hear me, or care,
But still I asked,
"Why am I always the sunset, well-remembered, Aph?
And why never
The longed-for shore?"
_____
for Mary's Mixed Bag at Real Toads.

At least it isn't haiku...

2012-01-26T22:19:00.000-05:00

no poem today. i can't think of anything.

Shay's Rebellion

2012-01-25T21:42:00.000-05:00

Plenty people
Tried to bang me down in a box
At the bottom of the sea
With a thousand million locks...

Mama was their Queen.
She tell me do right,
And toe the line,
Or she smash me to smithereens.

Sorry, Mama,
I'm a flock that scatters and spins;
Turns once, turns twice,
Then comes together again.

I always been this way.
Don't cotton much
To rules and such.
That's all I got to say.
_____

Thanks to Cloudia, of Comfort Spiral blog, who sent the kitty pic, and wished me a happy anniversary of Shays Rebellion!

Top photograph: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Flighty

2012-01-25T09:54:00.000-05:00

You called me flighty--
You, with the hard hubcap eyes.
And oh, what a big mandible you have!
The better to grind me with,
As if I were a green blade of grass.

I'll admit,
I'm a little bit twisty--
A little bit up in the air...
But I learned from the birds, the benefit of a little bit of tilt
In spotting what I need to see.

Were you still speaking, darling?
No. Up here!
I'm on the cross beam, with my toes pointing south, my nose headed north,
And my heart going a mile a minute, all the time.

I've got to spread my wings.
I know! I talk such shit sometimes!
It's only to lull you,
Little bug,

Only a colorful mock-embrace, headed your way.
Only dizzy me,
Not falling, but swooping
Down to your level, love,
For this one
And only time.

_____

For Kenia's Challenge at Real Toads. I hope this is something resembling what you wanted, Kenia. But if not, I can hang this up in litigation for years! :-P

The Finches

2012-01-24T13:54:00.002-05:00

If the finches should call you
On the land line
In the hall
Of the old house,

There is no need to set aside your book
Or to trouble yourself at all--
It is only a draft
Through a window
Where an empty vase still sits.

It is only the gone summer,
Only the things that could never be;
It is only these.
It is only me.

And if there is a nest
On the pole,
Above the transformer,
Where the snow clouds skulk and glower...

There is an egg,
And in the egg, a memory that does not change,
But is, instead,
As static as a china dish.
Likewise, there is a lace-edged wound,

And within the wound,
An hour,
And within that hour,
The high-grown fields,
Your bare arms with their gooseflesh skin,

And one secreted, hoarded darling--
Palmed in my hand to kiss.

If the finches should call you
Before rot
And ice
Destroy...

It is only me, up on the wire,
Sealed and
Cauterized
With my voice.

I remain as mad
As mad has always been--
A balance pole
Of oriole
And owl bones

Long and thin.
Find the dazed bird on your porch boards,
Dashed against your doorway, dying;
Uncurl my fingers,
Lean close, and laugh,

And love me
One last time.
_______

Picture by Eugenio Recuenco, sent to me by Kerry O'Connor, my fellow Toad. It was originally part of her challenge to me to write to the pictures of Recuenco, which I did, but not to this one, until now.

This is for dverse OLN, because my bestie, Hedgewitch, is hosting.

Eclair de Lune

2012-01-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Down boy.
Not yet.
Did you forget that a woman is a work of art?
With maddening plastic packaging
Protecting her heart of hearts?

Toro, toro!
That's just the way it goes;
I knew you'd love this little red number,
And I love the smoke coming out of your nose.

Pffft, tiger, it really means nothing
That you love my pastry, sleek and tan;
You must worship my sweet custard filling
If you want to be my man.
_____

The Journey

2012-01-22T14:45:00.002-05:00

Oleg travels by train to Minsk,
Carrying his hands in a lady's hat box,
Wedged between his arms,
Riding like an overfed pet cat upon his lap.
In his luggage, carefully wrapped,
Are beautiful soap replicas of his feet;
The artisan who created them now languishing,
A prisoner of the White Army.

Look at me, thinks Oleg...
A man in extremity!
He thinks of his young manhood in Odessa,
Where vendors called out to him,
With fez-wearing monkeys perched on their brutish shoulders.
Then, his middle years,
Married to a woman from a village at the foot of the Urals;
She was mute,
But bore him a son who became an opera singer.

Oleg's hair, what there is of it, is gray.
Where is all the color, the passion, of his earlier life?
As the train bumps along, he fixes his mind on his destination...
In Minsk, at the Workers' Hall,
He will unpack his hands, proudly,
And use them to embrace Lenin
And to offer himself to the great leader.
Oleg will throw himself into the collective fire,
The forge,
Of the workers' noble cause!

His little feet, made of soap,
Delicate as a swan's, will melt.
No matter!
Oleg is exalted just to think
That his bones will form the base
Of a statue
Of a worker
In the very spot where the czar's police once came,
And closed down the opera house...
The entire company, even the ballerinas,
Sent away to Siberia!

Nearing the station, Oleg prays to Lenin,
Take these hands,
These feet...
Tuck a bottle of the "little water" under my arm
And pack me off to my grave;
You will find me there,
In a thousand years from now,
Singing your praises
And smiling.
_____

December 23rd

2012-01-21T19:49:00.000-05:00

It was two days before Christmas,
And I hadn't seen the riders in the road.
I remember
The big bay doing a stutter step,
His head moving down, then up,
Like an oil well.

I swerved my car into the trees
As if I were a child down a slide--
Whump! Fast.
Into a parent's arms.

"Sit here," someone said.
Kindly,
A request.
I knew I was dead.
It was snowing outside--
Big exuberant flakes, coming down
In the halo of the porch light beyond the windows...
I hadn't expected that.

Soft sounds came from inside the kitchen doorway.
A hall clock ticked,
Comfortingly.
I studied the dark richness of the old plank floor,
And soaked in the soothing gray
Of the walls.

Then,
A woman came and leaned in the light near the stairway.
"Hi," she said, and smiled.
She wore a ribbed turtleneck and jeans,
With antique silver rings on her fingers,
And her blond hair was the color of honey on biscuits.

"I'm dead," I told her, stupidly.
"I know," she said, and held out her hand. "Are you ready?"
"Sure," I heard myself say,
And I was.
________

photograph by Margaret Bednar

posted for Real Toads Sunday Challenge.

A Fable Of The Western Plains

2012-01-21T12:39:00.001-05:00

Even in the beginning,
When Goddess laid Her fingers across the land and brought forth the prairie grass,
The West has had two-lane highways
And little diners by the road side.

