Beatrice

Dear Dante--
That chick isn't Beatrice.
Her name's Liz Siddal and she likes her laudanum.

Aligheri didn't really know Bice.
Oh, he bled a million words, like you do paints,
but it was just woolgathering, a big bowl of bullshit.

You keep that brush in your hand, but
she goes home,
zones out,
forgets you.
_____

A 55 for Kerry at Real Toads. 

Process notes: Beatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari is said to have been the inspiration for Dante Aligheri's writings, though he said he met her only twice, nine years apart, and she was married to a banker. 

Elizabeth Siddal was Dante Gabriel Rossetti's favorite model. He painted her thousands of times, often as Aligheri's Beatrice. Friends said "Beata Beatrix" (shown at top) didn't really look like Elizabeth.

In the spring and summer of 2009, I wrote several (bad) love poems for someone who, to me, looked like Rossetti's Beatrice, and so I gave her that nickname. It occurs to me that writers and painters may be beautiful idiots. I have tried not to be one again, since then.

 

 

Winter At Mayfair

I saw you were back
And the old room opened up--
But, like a sinner,
It had lost its soul.

It was at Mayfair I said, "I love you".
It was there you made me come--
Leaving you so charmingly
So winningly smug.

Secrets leaked and stained the ceiling.
Dishonesty crawled within the walls--
And though the floors of polished wood
Lit us,
Raised us,
To nearly-good,
We were in by Spring, back out in the Fall.

Now I heard you were back,
And the old room opened up--
Holding only empty echoes
And no living trace of us.

So I opened up a window
To let in November air,
Left the door standing open
For the next eager, trusting tenants
Who'll winter at Mayfair.
_______

The Witch In Springtime

I am the witch in springtime--

My heart is frozen leaves pulled from winter's silvering river

And my blood does not flow, it gusts.



Under the dogwood tree, on the thick rising grass,

I have drawn my pentagram with tar.

You can see my breath in chilly puffs against every falling petal--

They shatter like dropped teacups before they even reach the ground.



Step into my ring of frost and touch my face--

Losing that hand is a small price to pay.

Put away your stupid silver dagger--

I am just a girl,

Though I have been old since I was small.



It is almost Mother's Day.

Mine said, "Child, here are your kittens,

And here are your runic stones, all inside this sturdy burlap bag.

Slip into it as if it were a christening dress."

But when the water came,

My sisters and I were nothing but panic and claws

And so we are today,

Froward souls walking up and down upon the earth.



One spring past, I stole a bride.

Her dress matched my floe, and the already encroaching swans;

She spoke to me such vulgarities that the tips of my ears turned pink.

So charming was she, that for the first time, I loved summer and my wrongly-gotten prize both the same.

All I can say now is,

Damn the swans.



I am the witch in springtime--

My heart is thawing leaves woven by orioles, my nestlings my various and virulent hatreds of anything fresh and new.

I long for what I cannot hold.

I burn for what I cannot have.

I dreamt I saw birds filling the sky down all the lengthening days,

And they said,

"Where is all your magic now, old witch?

Where?"

"Gone" was all I could think to tell them.

_______

photo: Jordana Brewster

Girl Jesus

She wasn't Girl Jesus like you thought she was.
She was just human,
And you loved her,
And there is no shame in any of that.

You are the girl with the thorn in her heart.
It will finally heal,
And when it does,
It may feel like feeling nothing, but wait...

Time is a thief with a gift in her hand.
Your magick will light a truer heart,
Maybe even your own,
And there is no crime in any of that.
________

Thank you, G, for the conversation yesterday.
_________

Lifesavers

Just when I had finally decided
That you were probably a shit--
That I was probably better off--
I have to go and dream that you called me,
And my heart just opened right up
Like a child's palm
At the offer of a favorite candy from a trusted hand.

I could have said,
"You've got a lot of brass, calling me now."
But I said,
"Hello, Sweetheart."
You said,
"It's been so hard not talking to you for so long,"
And I loved it,
As I have always loved
Even the wildest lies, if they came from you.

