Poets' Bento Box

 I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell--

a bento box where our lines were laid.

I dug our grave with a silver spade

but then in a dream, a kiss delayed

like a sweetly sorrowful gift from Hell-- 

I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell.

_______________

a triolet for Word Garden Word List--The Return of Ellie Black

TLDR:

Dave Van Ronk, in the song Motherless Children, sings these lines:

Dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade

make damn sure that the digger gets paid

He also does a song Old Blue about a beloved dog who dies. He sings:

I dug his grave with a silver spade

lowered him down with a golden chain

I kind of combined the two in my triolet, which is not about motherlessness or dogs, but is about an old relationship. The bento box denotes the compartmentalization of it. 

In the 19th century, there was a great fear of premature burial. A solution was offered in the form of "safety" coffins, which had a bell above ground attached to a string underground and placed in the corpse's hand. In the event of premature burial, the person could ring the bell to summon help.

Finally--and my process notes are now quite a bit longer than my triolet!--I had a dream recently that a person I had put out of my mind came to me and kissed me tenderly on the cheek, bringing back old feelings, if only in that moment. A paper bell, if you will. 

Music: Elton John Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding

Coffee Can Cosmos Can-Can

I wrap myself around a stem,

serpentine.

A green throat waving, a 

Chinatown

dragon

but its teeth are on the leaves

to devour 

the sun,

and here I am 

in my taxi yellow dress with black frilled cuffs

a vagabond imposter,

a fool in the sky.

The Tiger Moth and I shared a womb,

our mother

a razor blade in an oxblood robe,

sash tied off like a wound.

Colorful sister, 

displayer of dialects across each wing,

our delirium

has made us.

Look at the dough-ghosts jeering

as they

sag in a bag of ashes.

Shine, inventing parlance with every flutter.

I wrap myself around the wolfs-bane,

my house a blue

roof over

green walls.

I carry solace sticks in a wicker basket,

tincture of Tiger Moth,

and false sun for pale children slate-stone weary.

I slip into the sky

as if it were a jersey

a Merino

atmosphere

that needs me, like you need me

though you don't know it yet,

poor cold

baby,

mon pauvre petit ange!

______

a second poem for Word Garden Word List--A Season In Hell.

Image at top: Clémence Poésy 

Music: The Rolling Stones "She Comes In Colors" 

Visions of Code-y

 

Sitting in a coffee bar, I was hit on by a Kerouac simulation.

I am the nightbird genius mix, said FauxJack,

clearly hopped up on lollipops. 

Do tell, said I. 

So babe, what's on your emotional jukebox?

Some kind of dubious doo-wah Dada bop?

Maybe.

You're like smoke, there's rise in your eyes.

And you try too hard.

Auughh! Gutshot, right in the LOLcode. Want me to fade?

No, as a matter of fat, I've read all your graphic novels, FakeJay.

You're a real Ker-Ker-Karma Chameleon.

They call me Cat George, mama. Imma thicc throwback skellychaser!

You don't say.

Don't armadillo me, hard candy. 

This is love-a-rooni, jive jazz Nirvanaville, hep kitty.

Hep. Oh, I like that.

The double yellow asphalt ribbon is callin', Gypsy Rose.

To-go that java and jump immediate!

You're on, daddy.

Ergo the ersatz ecstasy, holo-hipster. 

Aw Athena, now you're blowin' a sweet riff! 

That's me, Riff Tin Tin. Awoooooooo!

You are off the leash! 

Faux man go. Let's split before the squares hack your dome, Jack.

____________

for Word Garden Word List--Janis Ian. 

Music: Eddie Harris Sham Time

Sonya's Tale Of Rasputin

My sister is older than me,
by over a hundred years;
Daddy a dynamo, prolific,
with new wives as often as new cars.

Sis's name is Sonya,
and she spoke to me, 
not a year after she died.
My tea had gone cold on the night table,
and so she brought a samovar and a tale to tell,
waking me with a kiss. 

Being kissed by ghosts may be a Russian thing,
like the men getting drunk, or the inevitable failure of the collectives.
I patted the bed and we sat together,
like reindeer waiting to pull the sleigh of a midnight fable.
Finally, Sonya began.