In those times,
Horses had the power of speech,
And they said,
"The Man Who Knows Everything doesn't need a menu
Or a map.
He is usually divorced;
When he opens his mouth, it makes a muffled, dusty foomp,
Like blackboard erasers being knocked together."

"There is also the Woman Who Knows Everything;
Her children's feet are on fire for the sunset,
And they leave her alone, like a cricket inside a geode."

Still, there are things that even horses don't know.
For these, one must find a waitress, and ask her for the Secret Meaning Of Eggs.
Don't be shy--
She is the Queen of Honey & Jam,
The Voice of the Goddess in the everyday world.

"Eggs," (she will tell you,)
"Contain the dreams you had last night, but can't remember;
The obstacles you fought with.
The woman you've longed to kiss, and did, until your lips were deliciously sore."

"There is a way," (she will further reveal,)
"To retrieve these dreams,
But there is a special method for it."
Watch, as she yanks the checkered table cloth out in one quick motion,
Leaving your coffee cup and plate of pancakes
Undisturbed and serene
As a Western morning.

"So it is with dreams.
You can charm them out, like barn cats,
But you must do so without breaking the shell of the egg."
If you can do this,
You can find the Horizon,
Keep the knowing of the Dream Time,
And cross the border into
The Anasazi village
Of your own absent Joy.

______

for dverse poetics--borders.

Pickelhaube

2012-01-20T17:28:00.000-05:00

The girl in the pickelhaube hat
Wore the darkest of mascara
And a bob blacker than that.

Her legs were long and smooth,
Hands clasped at her knee
As she sat upon a stool for some quick photography.

Now, gone is the girl
And gone is old Berlin;
But her grand-niece has the pickelhaube,
And her easy smile, again.
______
for dverse Meeting The Bar--Imagism

A Creation Parable

2012-01-19T16:03:00.000-05:00

Something startles the brides--
They stampede,
Hundreds of them.
Little flowers fall from their hair;
Carefully set tables are overturned,
White shoes used as bludgeons
In jealous rage.

Grooms writhe within the wooden door frames, gnawing.
They appear industrious--
Though pale.
Though blind.
Will there be any threshold left, by sunset?
Can fire remove them?
What of their hats?
Their hearts?

Cheetah Girl
(a feral, using bark and dust to rub her soft skin tough)
Sits in the high place with Cheetah Mother,
She of the long claws.
They hold no truck with the tumult below--
The panicked brides.
The unwholesome grooms.

Cheetah Mother will teach her the loose-backed sprint,
The blood-mouth, the sated moment.
Cheetah Girl will make a deal with the stars,
A trick rolled in sorghum,
Her own black and yellow dream modeled after the one she sees.

At dawn, they will trot right down the throat of the bride herd,
Silly dazed cream puffs sitting blank and finished on the ground.
In the afternoon, they will watch the blaze and the old wood falling,
The last interlopers sent to hell in a spray of red sparks.

Cheetah Girl will know it is time to go.
There will be others after her,
But until then,
She has her own high-sun way of invoking God--
She will not see Cheetah Mother again,
But she has learned every lesson by heart
And will survive.
That will have to be enough...
That,
And the east African sun;
A red eye on the horizon,
Starting to rise.
________

Inspiration

2012-01-18T17:47:00.000-05:00

How can I explain what it means to me
That you are there?
Where does a vine begin?
What is the starting point
Of air?

I know a certain magick--
A way to make what cannot be,
Be.
But the thing is,
I cannot make sweet honey
Or sweet sting, either, truthfully,
Without hive--
Without bee.

I can capture the light
Any time of year;
Between window shade and window pane,
And hold it, dancing, there.
But I write these lines because you read them--
Create because you care--
That's as well as I can explain the vine
Or the starting point
Of air.
_____

Chamber Duet

2012-01-16T20:52:00.002-05:00

See how I love you, darling,
Risking my favorite gray ankle boots to go skittering down the rotten-leaf path to the marsh,
Wearing my delicate little gloves and an old-lady cardigan against the chill damp?

Don't try to hand me any shit about how you love sailors now,
And how they float their bones up from salt water to this place,
To sing shanteys to you--
Here, where you percolate in the shallows like a Quadroon turned to wax.

My frail sweetheart,
Look at you, what's become of you.
There was a time when you could char the moon's pale edges simply by looking up;
Don't I know it better than anyone?
There was an age--was it sixteen?--
When a lack of you was a dearth I couldn't endure.
Now, if I move you at all,
It is with the edge of a cypress branch,
To roll you like a dismal log in a fire of rot.

We really cared once, you know it's true;
But these days we are sophisticated--
Everything must be de rigueur and scripted to within an inch of its life.
Go ahead, I release you for all time--
Be the anima for your little sailors as they dance out from sharks' mouths and surround you,
As stultifying as ease.

I will use tiny silver clippers to trim the soulful timbre from the cello,
Rendering it a balsa fiddle;
A repository of false notes and refined choking,
A waterside abomination,
Our love song evermore.
_____

for Monday Melting Week 2. I had to use the following words: timbre, derigueur, percolate, marsh, char, damp, frail, dearth, wax and anima.

Mission Of Mercy

2012-01-16T09:42:00.003-05:00

Arctic explorers come to my door.
Their eyes are desperate medicine vials filled with bitter latitudinal madness,
And their breath freezes in the air and falls
Like shattered tea cups
From the hand of a once-genteel madwoman.

I invite them in,
But they only stand there.
I may as well offer my hospitality to weird lights from out of the sky,
Or something stupid and made-up,
Like the perfect lover.

I would offer them a map,
Showing the way right to their doors next to the fruit stand or the public house,
But all I have is old napkins with your promises scribbled on them in spit.

I would offer them a drink, poor freezing miserable souls,
But I can't seem to locate anything in my broken-crate cupboards except
3-in-1 oil and kerosene.

I think the arctic explorers may be spirits, ghosts,
From the way they are blurring and wavering in front of me.
I go to light a match, but I have grown great useless paws--
What would you think, if I touched you now?
I think you would laugh.
I think you would slam your hope chest closed on my fingers,
And roll out your new husband on a trolley, to introduce us.

I try to tell the arctic explorers about how you once sought my kiss, my breasts, and the warm skin sanctuary of my body;
I try to tell them that I cannot rescue them,
And I see some human glimmer deep in the airless ice of their eyes.
They look even sadder, more lost, and then they say,
"But, madame, you don't understand.
It is us who cannot rescue you.
_______

linked to Real Toads Open Link Monday

Christmas Jane

2012-01-15T09:59:00.002-05:00

Christmas Jane loses her seasonal job,
And so she returns to Summer,
Long days on the high grasslands
Laid out flat on the back of a silent black horse, she sleeps in the sun.

