Dollies

 Mama dress you all in lace

smack you hard across the face

loves to seem so fair and fine

serves your dollies turpentine

Daddy left by fast express

to take up with a baroness

who cries because her roses died

watered with formaldehyde

Chalking signs on sidewalk blocks

a bloody hen, a happy fox

when it rains the neighbors say

the chalk sticks rise and walk away

Now you're grown with one desire

to set your mama's house on fire

and dance across the blackened beams

to serve your dollies cakes and creams.

Don't Clown on the Waitress

 

Don't clown on the waitress, fool.

She writes in hieroglyphs on a pad made of stardust.

One click of her pen can make you shudder and drool

sucking like a baby on a bread crust.

She takes breakfast orders; the cook creates worlds.

Order an egg and it evolves right on your plate.

Don't clown on the waitress; she's a woman not a girl--

in your orbit, never still, never simple, never late.

Don't pick at the sugar packets or leave your napkin in a wad.

You're going to have to finesse it--no menu, no calorie chart.

Museums will bid on your bacon, at auctions with a nod--

Don't clown on her, just appreciate that you cannot hurry art!

______________

for Word Garden Word List--The Rosie Project. 

Wedding Song

 

Please buy me a rose of bridal white

placed in a vase of anthracite

Wear your suit of wool and flint

and on my tongue a peppermint.

Please buy me a rose of pleasing pink

placed in the pool to turn and sink

Bring the singer who loves the blues

and bury her bones beneath the pews.

Please buy me a rose of funeral black

buy me a dozen, all in a stack

Make the ring from a hangman's rope

Invite the judge, the devil, the Pope.

Please buy me a rose of brilliant red

and remind me you did until I'm dead

Bake the cake with sugar and tar

and preserve my heart in a Mason jar.

________

for Word Harden Word List--Ishmael Reed

Seaside Jump Rope Chant

 

Take me down to ocean side

where sirens work in vending stalls

selling sea glass by the pound

and tide crabs leave their gazing balls.

I was young once, for an instant

and strewed my bones with bright confetti

made myself a red flag flying

as storm surge overtopped the jetty.

I married well, a starfish navvy

who built the seaside park their Ferris

They paid his labor with box jellies

who by their envy made him perish.

I asked the sirens for a chocolate

to hide from gulls who ate the season

when I was halfway into evening

and honey sunset let the bees in.

Take me down to ocean side

bring the digger in common clothes

to move the sand and move me on

in my folded-handed pose.

________

Christening

 

By the lake there's a bakery that's sinking

and the lilies wear wimples all fall

they'll sell you croquettes of your bitter regrets

that can no longer hurt you at all.

When the moon sells its light to a lady

as a gift for her children to break

you'll hear their laughter for all the years after

until it dies down to an ache.

When everything dies in November,

a baby is found in the reeds

with such a fair face that you'll long to embrace

its body of riverbank weeds.

You'll declare yourself poet in a graveyard

emblazoned with roses and jade,

then you'll write a sonnet with the world scratched on it

and die in the bed that you've made. 

_________

 

Nursery Rhyme

 There were devils

present at my birth

and veiled angels

in smoky violet shirts

with handbells

they'd stolen out of Hell.

Who is the coward

that devils teach to curse

holding Hope out in a teacup

but overturn it first?

A fool's sun

wanes fast, warms none.

See the rose stem

my assassin's throat was vase for

so that every imprecation

that's spoken only makes more

melodies

across my garden's leaves.

Angels kept my heart

in a box with golden hinges

carried by a devil

on its back with burning cinches

in tandem served--

my hidden heart preserved. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Stephen Crane

Music: Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa "I'll Take Care of You"

Black Jaye

He said, "Black Jaye, when you strike a match

you so quickly shake it out

as if each time you find you're with,

you long to be without."

I can't spare love for the Promenade

where searchlights cut the sky.

I paint my dreams in a bed of wheat

growing golden four feet high.

"Black Jaye," he said, "so small and slight

with your scarves of indigo,

why do you sing in Quebecois

telling no one where you go?"

Down by the shore, down by the sea

I loose my hair and call

to bones of birds all crossed and cursed

to stop me if I fall. 

________________

Lilies On The Altar

There are lilies on the altar
a bride in vintage lace
a crow out on the church steps
keen to get inside the place.

The priest is in the sacristy
his thumb is on the verse
that tells him how to break the host,
the family line, the curse.

There are lilies on the altar
a bridesmaid feeling sick
folding origami lilies
she'll burn like candle wicks.

