Weebles

 

Remembering my dollhouse,

full of thalidomide Weebles, armless, legless

and sleepless as well--always upright,

awake all night wandering the rooms.

No use locking the doors or pulling the shades--

the entire back of the house open to flood and tornado.

The whole place an ossuary--urn your keep, Weebs.

And me, Queen of the whole shebang, a six-year-old Persephone.

No surprise, then, to find me in new adulthood,

still covered with the vernix of near-innocence,

living on tuna fish and rainwater, perched

in the henhouse on my hope chest, waiting.

That was when you appeared, rising like a helium balloon,

floating in place beneath the crude umbraculum

with a censer in one hand and a lily in the other,

in full Papal costume, my real-life Weeble-God. 

We fed each other party crackers and absinthe,

le fee verte, "The Green Fairy," faux artists in our henhouse garret. 

Our flock all turned from Rhode island Reds to common crows.

We are a House that cannot be toppled, like Weebles ourselves,

though the giant half-grown bitch beyond the open back wall

keeps trying to poke us, smoke us out, or otherwise tamper

with our great love and legacy--hers if only she would pause,

consider, and accept us as deities. cast in plastic and immortal.

_______________

for Word Garden Word List--Four-Legged Girl

Music: Van Halen Little Dreamer

 

Lightning Bugs In July Darkness

Lightning bugs in July darkness
make me think of your Indian hair by firelight.
It's like being hit in the head, these tiny stars--
this pleasant longing with a barb on its tail.

Air is a funny thing, especially at night.
Like you, it seems expansive while obscuring entire worlds.
I need wings to keep from falling, writing poems on foolscap
about you, and eyes that can't help but follow 

The foxfire there-and-gone glow of lightning bugs
In July darkness.
_____

for Wednesday Muse "Night Sounds." I see now that I have written about a night sight instead and hope to be pardoned this departure from clear instruction. 

Sunset On The Cul De Sac

A pestilence took Jenny.

Our dolls' heads puked and did 360's.

Dad dumped Mom.

Bitches blew up his phone.

Kool Kat said,  pulp Jenny for a spell book.

Sun Rayz got her period.

I had a cool scab.

Doctor Rover couldn't save Jenny.

Mom's on bath salts.

Cloe kissed me for practice.

Damn the mosquitoes. 

______

a bit of foolishness for day 20

and for my BFF's flash 55 party.

Remember This

Remember this,
When dolls start speaking to you from the nest stuffed deep
inside your own throat.
Remember vanity,
as worked by hand in the lace hem of a tiny dress;
Remember never to seat a Gypsy next to a mark,
and to preside with grace, charm, and engraved silver service.

Listen to this,
she'll say, from between the feathers of birds hooked by wires
to dying Christmas trees in burning houses.
Listen to this--don't be a ninny and ignore this warning
when she chirps in your ear like broken glass--
Baccarat or Waterford.

Girls love cats, horses, dolls,
and attics filled with bird cages and unexploded ordnance.
Listen to the water fountain my ghost animates the flow of,
and line up your darlings along the window sills.
Seat the priest with the diplomat,
Arabian with alley cat,
and remember this, as the afternoon wears on:
I owe no explanations as to what birds think about dolls that talk,
and the girls who take them to bed
like said prayers.
______ 

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.
______
 

Dumb Beasts

There was mud--
but that was far from the worst of it.
Hooves sank, jerked up, sank again--
flanks heaved, nostrils flared and burned like the air itself.

There was blood--
but that was not the worst of it.
Each time a shell exploded, limbs, ears, nerves, souls came apart,
ragged, absurd, destroyed, haunted forever.
The horse tried again but was held back,
leaving knots of red flesh on the barbs of the wire.

Horses, like men, find themselves where they find themselves,
but that is still not the worst of it.
This horse, caught in the wire, a round in its ribs, frothing, struggling,
could as easily have been cantering around a track in Kentucky
or pulling up clover in an Irish field.
Great men lighting cigars in gilded rooms saw to it being otherwise.

But listen to me.
That animal has rotted to white bone, along with its rider.
Any sunrise they ached to see has long since come and gone without them.
So here I am, standing in front of the house I grew up in--
I left bloody wads of myself caught on the twists of love and hate,
hope and despair that existed here,
but that is not the worst of it, either.

The worst of it is what I brought to my own child
in my panic, and in my pain.
I hope that armistice came soon enough.
God forgive me for carrying on traditions like these on the innocent,
and God bless the dumb beasts
who live only in the moment for their simple needs
and by doing so, prove their masters fools beyond all telling.
______

for Mama Zen's "Dear Past, Dear Future" challenge at Real Toads