Christmas Jane eats peyote,
And hears bells.
There are no churches out here;
Just the wind that's born at the ends of her hair,
Making it long to travel.

Christmas Jane sends a post card home;
Sleeps with a guy in the heat mirage morning,
And with a girl under the stars that night.

It is not so bad, this loose wandering.
She loves the buffalo herds, both ghostly and real,
And stays between their hooves, light as a feather, easy and unharmed.

Christmas Jane loves the Autumn,
The fires that begin,
And the smoke in the air.
Whoever she is, she isn't Christmas Jane anymore,
But her black horse will carry her across the frost
To the next place,
Always,
With a nicker she interprets
As a prayer.

______

Everybody Loves The Sun

2012-01-14T14:31:00.002-05:00

Everybody loves the sun.
You live your life in it, wear it like honeyskin,
But it is your darkness I have always adored.

I will wait
Until your life lets you go, to me,
In the interstice between clock beats--
Baby, I have
One boot heel on the ground,
And the other up against the wall;
All of me is in shadow...
The gates here are beautiful but hard.

You'll come, won't you?
I am your girl with the astigmatic soul,
Waiting, depending upon tactile sense and white witchcraft;
I am the Other One, who nests your name.
Everybody loves the sun,
But I love only you.
_______
photograph by Isadora Gruye, for Real Toads Sunday Challenge.
________

And now a special bonus meme. Sioux has gave me a right special blog award:

Seven Things I Love Beyond All Reason (in no particular order)

1. Bolthouse Farms mocha capuccino
2. Bosco the Wonder Dog
3. the big fat moist brownies they sell at the 7-11 next to where I work.
4. really well written poetry
5. Emmylou Harris, who does not know that I exist.
6. Mama Zen and Hedgewitch, who do know that I exist, and even admit it!
7. vintage mechanical toys
_________

60 Second Theology

2012-01-13T21:49:00.000-05:00

The executioner with the short attention span
Sometimes fails to finish his work.

The feathers on a lady's hat
Send him off into the crowd, and then into the fields,
Looking for a warbler
Or a milliner.

A certain condemned aristocrat, thus semi-reprieved,
Was left stumbling in circles, a broken clock,
Holding one hand to the bloody side of his neck,
The other still unblemished as a girl's.

The distracted executioner is called on the carpet.
He is censured by the king himself,
Though it comes down from corporate.
Still,
Five minutes later,
He has forgotten it all and is riding a tiny tricycle through the stone-cobbled streets,
Trailed by a snotty, wailing child.

Say hello to the distracted executioner.
Lay your head here, please,
Just so.
If it helps, pretend you are at the salon for a shampoo;
Many have pleaded for mercy,
While others have spat and cursed as you do.

Will you be saved by a passing minstrel's tune,
Pardoned by a colorful butterfly?
Or will your head roll like a bowling ball,
Blinking in sudden surprise?

Your fate rests, it seems to me,
With the shifting vagaries,
The chance inanity,
Of a buffoon elevated to deity.
_______

The Party

2012-01-13T09:29:00.002-05:00

I was laughing.
Someone set a black box in front of me on the bar;
His cigar set my hair on fire:
I'm a saint.
I'm the sun.
I'm a pilot light tucked in among these gas bags.

I was laughing.
Someone handed me a telegram;
Her fragrance took me back to simpler times:
Prison.
The hospital there.
The Western Union office in the basement of the violent ward.

I was laughing.
My life had been encoded on cards;
I slid them through a Gypsy's teeth and she bit me:
Bleed, girl.
Bleed hard.
That's the tarot she told me, and by the time she kissed me
I was crying.
____

Special Delivery

2012-01-11T22:20:00.000-05:00

I mailed a dream I'd had to a person I'd forgotten,
So the post office had me arrested,
Charged with impersonating the weather.

I obtained a signature from a memory,
And used it to rain myself onto a mustang prairie
Where the moon had cleverly hidden herself within their silver hooves.

You'll say I'm faithless,
While tying my feet with rose-shaded ribbons.
You'll claim I snowed longing into your favorite January
While you slept--

But truth makes better postage,
And I know that Mercury is both a woman and a mnemonic;
Is it all coming back to you now?
You, kicking sterling wings into the flanks of the night?
_____

New Age Vivisection

2012-01-10T22:21:00.000-05:00

Split open the bone--
Marrow creatures sit up, stand up,
Leave their fissured red beds and roam.

Don't mewl about forgiving--
I need to hate first.
Then, perhaps I can mouth easy pablum about healing;
Fire carried on a wind that's already blown.
____

Hannibal In Hell

2012-01-08T20:58:00.000-05:00

Hannibal in Hell
Idles away the empty hours
Being flattened by frozen elephants.
They didn't like the Alps
All that much,
So if they toss him on their tusks,
It's all good and well.
Paybacks are a bitch
For Hannibal in Hell.

Look at me!
I have come back as a cat,
And I don't care
Don't care
Don't care.
Go to work, get out of my hair;
You can trust your brand new drapes to me.
I am unconcerned as unconcerned can be,
And though I used to love you,
Now I just can't tell.
Paybacks are a bitch
As Hannibal knows well.
_______

"Now you will be cut down. You destroyed the wild animals, so now their terror will be yours." --Habakkuk 2:17

Hannibal of Carthage crossed the Alps with 38,000 men and 37 war elephants in order to attack the Romans. Over half of the men and nearly all of the elephants died on the way.

A Slip Of The Tongue

2012-01-08T08:51:00.000-05:00

I was slack-jawed, sleeping,
Dreaming of fences, birds, festival,
Discarded saints and elevated gypsies,

When my tongue slipped out of my mouth
And went straight to you.

It said things, glorious things, bold things,
And it did things, too;
Things that brought it home lolling, full of itself,
Trailing cats and canaries like confetti.

From that time on,
Though my tongue is back, my control over it is gone.
It whispers to me when I am
Slack-jawed, sleeping, dreaming of waterfalls, blooming arbors, suns burning in the faces of rivers...

The power of my tongue compels me,
And I go straight to you.