There are lilies for the flower girl
now five winters old.
She calls the crow who calls the bride
who pales at what she's told.

The groom is ill, the priest is dead
with lilies in his hand.
The crow returns, the church roof burns
and publishes the banns.
_________

Incantesimo

In a cage with bars of foxfire,

I kept an apparition who claimed

to have made, from flax and piano wire

your nom de guerre, your midnight name.

"Tell me, moonless one, " I said,

"Sunless, starless nattering ghost,

Is there gravity for the dead?

A superseding circle outermost?"

She moaned and split to sugar and salt

identical in paleness to your kiss,

and offered a platitude neatly got

from a serpent poisoned with nothingness.

I burnt a root and bled a bird,

a canary-colored silent fake

whose solitude was ringed by words

that only my love or the damned could make. 

______

for Skylover's word list.

Rosary

I wear a rosary, five decades long
around my neck--all summer, all winter. 
I keep it close--you can't touch the beads without touching my skin
or occasional sidewalk seraphim.

I've got a thousand faces, wigs on wire stands
kept at the bottom of a duffel--in the closet at the back of my skull.
Choose one, kiss me, wrap a strand around your knuckle
and behold me--raving beauty, former flame, ordinary uggo. 

Water, blessed, still and calm
for angel or centurion--
bless dawn, bless noon, bless sprays of stars
and all that were and all that are.

I've got a lineage, five mothers long
around my neck--all summer, all winter. 
I'm the little girl made of snow, the bride in the vestibule gartered, veiled,
given away--then gone through a dream door, armored, mailed. 

I speak a thousand tongues, Latin and patois
tell scalding truths--in solitude, under storm and palm--
I'm the girl next door, a holy whore, a musical prodigy without instrument
or tenets, a wild child--your pass around pack, your sacrament.

Water, blessed, still and calm
for angel or centurion--
bless dawn, bless noon, bless spray of stars
and all that were and all that are.
_______

For Brendan's multiplicity prompt at Toads on Day 4.

Bell The Cat

Bell the cat, bolt the door, burn the welcome mat.
Shade the sun, don't tell anyone, and when you're done with that,
 
 
Tongue the bell as magpies coin the language she'd have licked
the honey from, til day is done and drowsed and silly and sick;

 
Promise her you love her more than Terpsichore and then
her fading scent will pay the rent when she has gone again.
______

 

 

 

Rope 'Round A Heart

Rope 'round a heart
and the bell swings one--
a kiss like that isn't fooling anyone.

Rope 'round a heart
and the bell swings two-
one for the beggar man who watches you.

Three bell, four bell, five bell, six--
Nuns in the alleyway say mox nix

To you and your seven rope,
you and your eight--

Rope 'round a heart
and the gibbet bell prate.
______

Dolly

You dismiss us;
me and Dolly.
"Run along to your room," you say.
"Stay there...all night. All day."

You think we don't know
that you crawl with every loathsome perversion
of flesh and spirit.
You believe that Dolly and I don't see it.

Fine. We will whisper over our tea set,
cups as delicate as a veneer.
We'll discuss you, you know, and send anonymous notes
to Mrs. Muffington, the police, and in the pockets of strangers' coats.

Dolly says your lungs are weak.
You stumble when you walk. Cough when you speak.
"Hello," we'll say, "Hello, what's this?"
as you lie on the floor we'll give you a kiss.

Dismiss us once more.
Wave your hand airily.
Say, "Go talk to your doll!"
but...

my doll talks to me.
______
 

Friend Jane

Look, friend Jane, for a wishing star
stuck in the sky like a dime in tar;
Tell that star what you won't tell mother,
tell what we tell, only to each other.

Wish star,
wish star,
Imhotep and Ishtar,
Nile crocodile keep this secret safe!

Oh, friend Jane, tell me what did you wish?
swear on a little finger, seal with a kiss;
meetcha by the rail fence, meetcha by the moon,
mother make the evil eye when she sees you.

Wish star,
wish star,
Imhotep and Ishtar,
Nile Crocodile keep this secret safe!

Now, friend Jane, I know what you said,
mother's at the bottom of the stairs stone dead;
moon on the pond water, stars in the sky,
mother's eyes are open but she's blind, Jane, blind. 

______

for the mini-challenge.

From A Sugar Bowl Womb

From a sugar bowl womb,
came the World's Sweetest Girl--
Me.

I'm like a vision at lake side,
talking rot to the swans--
and oh how I do go 
on
and
on.

I am formed of the frilly, the feminine, the fine--
thanks to old Daddy down the anthracite mine.