You said,
"It feels like Lifesavers."
I thought,
What does that mean?
Then I knew that I was dreaming, and woke up;
I knew that you were gone--again--
And felt let down,
Left with nothing
But my aching sweet tooth.
_______

For B.

If I were drowning,

Would you save me?

I know the water is full of women--

Mermaids, sirens, loreleis and the rest;

I also know that

Falling is to sinking

As spirit is to flesh--

We all need love

As the body needs breath,

So, if I were drowning,

Would you save me?

Or would you say, imperturbably,

"How calm is the surface...

How peaceful the sea"?

________

Sugar

When sugar burns,

The baking stops.

No longer white and flowing from the cup,

It turns hard and black,

Like stone.

Lips so sweet

Can also lie;

What's warming can wound--

Much in a kitchen can cut,

But burns are the most painful.

Though you bind them, they blister,

And heal only by slow degrees--

Like sun crossing the cutting board, left dumb and blank as a woman who believed.

_________

Novena For A Nonce Word

Every hopeless cause has its adherents--

Spouting doubletalk,

Holding down day jobs.

Look at old Zeus, with his television and his Tylenol--

While Athena

Does what she will,

Out all night

With her owl to guide her home down the flagstones in the morning.

It is some kind of holiday--

Bastille Day, or

Crow's Easter, who knows?

It isn't true that photographs steal souls,

But time does.

Let others riot in the streets--

All women hold the hours in their hands,

And so it is wise to kiss her wrists,

Her hip,

Hold the shell in your fingers,

Taste the halved apple,

Preserve her name on a silver chain around your throat, and if she remembers you

Tomorrow,

Next week,

Next year,

You will own a delicious secret;

Remember it when you are old and invisible,

Sweeping the flagstones in the morning as Athena goes lightly past,

Someone's name on her lips

As yours once was--

Crone,

Our Lady Of Impossible Causes,

Is it so unlikely to think that

Someone, somewhere

Still lights a candle

For you?

_______

Two Questions, One Answer

"What is it like?" she asked me.

It is like

Carrying clouds around in my pockets;

When I want music,

I take them out and shake out the birds.

So the birds asked me,

"What is it like, loving her the way you do?"

It is like

Carrying clouds around in my pockets;

All day, the winds blow west to east,

Moving through me, shaking out poems like these.

______

The Victory Of The Sycamores

The mulberry leaves turn yellow-green,

So pretty and transient

Like duchesses.

The sycamores just cover everything in a utilitarian brown.

See here,

They say.

See here.

Oh I miss you.

Every thought of you peels my heart like an apple,

The pain so sharp that it almost makes me beautiful again,

My skin as white

As winter.

The maples are shockingly heartless,

Draping themselves in such a shameless, compelling, and unforgettable red

Just before they grow bored

And turn to naked bones,

Lovers transformed,

Offering nothing.

Oh I am the Queen Of All Fools,

And yet even I know the supreme idiocy of trying to put the leaves back,

To retrieve June

In immaculate

Perfection--

With the first snow in the air,

The train is at the station.

The duchesses, with all their trunks and hat boxes have boarded.

The bell clangs,

Summer is gone,

And nothing you love is ever coming back.

It is the victory of the sycamores--

See here,

You on the platform in the dusk,

See here.

________

Spaghetti Girl

If we go to a nice Italian restaurant,

I'll only embarrass you--

Shoving rolls in my purse

Because

Every time I'm near you,

I feel the air is full of angels

And Armageddon must be barely a whisper away.

While you're making conversation,

I'll be wondering what you would look like

Wearing only this red and white

Checkered table cloth--

I'll be crossing myself and praying to remember

How I can pull it off you

Without upsetting

The water glass in your hand.

You'll talk about Jack White

I'll talk about Joan Jett

And you'll be the Spaghetti Girl

Straight until wet.

Well, this is just torture in a public place.

