Rich In Words

I am rich in words,
but words are shadows.

Every beautiful thing I can twist out of nothing
is just the fuck-you of a joke prayer.

The lens of the eye is a bald liar--
refraction masquerading as color,
upside down on the back of the brain

like love, like sky 
the blue-black
of rotting
card sharps.
_________

a delay in moonlight

Here is what I think it was--
the edges of elm leaves were oval, like slow hours,
and they fell along the edge of the creek,
yellow as the lights in strangers' windows at early dusk.

Here is what hurt my heart--
a delay in moonlight, as the last crickets stumbled,
bewildered, into the crack in the dry wood 
at the base of my step.

I have been hearing them even in the overcast afternoons--
they know that my favorite soft black boots will only last
for one more season,
and that by the time it gets here, you will be gone.

Here is what I think will happen--
there will be ice, a little further from the banks each day,
and both itself and the elm leaves caught in it
will have edges, like each breath I take from now on.

Here is what I think it means--
there is nothing I could have done,
because the moon is caught in a reflection at my feet,
but will ripple and blur with the first step I take.
_______

 
 

forgive like god

I love.
God loves.
Though God does not have a body,
which could get frustrating.

I loved you.
God did, too.
Then again, God loves everybody--
She spreads it around, that's what I've heard.

I knelt right here
to win Her ear,
and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed
my little heart out for you

that the most awful painful things
would smack you where it stings
and if
these wishes failed, why then,
I might have to consider
to forgive.

So I forgive
like God forgives,
though we both hold back flood and plague
just in case--

which could get messy,
Missy.
Just you wait.
_________

the power of tens

i keep finding tens--
dimes every time i look down,
and a ten dollar bill near the bus stop on the ground.

ones and zeros at my feet--
I am Bo Peep of the real world,
a human video game for the spirits, perhaps.

Change, are you keen to kick my ass?
it gets harder to get up again, each time.
Goddess bless Aleve, and my Catholic notion that I must somehow have it coming.

tens, made of beginnings and ciphers.
everything is nothing is everything.
Buddha, go away, I don't like men very much, especially not cagey ones.

does nobody just say what they mean anymore?
what's with all these dimes?
how much coffee can i drink, trying to give my lips something to do?

Franklin Roosevelt is my distant familial relative.
i've been to Hyde Park and felt the soul tree shake.
it grows again, here, dropping dimes, and i say caller, caller are you there?

Alexander Hamilton doesn't ring any bells for me--
he must not have been an altar boy,
and anyway, i never go to Mass, or meetings, anymore.

i'm tired. i'm getting old. 
all i wanted was someone close at hand to write for,
but everything is nothing is everything seems out of reach.

i have felt this way before, and then something new opened up ahead.
i don't believe it very much anymore, but though i'm feeling lost, and stuck,
i am Bo peep of the real world, and i

keep finding change.
___________

This is snot the way to court me

He felt called upon to improve my poetry,
and so, unsolicited, sent to me
a rewriting of my latest verse,
done over in shades from bad to worse.

Wasn't this presumption enough?
No, it was snot.

It did not seem to occur to him
that a creature such as me, so frail, so dim,
would react with anything less than gratitude--
imagine his offended surprise at my att-i-tude.

Wasn't my pointed silence enough?
No, it was snot.

Thank you, sir, for your ham-handed edit,
your testosterone hubris, and refusal to get it.
Thank you, dear dumbass, dear pencil dick fuckwit,
for trying help this mere girl be more literate.

However, I must decline future offers of assistance.  I am not worthy.


Delicately,

Fireblossom
__________

I took a swipe at writing something vaguely Sara Teasdale-ish for Real Toads, but somehow Catblossom got involved and...well, what can I say?

Beautiful Indigo

Summer is the stack of dishes the busboy drops--
too bright, too loud, too public;
A harsh-edged sun carves me from my nested silence,
dries me and stitches my mouth shut--
I choke on the songs I would have sung, come fall.

If I could kiss ice, I would.
If I could teach the clouds a good strong gray, I would.
If I could split November into wings, and fold them,
I would send myself into a steep dive
and kill summer with a single sudden strike.

All of this is because I miss your voice.
All of this is because you are too far to touch,
and too taken to ever be mine.
All of this is because of the skew of the stars,
and the curse of longing that has snaked between my ribs,
forming a second heart, jammed with poems,
a jar for beautiful indigo.