I say things angels envy;
I do things the damned haven't thought to try.
My tongue declares you devil's food,
And leaves us to our own devise.
_______

love song

2012-01-06T00:01:00.002-05:00

when the moon shines
off the backs of my eyes,
it makes the whole room as bright as noon to me;
and so if i can't stop myself
just can't stop myself from watching your dreams,
you must forgive me, darling,
don't be like the others and scream.

and when my claws draw back
into the black softness of my toes,
believe me when i say you are the only one who knows me
knows me this way,
and though it's true i kill, it's never just for fun;
please believe me, sweetheart,
don't be like the others and run.

my instincts are my angels and my angels say
this one is the one to love at any cost;
i have to have someone i can close my eyes and lay with,
someone i can hold my breath and dare to trust.

when the sun goes hot and high
and your dreams go dry,
i will be the shadow that comes when you need it most;
there will be those who will warn you
that i will tear you, wound you, down to the bone,
but don't believe them, darling,
don't be like the others i've known.

my instincts are my angels and my angels say
this is the one to love and shelter if she stays;
but darling, oh sweetheart, i just don't know what i might do
if you're like the others and start to run away.
______

for Fireblossom Friday

Poe

2012-01-05T10:19:00.001-05:00

His cape wet with rain,
Edgar Allan Poe slips into a 24-hour chain pharmacy under cover of night,
And asks the pharmacist for laudanum.

He is recognized.

The pharmacist is a crap poet who lives in a nearby bedroom community.
He participates in fantasy sports pools,
And worships Charles Bukowski.

Poe is strung out; desperate!
His shaking hands offer out-of-circulation bills, in wads.
"Laudanum," he repeats, with urgency.

Instead, the pharmacist
(whose name is Ted)
Starts rhapsodizing about "Buk".

There is so much blood.
Officers from this quiet suburb have never seen
Anyone impaled with an umbrella before.
A nearby display of magnifying reading glasses has been upset in the fracas,
And their empty lenses bear useless witness
To the waste of a human life.

An answering machine beeps.
"There is one pharmacy call," chirps a robotic female voice.
It will be pending for all eternity,
Or at least until the yellow crime tape comes down.

Meanwhile, Poe has scored something from a teenage boy loitering outside the 7-11.
He doesn't know what it is, but he takes it anyway, because
His girlfriend is gone,
His mind is a roiling snakepit,
And he has nothing else, nothing at all
To protect him from the storm.
_____

The Wedding

2012-01-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

The bride loses interest half way through the ceremony.
She sits down on the altar steps, kicks off her shoes,
And yawns.

"You don't need me," she says without turning around.
"Marry my Boredom,
my Capitulation,
my Resentment.
Fan them, frame them, fuck them...
I don't care."

This is not very romantic.

He marries his desk instead.
Tiny airplanes launch themselves from its carrier-like surface,
And he snatches them as if he were King Kong.
The blades of their little propellers core his hands and give him stigmata--
He is the Christ of the plastic cockpit.

And the bored bride?
She departs,
Becomes the darling of the seance,
the Magic 8 Ball of the other side.
"Try again later," she says,
Hoping that someone will love her blank blackness,
That someone will shake her, hold her,
Join her in her soft remove
On the other side of the veil.
______

Bruin

2012-01-02T22:30:00.000-05:00

A bear grows tired of shitting in the woods.
"I am even tired of salmon," says the bear.
The bear becomes a Catholic,
And sends the Pope out into the forest to fend for himself;
"Kneel on the soft moss," the bear advises the Pontiff.
"Open your heart to God.
Be still.
Hibernate."
Soon, His Holiness is snoring in a cave,
Insensible to ecclesiastical issues
Or earthly temptation.

The bears climbs in a window.
"Teddy bear!" says the girl whose room it is,
And what fool would be so churlish as to argue?
Here,
There is companionship,
Fritos,
And indoor plumbing.
The girl gives over most of her bed to the enormous, stinky Bruin.
"I love you," she tells him.
"Baw!" he bawls, and it means
"I love you, too."

All summer, they play.
No one dares to bully her.
She buys him a jar of honey and a rosary
With money she has saved.
The bear snuffles loudly, and it means
"Peace be with you."
"And also with you!" she shrieks, and does a cartwheel.
Bless the bears and the children--
Give me one good reason why not.
_______

The Amish Hit Girl

2012-01-01T21:57:00.002-05:00

The Amish hit girl hits a snag--
Running you over with a buggy turned out to be
Harder than it looked;
See,
She wanted to dispatch you
Expeditiously,
But nooOooo...
She had to start the horses
One time, two times, three.

What, nothing to say?
Have you finally gone to the devil?
No more bonnets, no more scrapple?
The Amish hit girl
Can catch and grill you;
Take off her long black dress
And fucking thrill you.
She can quilt like a stone Dutch ho,
She can ring you without a phone,
Or just kill you.
The Amish hit girl...
Nice.
_____

linked to Real Toads open link monday

My Happy Place

2011-12-31T22:30:00.000-05:00

The New Year arrives at My Happy Place late in the afternoon
By postal motorboat.
We pick it from the splinters and debris in the churning surf,
And carry it up to the house;
"Welcome to My Happy Place," we tell it,
But it only stares fixedly, as if dead.

We put The New Year to bed in one of the guest rooms,
After taking away its shoe laces and belt.
At My Happy Place, we are always at the ready for visitors--
We keep soft restraints in a drawer,
And kindly old Doctor Bubo looks in, though we are never sure that he really understands
Us,
Our guests,
Or My Happy Place at all.

At twelve, The New Year steps out into the night
Near the cupola.
It uses its torn bed sheets to communicate by semaphore
With various monsters and suicides
Out in the deep.
We want to release a flock of doves from the lawn of My Happy Place,
But all that we have is a dead pigeon;
We toss it up into the gale, and it seems to fly for a moment
--noble creature!--
Before thumping listlessly against the bricks and then the ground.

Welcome, New Year, to My Happy Place!
Be mindful of our pitched and slippery roof;
Hold that rose firmly between your teeth,
While stretching out your arms like an aeroplane.
They say that
Birth and Death are less different than the same,
And that all the doors at My Happy Place
Open as easily outward
As in.
____

Happy New Year's, my second least favorite holiday after Independence Day.

Rx

2011-12-30T12:01:00.006-05:00

Dr. Figg's wife attacked him with a caduceus--
Dr. Pennington gave him apple cider to counteract moral rot, and tincture of opium for the pain;
Soon Dr. Figg recovered, though he gave up his practice and spent long days sitting in his garden,
Tying sailor's knots.

Dr. Andrews championed luck, even in the most extreme cases--
He instructed his nurse to fold four leaf clovers into the charts of his patients;
Within a week, the files were in perfect order,
Because all of the subjects had died, though it has to be said,
None expired by accident or misadventure.

