Conspicuous Christians

 

The conspicuous Christians

fill 4 booths and keep the waitress hopping.

12 adults

5 young children needing highchairs in the aisle

17 orders, all different

5 special requests

2 plates sent back

1 spilled coffee

separate checks. please.

After an hour, they leave

dishes, napkins, crayons, sticky syrup spots,

and

1 tract

with

2 crisp 1 dollar bills tucked neatly inside. 

_____

Two Sharks

 

I have two sharks inside me

swimming in tandem and holding my heart

between them like a little family 

walking in the dark.

I send them gulps of air from outside

as if I were some sort of oxygenated charity

with a face and feet, operating in the world

on their behalf like a proxy or prosthetic.

Oh fishies, confined and angry in the bowl of my ribs,

here come those old blues again.

Why does life go on so long, demand so much,

slowly dribbling out the cracked glass of years?

I have had ideas all along, fine ideas

to open a ministry in a dumpster,

a ballroom in an attic, a cemetery 

on a space station with the whole Earth for Ouija board.

I'm scared, fishies. Will the moon call you

and will you answer her tidal madrigal?

Will she require three voices, you and my heart?

Will you rise in glory, leaving me hollow, in salt and sorrow?

_________________

for Word Garden Word List--How To Sell a Haunted House

Conversant Animals In Stovepipe Hats

 In those days,

the skies were closer--

God peered down from nearer by

still tinkering.

Animals had names

and wore stovepipe hats

or tam o' shanters in various shades

and could speak.

Why tell us this

now, when vipers emerge

from every apple, with tongues

hollow and stiff?

I wish to soothe

your two exhausted ears

and place fish there, in the waters

of your mind.

Here is the boat

and the cloaks of soft fabric

to wear on the decks on the sea on the sphere

spinning the tale

of us,

every moment,

even now.

_____

for Word Garden Word List--Immortal Poems

Music: Cream (lyrics by poet Peter Brown)  Deserted Cities of the Heart 

The Saints of 1962

 

It was summer, 1962

and I was seven years old. 

I loved our screen porch where my mother never came

except for meals in the berry-bush cicada evenings.

It was my father's domain, and mine.

He read his newspaper or did crosswords

with a ballgame on the radio.

I loved the march music at the opening and in the beer ads. 

Sometimes the weatherproof rug was a dance floor

for my dolls when my brother wasn't there to make fun. 

My main thing that summer, though

was my cards spread out on the old

table, retired from the kitchen, now the grand dame of the porch.

I had prayer cards--

Saint Anthony, Saint John Bosco, Theresa of Avila,

colorful as comic books, bright as the light of Heaven.

I had baseball cards--

Rocky Colavito, Cuno Barragan, Orlando Cepeda

with dark woody borders

and early 60's dark caps

they looked as if they played in perpetual shadows.

There was incense

in the form of my father's Dutch Masters cigar.

There were the sacraments

and the sacrifice bunt.

The saints seemed backlit, blessed by Divine Hollywood.

The players cards were sometimes misprinted with a

green-tinted background as if they were undersea.

I liked to mix them, shuffled and fanned out.

Saint Sebastian, patron of athletes, his foot

resting on the top step of the dugout, gesturing

his fielders into position

with a wave of his scorecard,

or by messages brought by angels.

Jim Bunning striking out the devil with a wicked side-arm fastball,

making Old Scratch look foolish

as the vendors call and the fans

cheer. Jim walks off the field in the sunshine, no shadow in sight.

I have forgotten which cards I had, mostly.

Who was the beer sponsor? Schlitz? Blatz?

What had I done that spring?

What did I do that fall? In summer 1962

my father and President Kennedy were alive 

and so were the saints and ballplayers

On the table

on the screen porch

in summer, 1962.

_____________

for What's Going On? "Forgetfulness"

Music: Gale Garnett We'll Sing in The Sunshine

And Detroit Tigers march music radio intro

Chorus

 Our Lady of the Golden Voice

who makes the shepherds howl

and leaves the clerics' eyes all moist

then gifts them salted towels

Oh Lady fair, oh Lady cruel

riding a treble clef

admit us to your Music School

to chisel loose each breath.

____

for quadrille Monday

hosted by Linda Lyberg

Nice

I tried to be nice,
but when I opened my mouth, ghosts on fire flew out.

People started calling me the Dragon Lady,
but the dragon was its own creature,
sitting inside my bones switching its tail.

I crawled inside of myself to see, and what I saw was this:
The dragon had no arms,
no legs,
no wings,
no spines,
but it had a heart and the heart was full of broken glass.

I tried to go back, but the dragon whispered in my ear,
offering a deal.
"Take my heart, make your womb a shell."
Nine months later I gave birth to a little bad tempered sun.

Everywhere I go, people call me Mother Light,
but they are shadows, and I can't find a real soul among them.
Kiss me;
me and my dragon.
We're lonely.

I tried to be nice, but my heart was a dragon's child,
and my mouth made ghosts on fire that no one could love,
though I wanted them to, so badly,
all the more for having no body, 
no face, 
no ash or angel that I could call my own.
_______

 
 

the lock

There is a small lock inside me,
kept close between my ever-folded
ever-hidden
falcon wings,

and it keeps beating,
keeps keeping me here,
bless it.
Bless its tireless devotion to this life I've made

from scraps and blood, sugar and hope.
I don't think I'll see the summer again,
but I remember her as she was when I was young--
long, careless, cicada-buzzed and deep.

What have I done, with all the cloud-changed hours?
Have I loved you?
I have.
Have I told you?
Yes, constantly and every chance I got.

I want to finish this book, and then one more.
I want to enjoy a few more meals.
I want to see these mighty snows made meek and melted.
I will miss my dog, but he will rejoin me in time.

The falcon inside me is worrying the ties
that keep the lock in place.
I can feel her working, and the sky, waiting.
It will be all right.

If I am a little bit melancholy, it is because I am surprised,
astonished, really,
to feel the catch loosening
and I wonder what it will be like, when the door swings out,

and I leave this place for home.
______

 

 

green shirt

I like your green shirt.
You wear it out at your hips,
and undone at your throat
to the perfect balance between promise and secrecy.

I like your glasses.
Your dark hair sometimes rests on the place
where the bow meets the frame,
and curves around it in a way that just undoes me.

Though I love them on you,
how I long to remove your shirt,
--gently--
your glasses
--gently--
with fingertips and long kisses.

Tonight my sleep will be slow in coming,
for thinking of you, your name, and these desires.
Then, in the silent hour, I will dream of pine forests
and streams that bend to reflect the stars.
_______

 

shhh

Shhh.

be still.

Curl and breathe,

turn heart's blood rich,

never minding the

tiny mote in the flesh,

so small, but more powerful

than all, a shadow that will fill

and then destroy its fragile cocoon.

Shhh, be still, be perch for dark butterflies.

__________

an etheree poem for my Witchy BFF.