Summer spares me one gift, though she knows how I resent her--
She finds me on the floor, beating my brains with my fist
for the poems that refuse to come.
She gives me something--
not the thing I need, but still something--
light through blue lace,
making delicate, shifting patterns
on my untouched skin.
_________

A Progression Of Responses Upon Receiving A Love Poem From Shay

• Wow! Can I read it right now?
• Wow. Can I read it later?
• Wow. In a minute. I want to watch this commercial.
• Wow, I can't stop yawning!
• Wow. Maybe some time next week.
• Nice sentence structure.
• Wow. It has sentences.
• I read the first sentence.
• I must have lost it.
• Get lost, Shay.
• Zzzzz.

__________

a 55 for the G Man.

Eclipse

These are the things that are called my hands--
so wearisome they are.
Their only desire is to touch you,
but how can they?
You are vapor in a sieve held by a ghost.

These are the things that are called my lips--
such a tiresome pair.
Their only desire is to speak your name,
but how can they?
Curs cannot sing nor do starlings say the Mass.

This is the thing that is called my heart--
singular in certain light, seen through a particular lens.
Its only desire is to mean something to someone,
but how can it?
It is a poem spoken at an impossible frequency,
.........in a dead language
.........to a sleeping lover
.........whose face is obscured by the moon.
_______   

Everything

A nickel isn't enough for a soul--
no way...
No.

and even though you said
everything is negotiable--
with your microscope out on the table
and a lotus in a bowl,

everything cannot be just academic--
so open up a window and
go, man
Go.

You've got instruments for calculating
everything you know,
while I wrap my lonely skin around
cello and bow

in an empty room with curtains like sails.
What am I supposed to do with the least of you
in all the little details?

In your sleep, you hum and whistle
what philosophers opined,
and spoke of so intelligently,
then intelligently died.

A nickel isn't enough for my soul--
no, baby...
No;

so open up a window and
go, baby,
Go.
_____

for Flipside Flotsam 16 !
 

The Crap Poet

The crap poet
writes a crap poem
about her weak love
for a weak man,

and it takes her
(yes)
a week to write.

"Perhaps some mythological references," she thinks, distractedly, choking on smuggled French cigarettes.
"Perhaps adherence to a form no one gives a framed, numbered, limited edition shit about," she muses, head lolling in the oven, dramatically.

My love, &etc, she begins.
The next line has to do with the ovaries of cetaceans,
and the next devolves into impenetrable multisyllabic gobbledy-goop.

It wins an award.

The crap poet goes on to write an entire volume in which 
all the line breaks follow prepositions,
and articles are entirely absent.

Passing by
Arc de Triomphe in
ambulance with
salmonella kisses for
donkey-faced driver named Despair.

This shit wins a Pulitzer.

All hail the crap poet!
She blogs a free verse broadside twenty-eight miles wide
and ten feet tall.
It takes her five hundred followers two and a half seconds
to skim carefully down it all.

"Brilliant! Brilliant!" they cry.
"Here's mine!"

Crap poet soar!
Crap poet shine!
Within the year she is declared
Divine.
______

for dverse open link #64, hosted by the preternaturally talented Hedgewitch, a.k.a. my BFF!  

 

 

Thoughts From A Walk In The Blue Dawn

I received a letter from my own near future,
and it said
oh,
girl,
oh.

I made a poem upon a window pane,
but I drew it
slow
so
slow.

Hurry Autumn, hurry love--
I so seldom feel beautiful at all;
I've no idea what I've been thinking of,
or who that is that
calls
and 
calls.
_____

"Flowers" by GoldenMistPoet

"Flowers" by GoldenMistPoet

My garden explodes with much the petals, happening

Image! To colorful, the sun on its bicycle

Rides rainbow unicorns.

My heart the popping wow with rivers of passion...

Truck!

Elephant!

Oh, disease of love!
_____

(This poem is linked with Palsied Poets' Prank Phone Call, Jumble Word Head Injury, Sex With Llamas day 4, and Poetry Poop week 79.)

Comments:

Pink Eye said: This is fantastic! Here's mine: http://mymonkeyfacedkids.blogspot/ode-to-jello

Mist My Plants said: Great to see you at Jumble Word Head Injury!  

Prinjit Bollywoody said: So the good! How much dowry are offering does?

TooMuchSugar said: Wowwwwwwww!!!! OmGGGGG!!!! FanTAStic!