One step,
two step,
three step, five;
I'm made out of honey from an old bee hive.
Work bee, 
fly bee,
sleep bee, then
sink that stinger if he tries it again.

Church on Sunday, Monday do the wash.
See if it sticks or scrubs right off.
Do you think I'm pretty?
Everybody does--

ask around,
ask Alice,
ask sweetly,
ask the swans.
___________

Neptune's Time Share

Neptune sold his time share.
Now he runs a riding stable in upstate New York.
Venus can't pull off those young fashions anymore
without looking a little desperate,
and Janus got a gig as a doorman in Miami--
he can scan both sides of the street for a cab.
 
Diana and Egeria are lavender girls, if you know what I mean;
best friends, my ass.
Survey says, Vulcan and Vesta can't keep burning it up forever,
but somebody's got to make up for Minerva,
always studying for another Master's.

Remember when we used to chant:
Boys go to Jupiter
to get more stupider;
girls go to Mars
to get more candy bars.

Ceres is knocked up again.
I guess going vegan didn't slow her down a bit.
And Apollo, wellll, Apollo....
who knew he could lie like that?
He had us all fooled and now he'll do a dime up at Jackson.

I bought Neptune's time share
from the silly fucks who got it from him.
Now I get my two weeks,
but it won't be like it was when your skin was dark and shining.

The lake is frozen,
you spun some shit about having to work,
and so what do I do now--
now that I know that even an off-season goddess
is just another dumb girl after all?
________

for Hannah's challenge at Real Toads. "Lavender girls" (and "twilight girls") was pulp novel code for lesbians, back in the day.

Kiss The Scarecrow

Kiss the scarecrow.
Go on,
you've waited all year for this.

Through mincing, droolmouth springtime.
Through a summer of blindlight hiss.
Girl, go kiss that scarecrow.
For the hit, for the high, for this.

Mama found nine black feathers
in your sheets, your skin, your head.
She slapped you smart with an open fist;
next thing, Mama's dead.

Kiss the scarecrow.
Go on,
step quick between the stalks.

Start from the porch where the black bell hangs.
Cat's cradle noose in the dark.
Girl, go kiss that scarecrow.
Til it tremble, til it burn, til it talk.
______

Image from weheartit.com. Inspiration from mood wings.

  

Spring Forward

Take an hour from the morning,
pick a peach from the pile;
one kiss from the courtship,
one foot from the mile--

Eve took an apple, said it wasn't very much.
Eve took an apple, said thank you very much;
now I know how it goes
and see how it is--
He just don't like me taking anything of His.

Take an hour from the night,
won't get it back soon;
poison in the peach pit,
crazy in the moon.

Eve took an apple from a serpent in a tree.
Serpent had an angle, that's some geometry.
Eve ate the fruit,
tossed away the core--
if you want to see some skin, that'll cost a little more.

Take a peach from the pile
and the whole stack roll;
gonna make you pay forever for the hour that you stole.
One kiss more, one kiss less,
stay for the dance
then take back the dress.

Eve tried the cider that she got from the well.
If Adam gonna watch, then she make him wear a bell.
Snake bit the man,
bird caught the snake--
cat catch the bird and give a little shake.

Take a dime on the dollar
and a foot for the mile;
get a little somepin somepin
just for a while.

Eve take an hour from the hourglass round,
Eve leave Eden say I'll see you around.
Adam write the book
with a broad brush black--
write all you want, but it won't bring her back.
_______

for Real Toads.

clock art by Vandy Massey. 
 

 

 

Doll's Eye Lullaby

Deep in the shadow of the baneberry leaves,
hide in the doll's eyes all unseen.
China doll, rag doll, sitting down to tea.

China doll, rag doll, sitting all alone.
Girl with the sweet tooth never came home.

I blamed the moon.
Dollies blamed me.
One girl still beneath the baneberry leaves.
_____

a flowa poem for Kerry at Toads, and a 55 (counting the title) for G Man.

 
 

santeria sixpence

One Fury,
One Fate,
One Muse smoking by the garden gate.

Black bird,
love bird,
one on a perch--
other in the sweet ground, buried in the earth.

Do you ever get the urge to boil up a root?
Brown on the surface--
inside, blue.

Do you ever take a mind to shake a purple gourd?
A kiss for the curious,
lies for the Lord.

One card, two cards, three cards, four--
Aunt Annie likes diamonds,
hearts turn whores.

Five cards, six cards, seven cards, eight--
gone bird and baby
by the garden gate.
_________

for grapeling's word list at Real Toads