Dr. Hanley was a student of the four humors--
At night, in his office, he studied black and yellow bile, until it drove him to despair;
Paliative treatments became his specialty,
And in furtherance of this policy, he left revolvers on the examining table pillows,
And bullets in a nearby emesis basin.

In time, Dr. Andrews gave up practice and became a clergyman--
Dr. Hanley an undertaker.
"What ever became of Dr. Figg?" one asked the other at graveside one afternoon;
Unknown to them, he had adopted a life at sea,
Drinking no salt water,
And husbanding a wedge of lime
Below decks,
Next to his harpoon and an ivory comb with a pastoral scene carved into the handle.
_____

This began as a comment I made yesterday at somebody's blog. I decided to expand it here.

The Woman With The Cat Face

2011-12-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

The woman with the cat face made a wish
And all the sparrows turned to fish.

The sky produced them at her command
Stacked like kippers upon her hand.

The woman with the cat tail switched it once
And paving stones turned to hot cross buns.

The woman with the cat tail switched it twice
And made Catholic bishops out of five field mice.

The woman with the cat heart had a beau
Set him on a gibbet and swung him low.

The woman with the cat heart clapped her hands
And made his coffin out of watering cans.
______

composed in the journal Hedgewitch gave me, for Gay Cannon's form for all.

The Sarah Winchester Mystery House

2011-12-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

I want to meet my love at the Sarah Winchester Mystery House
Deep in the ripe plum fruit
Of a dark purple evening.

I want her to french me into another world,
Half way up a stairway to nowhere.
I want her hands in my hair;
I want her to ride my thigh like a bareback Indian.

I want to fall through a wall onto prairie grass.
I want my love in soft leather and buckskin,
And handy with a rifle.

If I could have these things,
I would open a door onto thin air--
I would turn around, half out of the Sarah Winchester Mystery House,
And smile at her

With one leg dangling behind me in the darkness,
And the other called, as if by seance,
To wrap itself around the slender small of her back
Like a summoned spirit.
_____

for She To Whom I Am Slavishly Devoted

The Ballad Of The Black Swan

2011-12-28T09:25:00.000-05:00

I called the swans,
but they were lazy from being loved by the Winter.
They lay everywhere,
wings spread and still across the dull world
like protective mothers doting over an indifferent, implacable child.

From that day, I hated the swans.

In my emptiness, I prayed that Goddess would send me a weapon;
stupid with cold, at first I thought it was the night that had turned my dreams black,
but it was your arriving kiss,
and I fell in love with Fire.

As a sign of my devotion to you,
I grew my red hair long, to my waist,
overnight.
The violence of your love sent my name into hiding,
but the delight of your rough endearments
made the sun rise,
crimson and punishing,
out of the screams I offered you like candy.

That day, I went to murder the swans' darling.

There are glass children, and there are wooden children.
The glass children I recognize as our own, My Love.
You made me pour out
the grating, useless sand of my desert past--
it was your bright, sudden kiss
that made our babies beautiful,
reflecting the white and silver
like they were born to it.

The swans' child was wooden,
a more clever and wicked devil than I had counted on.
My Love, My Love,
what could I do?
When I stood over her, her many mothers melted away,
--the cowards!--
leaving her alone and at my mercy.
She stirred.
She met my hand, the hand that has loved you,
with a bouquet of burning flowers.
She placed them on her mothers' graves.
She placed them in my hair.
She placed them everywhere, all the way up to our secret aerie.

My hard sweetheart,
do not hate me, your Black Swan. I am the creature who will be devoted to you forever.
And, my adored one,
do not hate this child;
she bears my true name, and I have brought her home to stay.
_____

linked to Kenia's Wednesday Challenge

When I Think Of You, It Brings These Lines

2011-12-26T21:24:00.001-05:00

by request

When I think of you, it brings the night
Because
Blackbirds gather under my skin,
Millions of them,
Each feather a craving, unstill and restless until
Your touch calls them and they
Black the sky
With their dark joy.

When I think of you, it brings the fire
Because
Small suns gather under my skin,
Millions of them,
Each the lit center of a swirling want, until
Your kiss frees them and they
Bright the sky
With their full desire.

When I think of you,
It is shadow and light--
It is everything--
It is all that one who loves you can (gladly) endure.
_____

The Constancy Of The Moon

2011-12-26T09:20:00.000-05:00

Christmas bells rang my head--
to,
fro,
or maybe it was just the Colt 45.

The moon used to cradle me in her curve while I slept--
she always whispered,
"Little girl,
take this silver dollar
and buy a ticket home to me."

Texas Jim rang my head--
to,
fro,
or maybe it was just the December wind.

I would leave here, head south,
if only I could stand up.

The moon used to cradle me in her curve while I slept--
she always whispered,
"Little girl,
take this silver dollar
and buy a ticket home to me."

Christmas bells ring my head--
to,
fro,
echoing in the alley between the churches--
I would come to Jesus
sure enough,
if only I could stand up.
_____

for Real Toads OLM

Elegance!

2011-12-25T10:25:00.001-05:00

Darlings, the spirits have the day off today, lazy things!

And so, I invite you to visit the lady for whom holiday elegance never takes a day off, my satiric alter ego, Babs St. Argent at Objets D'art. You can find her HERE, but wait!

Babs has thoughtfully sent over her driver, RRRRRamon, with the Rolls, to take you! Merry Christmas, everyone.
______

The Insatiable Sin Eater

2011-12-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

There is not enough Ecstasy,
crack,
crank,
horse,
smack,
booze,

Not enough cutting,
starving,
bingeing,
purging,
burning,

Not enough cleaning,
cooking,
dusting,
decorating,
hostessing,

Not enough sleeping,
avoiding,
forgetting,
denying,

Not enough cars,
houses,
jobs,
promotions,

Not enough failure
not enough
failure
not
enough
failure,

Not enough men,
women,
fetishes,
perversions,
degradrations,
ten year old whores in Bangkok brothels,

Not enough fake smiles,
not enough
bullshit
bullshit
bullshit,

Not enough self-hatred,
self-loathing,
self-abnegation,
self-obliteration,

Not enough honors,
kudos,
compliments,
conquests,

Not enough shame
not enough
shame
not
enough
shame,

Not enough killing,
soul-twisting,
mindfucking
unholiness

to do what a little human warmth could have done
when we were wide-eyed and open
and asking for it.
_____

for A Word With Laurie at Real Toads

The Calm Bird/ Haiku Poetry For A Wednesday Evening

2011-12-21T19:15:00.001-05:00

consider the calm bird

assuming a steady pose

flap your wings, stupid

always seek stillness

goldfish swim, then are at rest

koi pond is frozen

nature provides much

receive nourishment from earth

use three second rule

angry mount fuji

flows faster than man can run

where are the fucking keys?

to coax bonsai tree

trim wisely and use soft ties

hammer not so good

sun rises then sets

industrious zen master

with your wife long time

sick like hell of rice

same thing morning noon and night

fuck you, uncle ben

______

Word Garden's 1,000th Post!