Prof. Richard Hedd Phd said: The allegory here is weak, and the exposition is dreadful. Please sign up for my fifty part instructional seminar. Syllabus and rates available at my blog Smog Balloon. Sign up and receive a complimentary embossed gold-leaf copy of my poem "From Whence The Trumpet Of Triton Blows", my epic poem which was published in the October, 1967 edition of Smudge College English Department Notes, pp 47-92.

YinYangGangsta said: thank for your coment at my blog. Yours is relly good!

Loboto-Me said: I like unicorns.  I believe they are real.

My Lips Hurt said: nice...smiles....kind of, i dunno....flowery...smiles...

Tom the Troll said: hi. r u into rubber fetish?

KickMe said: I read this and cried! it is the most beautiful thing I've ever read in my life! I even showed it to Weepy, my parakeet! We both cried! Then we read the back of a cereal box and cried! Wow!

There's Something In My Ear said: You continue to amaze me. This is just so brilliant and deep.

Fair Is Wheel said: I think that when you talk about rivers, you really mean roto-tillers, because your writing really gets below the surface. Or maybe you mean rapids or rabbits or something.  Or maybe you just need to pee.

Mirror Ball said: this is about me, isn't it?

They're Coming To Take Me Away said: Each brilliant line of this makes me shiver with delight. Email me. I want you to join my Writers' Gulag. Aliens stole my spleen. Try my meme!

Rhyme Time said: cat. hat. shat. haha.

Oldfatguy said: is that your real picture?

Jumble said: Very moving and heartfelt. I didn't really read it though.

Fireblossom said: this comment has been removed by a blog administrator
_______
 

The Last Thylacine

When you told me you had gotten married,
I thought about the last thylacine.

Isn't that just like me?
You, who once knew me so well,
Know it is.

In eight years, a lot of things change.
There are always more dingoes,
More hunters,
More outlet malls, all the same.

Normalcy eludes me--
Me, with the stripes on my back.
Maybe I saw things that were not there,
Like desire in return,
Or other thylacines.

Maybe I only embarrassed you,
Or myself,
But I always believed you rarer
Than you ever turned out to be.

So, when you told me you had gotten married,
I thought, of course...
Of course you did;
And if, in time, I cried, it was not for you,
But for the last thylacine.
______

Message In A Bottle

whether,
by now,
i am bleached blonde or bleached bones--

whether i'm in the arms of the captain's wife
or never found my way home--

there is this,
and you,
in the slant-glance of the setting sun,
reading what i wrote in my extremity.

the ocean waters tried,
battering the glass skin i wrapped this in,
caught within its vastness--
in but not of all that flotsam and jetsam,

riding in a blown bubble of air.
the simple truth is that i couldn't bear
for my children to drown
and so i rolled them down a neck that could not speak--

here is a love poem written by a woman alone.
it is one of many--
what else did i have to do on my own?
no woman
no man
only my own two hands, and a will to be heard.

_______

for Ella's Edge at Real Toads. "SOS to the world"

 

 
 

New Girl

Hi. I'm the new girl.

Are you gonna finish that salad? 

I heard about this take-out place, and they made salads from lettuce that grew where all these deer were coming by and crapping on it, and people got, like, botulism or something. They puked and had to go in the hospital and stuff. It was gross.

So is it working?

Well, I just assumed you're dieting. Aren't you? I never diet. I can, like, OD on chocolate pie til I'm cross eyed and never gain an ounce. I'd kill myself if I was fat. I mean, that's just me. I like fat people. They're like, jolly, and don't care what they wear, and I think that's very freeing.

Is this a picture of your husband? Wow, he looks a lot younger than you! He's really handsome. Been married long?

Does he work here? Hey, it was just a question.

I love your hair. That retro look is so popular now.

So, you probably know all the ins and outs, right? If I had been here half as long as you, I'd be running the place. But they'd probably fire me for vericose veins or something. Ha! That was a joke!

Wow, you're really not that jolly, are you?

Well, of course you've got work to do! I thought I could help you. What's this junk? Oh, was that in some kind of special order or something? Oops!

Hey look, I'm sorry. Seriously. Let's be friends. I'd really like us to--

Oh, that's my phone. I have to take this. 

Sorry that took so long. I think I've got a cramp in my ass from sitting on your desk! 

Well, I better run. Oh my gosh, you have such a pretty smile! Anyhoo, don't be a stranger, Tammy. Okay, sorry, Tanya. New girl, what can I say? 

Toodles!

(walking away) What a bitch! 

_______ 

for trifecta week 30. 314 words. key word "new."