I'll only embarrass you

Because I am hungry,

So hungry,

And once I start I will never be done;

I think the Judgement must be barely a whisper away--

So I'm waiting for the deluge sure to come.

___________

My Cafe

I have opened a cafe on the pack ice,

And though patrons are few,

It seems well-suited to me

Because everything I touch begins to steam.

I have observed the polar bears--

They fear nothing

And eat anything.

Besides that, they are as white as brides,

Though when there is blood,

It is never their own.

I want to kiss their claws.

I think, if I could do that,

I would soon write something meaningful.

I have started a cafe on the pack ice,

But immediately after opening,

I slept for seven days--

One for every letter of your name.

I think,

If only some woman would come way the hell up here,

And having come,

If only she would

Act

Speak

Think

And

Be

Exactly like you,

Then I might be able to get something to burn;

I might be able to get her to stay,

Calling her always by the wrong name,

And treasuring her

Like daylight.

I have opened a cafe on the pack ice,

And am having trouble staying awake.

Oh, how I want to dream

Of anything besides polar bears.

They read my journal,

And laughed so much, they soon fell over on their sides,

Great paws waving helplessly in the air.

I went to them,

On that one occasion only.

They were like big deadly pillows,

And so I lay my head on one of them, never expecting to really get away with it--

I kissed its claws,

And called it by your name.

I had never felt so alone,

But just as it's been with every hopeful love-seeking nut job who ever set out from home,

I knew it was back where I started from,

And that I was already bones.

________

photo: Evelyn Nesbit

The Heretic

The trouble with loving gypsies

Is that gypsies always leave.

Oh Mama,

I have been leaving since the day I was born,

And yet I am not a gypsy--

Just a restless soul.

I stood in the fields

Trampled and red--

Put my hand to my shoulder

On the place that it bled...

I wish to be as brave and beautiful

As my horse draped blue and white,

But I am just a wanderer

And fodder for the fire.

I can tell by the way you're looking at me,

You've heard and you know

About the saints mysteriously whispering

Selectively and low.

I heard them

In her perfect voice so sweet,

As she told me

That I was, and I believed.

The trouble with loving gypsies

Is that gypsies always leave.

Oh Mama,

I have been leaving since the day I was born.

My dreams are all of gypsies,

But my life is endless war.

I wish to be as brave and beautiful

As pure and fierce desire,

But I am just beloved of God

And fodder for the fire.

_________

Photo: Evelyn Nesbit

Fifty-Eight Degrees

Everyone woke up complaining...

It is fifty-eight degrees,

Damp,

And windy.

Everyone else is complaining,

But you--

You would have loved it.

When the leaves'

Little sugar-making machines

Shut down,

Well then they're on stage

Like a bunch of rotten little Camilles.

Oh but I can understand

The loss of something essential.

Not being a leaf,

I write poems.

Today it is fifty-eight degrees,

Damp,

And windy.

Everyone is complaining,

But you--

You would have loved it

And I--

I would have loved you,

And the chill, windy day

As well.

_______

Capricorn Muse

Scarlet has given me five words to work into a poem: muse, bliss, charm, metamorphosis and the Spanish word secreto.

I searched for my muse in the folds of a summer morning

And found her,

Wrapped in crows' feathers,

Kissing a stone.

I gave my voice to her hair, and it whispered in her ear,

"Come with me.

Let me take you home."

"I am home," she insisted,

Though nothing grew there but night.

I tried every charm and word,

Hoping to be heard by Our Lady of December,

Despite the wind,

Despite

Everything the stars had told me.

I melted like a candle and covered her with my desire--

I watched her face,

Praying for metamorphosis and a bliss forever withheld

But which never stops calling,

Despite distance,

Despite

Every dream of doorways, leading no place.

Summer lasted five minutes--

We twined and bloomed in secret.

To me she said, "My Love, you have opened me like a flock of dark pages;

Read me to myself,

Burn me so that the light I give reveals us naked, needing, and we'll call that our poetry.

Let there be nothing else,

And then you must leave me."