2011-12-19T20:54:00.001-05:00

The woman with the camera was getting exactly nowhere. She was standing inside Danny's Coffee Shop, trying to get a good shot of the Queen Of The Vampires, but every picture just showed wall, tables, coffee cups. No QOTV. She gave her camera a little shake, then smacked her forehead.

"Vampire," said Daryl with an eye roll. "No mirrors. No pictures. What was I thinking?"

The QOTV smirked as only a Vampire Queen in black panther form can, and went on shredding another booth.

"Chica, hold still, I want to draw you!" Scarlet's always drawing someone.

Over by the counter, the waitresses God and Denise were chattering with Chloe--the resident serial killer and multiple felon--and The Succubus.

"I've got Mama Zen's," said Denise.

"Chick's hot!" sighed Chloe. "Hey," she said, turning to the Succubus, "you ever get into her dreams?"

"Nope," replied the Succubus, her eyes hidden behind big dark glasses. "I can't get past the buffalo blanket and the dog."

Chloe put on a mock pout. "Poooor Suk-oo-buss!"

"Oh shut the fuck up," muttered the Succubus mildly. It was morning, and she was feeling mellow after a long night of stealing souls.

Meanwhile, the kitten Giuseppe Verdi was rolling around on a tabletop with Stripey, a customer's cat, much to the amusement of Savanna, the teenage runaway.

The Succubus moved smoothly across the room, after perfunctorily flipping off Chloe, and sat down dramatically at a table next to a woman wearing nearly identical sunglasses. "Sara...you're so diviiiiiiiiiiiiine!" They looked like twins.

Behind them, a woman was leaning out of the doorway, screeching at some kids. "Get off my sidewalk!" She turned around and sat back down. "I'm never going to finish this poem!"

"What is it about?" Chloe asked Hedgewitch, for it was none other.

"Well...it's about an incubus who shows up on a brush hog and seduces a girl who has three heads and twelve arms. Here, read it..."

Chloe read it as the denizens of Danny's swirled around her.

"Do you think it's too sweetsy cutesy? I could put some bats in it..."

Chloe shook her head. "It's perfect."

"Are you sure my mother in law will be turned into a toad?" asked Lolamouse anxiously, peering into the pouch she'd just been given by Denise.

"She's as good as green."

Just then, a streaking black blur flew through the air and into a booth. It was the QOTV, who had just spotted the Dark Haired Chick. She landed with a happy thump and toppled them both over backwards where they disappeared into the seat.

"Get offa me, you crazy spaz!" said the DHC, but she was laughing.

"Shhh! Everybody!" It was Chloe. She had moved over by the window, which had been designed by Ellen, and was intent upon something out in the street. "Silent treatment!"

The little bell over the door rang and the mail lady walked in. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody looked up.

"Wow, what's wrong with you guys?" she asked as she dumped a bunch of crap on the counter. "Here's your mail!"

The Succubus blew a smoke ring. Chloe examined a fingernail. God and Denise filled the napkin holders without looking up.

"Okay then...er...bye!" But before she could get out the door, everybody yelled,

"Happy one thousandth post, Shay!!!!"

"Aw shucks, you guys!"

Then a single voice rose above the others.

"My Redbook! It finally came!"

Who knows what wonders may occur at Danny's Coffee Shop in the next one thousand posts???

999 and counting/ Merry Christmas from Shay

2011-12-19T09:00:00.001-05:00

Dear Readers,

I'm a little bit early, but you know how I get about rules. And so, Merry Christmas to all of you, and thank you sincerely for visiting my Word Garden and for reading what I create. I wish each and every one of you love and warmth in this, the holiday season.

The Word Garden Complaint Department, open every third Tuesday of even numbered months, from 3 a.m. until 3:15 a.m., has received a small complaint. I'm all over it! The complaint was this: Reader X would like me to step out from behind the curtain more often, show myself, dish a little.

Okay.

I deliver the mail. I'm tall (5'-11"). I wrote poetry between the ages of 18 and 26, then took a twenty year break before taking up the Bic again in 2006. I collect stuffed raccoons and coyotes. I also like Coke bears. I am currently spending huge gobs of my spare time watching dvd's of the old Mary Tyler Moore show. "Mister Grant!" lol. I can make almost anyone laugh, except my mother. I spoil my dog, Bosco, rotten. I am prone to moods.

But, back to Christmas. I was raised a Christian, but am emphatically not one anymore. Something about being bludgeoned with it and told I'm going to Hell for who I am and who I love. Take that stuff and stick it.

And yet...from the vivid dream I had in my twenties, about being visited by a beautiful angel and shown Heaven (so that I would know there was something more), to the prayer that did what no other power could do, which was to to allow me to stay sober for one more day (which has now grown to 26 years), God, or Goddess as I prefer to think of Her, has been a constant in my life.

And so, in this season of Christmas, I share this video with you. It does things to me. Maybe you will like it too. Then, please come back Tuesday for a special 1,000th Word Garden post. I just wish I had the faintest idea what to do for that!

Peace,

Shay Caroline

Let's Dialogue

2011-12-18T09:24:00.002-05:00

I knew I should be quiet,
But my mouth went on talking without me
And, oh, the things it said.

I didn't know your eyes could go big like that--
2 little shocked stars undressing.
And when your jaw drops and you squint,
I see a locomotive coming down the tracks--
I'm gonna have to think of something
Think of something fast.

I know I should be careful,
But two idle hands can get so bored
And oh, the stuff they pull.

I didn't know a thing could go up like that--
Just from a little drug store lighter.
And when you're really angry and you go so silent,
I know you're gonna kick my ass--
I'm gonna need a really convincing little tap dance
Aren't I, baby?
Wait a second, baby.
Oh sweet Jesus in a pinafore,
I'm gonna need it fast.
_____
art by Eugenio Recuenco (thanks, Kerry!)

This poem was the first one written in my new journal, a gift from the peerless Hedgewitch O' The Wilds. Thank you, dear! I do love it! (journal shown below)

_____

And, a little music to go with the poem...