Medieval

There's no need to go all medieval on my ass.
No need to fetch out your thumbscrews if my hemline's a little high.

Suit yourself, summon your churchman, he's a fine one.
He's fit to burst, and all I've got to say is that a tonsure and Latin texts
Never made any girl give it up.

Yes, I was at the May fair.
My little son ran ahead of me, laughing at the stilt walkers
And the fire eaters.

Later, I held him by the hand,
Until he begged to be carried. When I settled him against my hip,
He was as hot as a dying star.

I ran home, calling to my husband to bring water,
But he was already dead upon the straw bed,
And my other darling did the same under a red moon that night.

Heave your battle axe and split this stone--
Inside, you will find my heart,
For all the good it will ever do you.

I have been with a thousand men,
Including your churchman, who I made pay me double.
You, I'll do for free, just to give you the French disease.

There's no need to go all medieval on my ass.
I am already damned for all time, not because I've whored,
But because I loved.
_______

for Real Toads photo challenge, featuring the fab Mama Zen. The photograph is hers.

Miss January

Miss January leaves her
summer heart
in her boho bag
on the fucking credenza
in the corporate apartment,
and so she has to make do.

At Philippe's,
she is the coldshock girl
at the VIP party
with the killer kiss
and the sweet side shave.

Sleet is the new sincere,
blue the new red,
freeze-blistered the new happy;
kick the bum,
be the face,
don't forget the swag.

Mail

Dearest Heart,


Darling Mine...

I am picturing you, wearing your dragon kimono, with your dark curls tied loosely back, carelessly, beautifully, standing in your doorway where the yellow forsythia appears every Spring,

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You could break my heart, you know, just standing there, fanning out the bills and ads, but with that look on your face that you get when you're unaware of yourself; the look that expects something pleasing, something nice, to happen at any given moment...

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My love, how you won my affection with that, from the very beginning. And now, I will be the one to ruin it all. Now that what I feel is so much more than affection, more than desire...more than I can bear, anymore, because you have become so indescribably precious to me.

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You have always been the one to see what I never could, by myself, and to believe that I was so many admirable things that no one else ever had. Now, my only one, you will see that I am owned by others, and heartless, and not even worth hating.

VOTE BOB McDUFFY CITY COUNCIL, A VOTE FOR BOB IS A VOTE FOR SENSIBLE CITY GOVERNMENT. PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF BOB McDUFFY


You know what the price would be, for us to make a life together. You would do it, I know; you would fight anyone, even put yourself between the world and me, if I asked you to. Oh honey, I will tear myself to pieces writing this, and doing this to you. By the time you hold this letter in your hands, the hands that can make me tremble even in memory, I will be gone. I will do what is expected of me, live the life that has been planned out for me, and I will do all of it with a dead heart. I will be called fine, and proper, and pleasing, but what I will be is hollow and weak.

CALL FOR A FREE ESTIMATE ON GUTTERS AND SIDING! WE HAVE WHOLESALE PRICING AND EASY FINANCING, ALSO WINDOWS AND FENCING. SUMMER IS COMING, MAKE YOUR HOME A SHOW PIECE, CALL NOW OR VISIT US ON LINE!


In my life, I will only, ever, love you. I am so, so sorry. I leave my heart and all that is best in me, here, with you, though I don't expect that to mean anything, after all I have just done and said to you. I am a coward, but I do love you, and always will.


Sarah

_____


for dverse patterns pictures and poems


top photograph by James Rainsford. Bottom photograph by Robert Holden.

 

The Healing

I spread five fingers and five seasons came;
I kept the one that had no name.

I closed them 'round the stepchild month;
She felt like love when love is done.

I stuffed the lost one in my mouth,
And spoke things scratching to get out.

The Gypsy wrapped around my eyes,
And by blue evening I was blind.

She wormed her way into my ear,
And whispered quite like you, my dear.

She burrowed deep into my brain,
Sweet and sharp like blade and cane.

But when the sweet bitch found my heart,
She bit and sealed the broken part.

_______

Optional musical accompaniment.

Nice

Nice to see you again.
Nice like slamming the door on my hand,
Nice like cramps,
Nice like kiss my ass.

I wish I had back every word I ever said to you,
So that I could eat them,
So that I could shit them smack in the middle of that sanctimonious crap you call sobriety.

Nice to know you're alive.
Nice like a stick in the eye,
Nice like fuck off and die.

Thought I'd forgive and forget?
Fat chance.
Nice try.
Love was the drug,
But hate is the high.
______