"I met Grigori Rasputin in a barn when I was 17.
He was asleep, slack-jawed in late morning half-light,
the motes spinning lazily around him like stars. 
The Russian cross he wore
and the vodka bottle he cradled
both shone as if they had souls of their own."

I propped myself up with an elbow and listened.

"There are ways and there are ways, little sparrow," Sonya went on.
"Labor is productive, prayer is powerful.
But sometimes the breeze stirs the leaves just as if they were barynya dancers. 
All I did was set my bucket down and join him--a breeze myself--
and he showed me how God created the world."

I said, "They say he stank. That he was insane!
How could you--"

"Pochemuchka," my sister whispered, 
"Madness is essentially Russian. Without that,
without hallucinations in our blood, how could we endure the winter?
And he smelled only of straw,
holiness, and masculine vigor."

Sonya smiled then.
"Little One, do you remember my oldest,
the sandy-haired one, my poet who died on the battlefield in 1915?
Of course you wouldn't. I forget how young you are."
She looked far away for a moment, even for a ghost.
"He had the gift.
The same one you have,
a closeness with the spirit world, and an appetite for everything."

The tea was gone.
Even here, dawn arrives eventually.
Sonya finished her story, saying,
"I warned Grigori to beware
of cakes, aristocrats, bullets, and wide cold waters. 
He laughed, his big bearded head thrown back,
a booming laugh like a fireball landing in a Siberian forest.
He told me he already knew."

With that, Sonya was gone.
Our old one-eyed rooster crowed outside in the yard.
I sat up, pushing my long hair back with my fingers,
and collected my coat, scarf, and ice skates.
Out, then, to the pond where a local fox keeps her den full of kits,
watching my every move.
I spread my arms out to glide, easy as branches in a breeze,
not needing to lay eyes on her to know, 
just the same, 
that she is there. 
________

for Out of Standard at Toads

pochemuchka--a child who asks a lot of questions

barynya--traditional "Cossack Dance" featuring the prisyadka, or knee-bend. 

Death and Night

Death and Night were obliged to share a room after their brother, Morning, was born.

Death sat smoking a cigarette, bad-mouthing Morning. "Fuck that little bastard. They think the sun shines out of his ass." 

"Did you wear my black sweater again, bitch?" asked Night, fuming. The neck is all stretched to shit." Frowning, she tossed it on the bed.

"Well excuse me, Your Highness," drawled Death. "See if I ever loan you a tampon again." 

Death and Night were sisters, but while Night was always being invited to every soiree, Death only got random attention from tubercular poets who thought she was a Goth.

"Morning, you little ray of sunshine, come in here and let your sissy give you a nice hug."

"Piss off, Death." 

Death ignored him and dragged on her ciggie. "I think I'm adopted," she complained to Night. And fuck your stupid sweater. Things aren't meant to last forever, yanno."

Night was too busy smearing moisturizer onto her skin to answer, obsessed as always with her sensitivity to sunlight and her insomnia.

Death and Night were sisters. Night was beautiful and mysterious. Their brother Morning was the very definition of youthful charm. As for Death, people avoided her and said she smelled bad. She got fired from Lowe's for making all the flowers wilt. It's sad, but there it is. As soon as Night left to go take a shower, Death picked up her black sweater and pulled furiously at it, really fucking it up good. Then she sat down, lit another cigarette, and smiled like a serene-ass Madonna in a painting.
_________ 

for the mini-challenge.

Chinese Box

The restaurant was a Chinese box.
My order was wrong,
then right,
then wrong again.

The waiters were men,
then women,
then men.

You were angry with me,
then not;
then you weren't you, or at least,
didn't seem to be.

An alchemist came and turned the soup to stone,
the stone to a poem,
together to alone,
despite all assurances printed on the menu card.

Lunch for 2.
Dinner for 4.
In your hand an apple,
then nothing; then a core.

I said, "My love...my love...my love...my love...."
as I dug with my fingers all the way through the world,
to find a hard queen, a woman dissolved
in your eye looking back saying, "Now what, girl?"
_______

For "Play It Again, Toads" at The Imaginary Garden. I was inspired by the image at top, which is by my dear friend Daryl Edelstein, and also by the image below, which was taken by Karin Gustafson.

 Optional--and quite insane--musical accompaniment.