Come And Get It

2011-12-17T19:37:00.000-05:00

Come and get it.
I will pull bones from myself and bang a dirge on the hollows.
Why the face?
You have broken them so many times, they snap out easy.
Come and get it.
Come and get it while it's hot,
On fire with the word.
Come and dig its glowing little happy ass right out of the slag heap.

I made a centerpiece.
It's still fighting, but only a little.
Talk to it.
Tell it that shit you always told me.
Sock it right in the kisser,
Then it will shut up.
It's still moving,
You're not trying.

Come and smile until nobody can stand it anymore.
Bake someone happy.
Shove them right into the brick oven of your love.
Frost them.
Fuck them seven ways to Sunday.
Come and get it,
I don't want it.
Kiss it and call it Charley, just get it the hell out of here.

Come and get yourself.
Take yourself home with you.
Be very happy with yourself,
And leave the rest of us stuffed in our vases,
Bloomless and thorny,
But still talking,
If only to curse you in this and every other language
Ever spoken in extremity by the damned.
______

Girl Next Door

2011-12-16T20:08:00.000-05:00

She said she wasn't the girl next door,
but she was.
She said she had both hands on the wheel,
and she did,
but the wheel stayed still while the car went road sky road sky road sky stop.

She said she never kissed a woman,
but she had.
She said she had both feet on the ground,
and she did,
but she stayed still while her heart went swerve right swerve left swerve right crash.
_____

written for Marian's music prompt at Real Toads

Nocturne

2011-12-15T20:47:00.000-05:00

Where do you go
When you are sleeping?
While I am watching?
I want to know.

Who is the you
Just beneath your skin?
Behind your closed eyes?
The one concealed within?

I want to know,
And so I stay close by...
As you breathe untroubled and slow...
Yours the breath, mine the sigh.
_____
for Gay Cannon's Form For All

Dear Quasimodo

2011-12-14T19:57:00.000-05:00

Dear Quasimodo,

It's me, of course. Who else do you know who does things as old fashioned as writing a letter? But I thought that you might welcome one, and besides, even if I were standing right in front of you, you wouldn't hear a word I say, now would you dear? I say that in every sense of the phrase, and in the most loving way.

I wish I could be there when some stuffy Abbott or whoever hands you this, with the scripty-girly handwriting on it. Let's give them something to talk about! I know you'd like that song...it breaks my heart that you can't hear music, apart from your beloved bells. But never mind. How are the bells?!? I'm telling you, Q, if everyone had something they loved and love to do, as you do, the world would be a better place. And a lot louder, yikes! When you swing on the bell ropes, your face lights right up, did you know that? You are truly a man in his element. It's a beautiful thing.

So, tell me...what about this Gypsy girl you have been telling me about? Esmeralda, that's a pretty name, and to hear you tell it, she's all that and a bag of fireworks. Have you talked to her? Or are you just worshiping her from afar? I'm glad that you are feeling these things for someone. I am. But I fret about you, too, dear heart.

There are no secrets between us. I am your friend. Wild horses couldn't change that. And so, Mr. Bell Ringer Sir, will you forgive me if I say a few things? Do you promise not to be angry, or sulk, or think that I don't care for you? You can be a pistol, sometimes. Don't bother to deny! See now, how well I know you?

I know, of course, about how you were left on the cathedral stairs as an infant. It is a terrible thing, a haunting thing, to believe that one was not wanted. Oh, Q, how often have I wished that I could just somehow reach inside of you and fix that. You do bring out the Mother Hen in me. And, too, I know that you believe you are ugly. Q! If you could see yourself with my eyes, you would know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are not. Will you believe me? I have never lied to you, have I? You are not ugly. Would I hang out with you, and write you letters all the way from America, if you were ugly? I think not!

Think about this, please: who has God chosen to be closest to Him, up in the magnificent bell tower of the most glorious cathedral in the world? You, Magoo! Who sees to it that His voice never goes silent? Again, you my dear. And as I have already said, the joy you bring to what you do, is the most beautiful devotion He could ever receive. He knows that. He sees. He loves you, sugar pea. Me, too.

That is why I am concerned about this Gypsy beauty of yours. I hate to give away trade secrets, but I have to break it to you...not all girls are as fabulous as your faithful letter writer here. Yes, true. She doesn't know you the way that I do. She may be all about a handsome face and a noble white steed. What I'm saying, Q, is that I don't want you to be hurt. Would it be all right if I follow behind at twenty paces, just to make sure this gal is on the up and up? I'm teasing now, but in a way, I really wish I could.

You see, dear Q, I know how you are. Just the way you love your bells with your whole beautiful, faithful, glorious, simple heart, you'll do the same with this girl, whether she has earned that kind of love or not. All I'm saying is, don't get carried away with your bad self, dude. Take it slow. See what she's about. If she is as wonderful as you think she is, she'll see what I see. And if she doesn't, then...well, you'll still have me. You'll always have me.

xox

Sally

Cindy & The Unfortunate Birthday Cake

2011-12-13T20:40:00.003-05:00

Cindy did for the birthday cake.
Damn the thing anyway,
As if enough Bisquick and bullshit could
Make her husband keep his dipstick where it belongs,
And keep her kids from going wrong,
And make everything as orderly as the numbered pages of a Redbook magazine,
Lined up flush and sequential,
Not loonbat crazy in the middle of the afternoon.

Cindy did for the birthday cake
With a ginormous honking big knife
Longer than a mother in law's memory,
And someone's got to answer for that,
For the gashes in the easy to clean table cloth
And the fucked up frosting
And anything and everything that Cindy faked since forever,
Like interest and orgasms and staying sober until five.

Cindy did for the birthday cake,
And it felt hella good.
____

for the dverse Tuesday night cattle call

my 300th Word Garden post of 2011

Wheels

2011-12-13T00:01:00.001-05:00

The woman who broke her heart had red hair
And blue eyes--
A sunset over deep water.
With her head tilted back, she believed,
As the bloom believes in the bee--
She did not, could not, see it coming.

Feeling herself destroyed,
She became a woman of the earth, as the quiet ones
In graveyards are--
A bus station bohemian,
Far down the road ahead of any memory,
Alone, disappearing.

That is where she met the man,
Who counted out his life in silver blades--
She thought she could stand to be with him,
Since she wouldn't really care,
And so,
Then and there she poured herself into his emptiness
Like a jar of smoke.