I found my muse in the folds of a summer morning,

Wrapped in crows' feathers,

And when I woke I found I had been kissing a stone.

She left me a message written on a bloody rose, which said,

"Los secretos son el humo,

El amor es cenizas,"

And when I left I was once again alone.

_______________

translation: "secrets are smoke, love is ash"

Henna Tattoo

So these are the moon and stars I receive from you

My adored and true--

You whose love is not love,

But only vagary;

So these moon and stars are what's left of you,

And they'll hardly do--

Just a gorgeous and temporary

Henna tattoo.

____________

My Dream Of Sevens

I am the only one.

When I blow on the candle next to my bed,

It lights and burns.

When I pour water from the pitcher to the bowl,

It makes the morning come.

Come and kiss me,

Right now.

By the time my pen meets the page,

I'll be gone.

It's what I've tried to tell you all along--

I am a condition of atmosphere.

Mine are the lips,

Mine are the hands

That can both create and calm your gorgeous storm.

I am the Queen Bitch your demons are afraid of.

I am the sweet dream who gets up and makes you breakfast.

I am the rain off a bird's wings,

And I am the ridiculous girl who'll believe any outlandish thing

You press to my ear with your tongue.

I am all of these.

I am the one,

The only one

Who loves you this fiercely

This helplessly

This endlessly.

I am the girl with a gift, and I long to place it in your hand,

Closing your fingers around it with my own;

If only you would reach out

And let me.

_________

For K.

There was some

event

downtown,

and

in front of me

at the light,

was

a golf cart,

of all things.

There were four people in it.

Did I say four?

There was

one

person

in it.

We were waiting

to turn

left,

just as I have been waiting

to know,

oh,

do you ache for me as I ache for you?

and do you

ever feel

that you cannot breathe

for the thought

of me?

There was one

person

in the golf cart

in the back

on the left

and her back

and shoulders

were bare

except for

two

lucky straps;

I wished

they were

my fingers--

I wished

to kiss

her shoulders

endlessly

by candle light.

I noticed

that her ear

was sweet and perfect.

Her dark hair

was tied back

and it made me

wild

for wanting

to touch it.

She was not

a small girl.

She was

so beautiful

and so very much

like you,

and then

the driver turned

against the red signal

and was gone

through a narrow gap

in the traffic,

and I

went on waiting,

lonelier even

than before.

___________

Waiting For Tristessa

There is a restaurant where they serve me your voice on a china plate.

No matter what time I go there,

It is always dusk

And the waitress has fireflies in her hair.

There is a garden from which the lilies have all been stolen.

No matter what time I arrive,

I am always too late for the wedding;

Too early for the wake.

I'm telling you,

I have stuffed my shoulder bag with moonlight.

I wear a locket

Which is like two halves of a broken heart.

Every passing body on the street tells me something different to do;

But never mind their words.

Come tonight at seven--

I will turn your linen napkin to a bird.

I will request a second setting

And a vase of pale white blooms.

If it grows late, and you haven't come,I will stay

--no matter how long it takes--

I will wait for you.

________

Snow In San Diego, And A Message-Bearing Tiger

I dreamt that a tiger came out of the ocean.

I dreamt that a tiger stepped out of the surf--

And the beach welcomed him like a geisha.

The beach said, "Welcome, sir."

I dreamt that I was alone.

So alone.

I dreamt that I was freezing,

And as fragile as a bell.

I rang myself, and it started to snow.

I rang myself, and it snowed like hell.

Tigers are so strong, there is no arguing with them--

On the beach, in the sleet.

His shoulders were massive as he stood before me

Inviting my heart to dance with his teeth.

He told me, "Your love is drowning, out there, with the ships."

I asked,

"Does she drown

With my name

On her lips?"

And then it was silent--

So silent,

And the tiger had nothing further to tell.

I woke up alone.

I woke up and knew--

Her touch was the tongue,

My body the bell.

I woke up alone

On waves of white,

Feeling surf and my heart

Recede with the night.

________