Let's Talk

 "Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars.

Out here, we is stoned, immaculate."  --Jim Morrison

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

I'm not some sort of spokesperson for eternity.

Still, you keep popping up,

asking if anyone wishes to communicate,

then you wig out when I answer back.

Let's talk about how I got here. 

I was in the back seat of Daddy's Oldsmobile.

The baseball game was on. 

Then I was launching off from some crazy trapeze into...this place. 

No mom.

No dad.

Just another bauble in the costume jewelry box of the universe

shining brightly in the dark.

Now let's talk about you. 

You're miffed when I don't answer, but shit your pants when I do. 

I can't tell you where your dead Granny is.

I can't tell you if she's in glory or misery.

I can't tell you how much I'm starting to hate that silly planchette of yours.

So why did I answer in the first place?

Like Cole Porter says, It was just one of those things. 

Let's talk about not talking anymore.

Whatever you're asking about--it's not my clowns, not my circus.

I'm just a bit of incorporeal ash floating around in the ether.

I vant to be alone

and boy, am I.

At least, until you came along, like a chatty seatmate on an airplane.

You say hello--hello hello!--I dont know why you say hello, I say

Goodbye.

________

for Word Garden Word List--The Circus In Winter.

and

The Sunday Muse #255. 

Music: Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb

Violent Gingerbread Assassins Lead Singer Dead At 47.

 

The lead singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins reports for his autopsy.

Electric bone saw in hand, the medical examiner for Los Angeles County tips up his protective face shield and speaks:

"Mr. ..."

"Lo Bo To Me," says the rock star. The medical examiner seems confused, so he adds, "I used to be George Binker, but changed it to Lo Bo To Me back in '97. You can call me Lo."

They then spend several minutes discussing the fact that the rock star isn't yet dead, to which he points out that VGA's radio exposure is down to almost nil, and years of various drugs, questionable sexual practices and a love of In-N-Out Burger has him as good as, so why procrastinate?

They begin.

"How did you get this scar just here, on your shoulder?" The medical examiner touches it with his finger as if summoning an elevator from inside the rock star's body.

"A groupie with a hatchet freaked out and thought I was a ghost trying to suck out her soul through a twisty straw. She thought my strawberry shake was the essence of a previous victim, her stupid friend Pamela. So she tried to off me, but only cut me a little. I threw the shake in her face and then she thought she was an ice sculpture. She was catatonic for ten years after that, and when she woke up she screamed 'Where is that bastard?' and then fell over on the floor. A roadie told me all that. I guess he married her or something."

The medical examiner suggests that the autopsy be postponed. George Binker a.k.a. Lo Bo To Me responds with a non sequitur, asking the M.E. if he's ever heard VGA's song "Clogged Synapse Fantasia."  

"It changed my life," he admits sheepishly.

"A fan! I knew it! Hey doc, what's that thing?"

"Why, a twisty straw, of course. I use it in my work."

The singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins sings:

Bay-beh do me do you!

Like a reptile crawling inside my heart,

layin' eggs of love that 'splode apart

in crazy fractals like La Jolla ocean blue!

Bay-beh do me do you!"

Later that day, reports of the passing of Lo Bo To Me, lead singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins, dubbed "Lo, the Noble Savage" in an old Rolling Stone article, spread across social media. Fans hold candlelight vigils and sales of their songs on digital platforms exceed all previous markers. The medical examiner for Los Angeles County holds a press conference, expressing, between sips of a strawberry milkshake, the exact circumstances of the singer's death. "The main cause was tooth decay, exacerbated by poor posture."

Why would he lie?

______

A (sort of) Edson-ish prose poem for Word List #8 (Russell Edson).

Shy Girl's Lament

So here's the thing:
Speak, girl, I tell myself. No one will bite you.
Surely no slender-fingered flautist could produce
such a sweet gentle tone as my voice is sure to be.
Men will drop their guard.
Women will smile and mean it. 
Speak, girl. It'll be fine.

So I do, and a concussive bass explosion of broken grinding gears 
shatters the stemware for miles around.
The floor shakes.
Deaf people swivel their heads in sudden fear.
Birds shut up because their tiny hearts explode.
Women exchange looks.
What happened????
"Oh honey," says some perfect size 2, her hand on her friend's arm,
"She's a T-Rex."
"Ohhhh...."

I can't get my arms around my stupid life.
I can't get my arms around anything, really.
"Sweetie, I wish I had your skinny arms.
I'd wear nothing but sleevleless dresses all summer long."
Oh cram it. 
Bet you don't wish you had these thunder thighs.
I go through oceans of Olay and still, look at the scales!
No one will ever love me;
I may as well go lay an egg.

"Sugar pea, don't be so shy! 
There's a lid for every pot.
Come on now, 
don't hide your light under a bushel!"
A bushel?
Is this chick insane? 
Look at me.
(Which is exactly what everyone does after I get over my endless five-head,
lean into the light,
and snap her up in my enormous jaws.)
"Bless her heart," says some bottle blonde, loud enough to be sure I hear.
"It's the Majorette for the Gross Eater's Parade."
When she and her friend titter,
it sounds like a slender-fingered flautist on her best day ever.
_______

At Toads, Sherry wants us to speak in the voice of another. 

 

 

Opening My Heart

I opened my heart,
but it was no Up With People moment.
It hurt, so I worried at it
until it cracked and split.

From within,
a small dragon.
I fed her Poe and Rimbaud,
Ferlinghetti and Neko Case.

She grew and ate Detroit,
then was sick on the rug.
I led her on a chain,
her head searching side to side
and her haunches high.

Now she's Out, breathing fire.
Beautiful. Angry.
Loose.
_____

73 words for Words Count with Mama Zen at Real Toads

American birds

shake loose your hair.
run your fingers through mine,
like spirits dancing in fire.

lean over me.
take your time, as the hawk does,
or the gentle mourning dove.

do anything you like with me.
i will stay with you,
just as the native grass leans with the wind,

unable to help itself
and not meant to.
_______

for Susie's mini-challenge at Real Toads: the poetry of Jim Morrison

Electric Dawn

(done in the style of Jim Morrison for Saturday Celebrations at One Stop Poetry)

In the electric dawn,
Revelers appear like hellflowers--
Bones and batons meet...
Unbalanced lovers who devour each other.

A guy and a girl feel like they're in a movie--
Sea creatures froth and surge
Melting in primal acid bloom
Sweeping past
& smoothing them,
Left behind perfect as shells.

Every revolution starts with a kiss
Between stars and tarmac--
Unable to hold either,
They find each other
& fit
Like bullets in a chamber.

In the electric dawn,
Death wears boots,
Bringing graffiti cross-flowers to the cold husk of the poet
Held like a leaf in a stone hand
Where the water runs.

Every revolution starts with a kiss,
Then turns its back on itself.
The theater closes--
Every revolution ends in silence.