Each night he sent the knives at her--
They seemed to come out of his bright white cuff, like bones,
As she turned on the target wheel.
Each night in front of a popcorn crowd,
He built a skeleton around her from fifty paces
And she became its face and heart beat.

"Do you love me?" he demanded sourly
In the small hours after a show,
And when she said "no", the next night he missed,
Twice, and cut her.
She knew that to stay meant being carved,
A bar of soap vanishing to satisfy his anger.

The buses are comforting in their way,
But now, back on the Greyhound highway,
She finds her vision empty;
Blank as tomorrow, without the flying knives,
Without anyone's body to be heart for,
Without her red-haired love with the deep water eyes.
___

picture by Metin Demiralay

Salon

2011-12-12T08:23:00.002-05:00

At Lady Mott-Bayfield's regular salon in March of 1872,
Certain Arctic explorers were displayed
Like cakes on a tray.
Did I say "displayed"? I meant invited, welcomed, feted!
They held tea in china cups,
Answering questions from thick-bearded men and fine ladies
As the snow from their boots slowly melted
In a trail from the door to where they stood.

"What did you see?
"Who sponsored your expedition?"
"Terribly cold, I expect?" (this last sending a ripple of titters through the ladies nearby.)

Cold, yes.
We left fingers, toes, and twenty-seven immortal souls there,
On the endless pack ice.
We saw things...
Things that were there,
And things that were not;
We saw enormous, yellow-white bears circling our camp at all hours
In hunger and in curiosity.
(The guests now quiet and hanging on every word,
Making a ring around the explorers as if they were moons.)
We saw seals
Pulled up from their dens by the bears, who could smash through the ice with their great paws and tremendous weight;
Our friend Roberts had become disoriented,
Believing one of the seals to be a woman or a mermaid
Depending upon the degree of his fever.
When the bears caught his particular darling,
He dashed out on his frozen twig-legs, lurching,
Screaming,
Tears freezing on his cheeks before they could fall.
A bear shattered his skull with a single swat,
Letting the madness out,
And his spirit.

One of the salon attendees clears his throat.
A lady's hand flutters at her heart,
A practiced gesture,
Half sincere this time.

It was dark around the clock,
The sun an impossible memory
Like warmth, or a wife.
There was no respite from the cold,
The wind over the open ice,
Or each other.
We had long since killed all of our dogs and horses,
(Someone sets down a cake, making a small noise in her throat)
And we ourselves were dying by degrees,
Losing first our sense of mission
Then our equilibrium,
And, for the twenty-seven, life itself.

There is silence,
Then a hearty "I say!" from a railroad magnate.
The explorers are never invited back,
And a maid cleans up the messy slush by the door
The moment that the last explorer has left,
And it is shut, firmly, behind them.

_____
linked to Real Toads open link Monday

3 poems in the style of Emily Dickinson (but with leaven of Fireblossom!)

2011-12-11T08:21:00.000-05:00

HONESTY

Honesty and Tactlessness
are siblings, but not twins--
One lives in solitary pride,
the other stays with friends.
_____

RESPONSE

Up the narrow stair behind
the empty choir loft--
I carried your sweet letters, dear,
in ribbons pink and soft.

Your letters could not sweeter be,
if angels held the pen--
What jaded Heaven sends today,
the next calls back again.

We used the empty choir loft
to have what angels lack;
These letters full of high fine light--
one match will show them black.
_____

FOR MOTHER NARCISSUS

Are you surprised when I am cruel,
and be what I must be?
You taught me well, now go to hell--
Full reciprocity.
_____

for Real Toads Sunday mini-challenge HERE. The first poem is from 2008, the other two are new.

Checked Out

2011-12-09T00:01:00.002-05:00

Little black dress,
new bag,
bee-stung lips.

Perfect French nails,
blow out,
Fuck Me heels.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

I saw her kiss another girl--
total dyke.
Lookit that Barbie girl--
not dyke enough.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

I saw her kiss a guy--
makes my skin crawl.
Maybe she not a wise enough girl--
maybe she not a girl at all.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

Torn black dress,
empty bag,
split-open lip.

Broken off nails,
she bleed out,
how's that feel?

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.
_____
written for my new feature "Fireblossom Fridays" at The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
______

"I Sing The Body For Breakfast" by Stripey Rufftongue

2011-12-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

8 nodda villaga...
leff sum bonez.
leff sum hair.

villaga nebba no where i wait...
may b here.
may b there.

nom nom me haff sum fun.
nom nom da villaga gone.

8 nodda villaga...
if u pass thru,
i eat u 2.
______

Lit On Fire...My Favorite Poet, Emily

2011-12-07T17:56:00.000-05:00

Ella, at Real Toads, has asked us to write or tell about that poet and poem which first sparked a love of poetry in us. For me, that would be "I Cannot Live With You", by Emily Dickinson. I have it featured on a stand-alone page here at Word Garden.

It was in high school English that we studied this poem, and it took my breath away then and still does today. At the time that I first read it, there were things that I wanted really badly in my life, and I saw others having those things without even trying. I wondered, "Why is the deck stacked? Why am I denied what I want so much?" It came as a revelation to teenage me, that someone else had felt the same way, and written it down so passionately. It was one of those moments when a life turns, and I have loved poetry ever since.

As for Emily, she remains my favorite poet. No pale fraidycat, she. First, she was a redhead.

redhead!

She had the guts to say, at college, in a time and place where belief was a given, that she was not sure she believed in God, though her subsequent poetry is full of spiritual questioning. She wrote in a style that defied poetic conventions of the time, in both form and content. And she loved another woman...her brother's wife, Susan Huntington Dickinson, who lived next door at The Evergreens. What exquisite torment that must have been! Her heart's desire so close, and yet as removed as the moon. That pain is all through "I Cannot Live With You." (To read Emily's letters to Susan--often passed by hand or through servants--read the excellent book "Open Me Carefully".)

I had the good fortune to visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, in August of 2007. I stood in the very room she composed in, and saw where she kept all her poems. I felt her there, in a personal way that floored me. I sat outside in the garden for a long time after. I felt that she knew I was there, and welcomed me. I felt her encouragement of my work. It was no subtle thing...she was there and she spoke to me. I'll never forget it.

I wrote a poem about it, a little while after returning home. Here it is:

"August"

Emily,
Were you waiting for me?
Did you find me in your garden,
And speak my secret name?
We are wicks
Twinly lit;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you press an oak leaf to your lips?
Wishing for her lips
That never softly came?
We are women
Who burn for women;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you see me?
Another bound in books
That fair divinity contain?
We ache for night
And fever bright;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

________