Still Life w/ Cryptids

 

The fox with a layer in its mouth explained:

it is merely a totem,

a representation

or avatar,

but the hen's red throat 

called bullshit

as it died.

The women with stones in their pockets

were made lonely by the waters of the river.

They sang, their heavy diver's helmets ringing

with rare harmonics

hailed by critics

panned by pop fans

and made more difficult to understand

the further from the surface they sank.

Everyone said it would be the moon,

but it was the sun who went mad,

incinerating gardens in an afternoon.

Cosplay Aztecs

held up hearts

in their palms.

Please join us for the afterglow

with refreshments and a swag bag.

Everyone thought that the baby's first word

would be "Mama", but it was "Dada." 

Tristan Tzara's disciple Marcel Duchamp

 presented the child as a readymade

with orange tail

and silver helmet,

an artless objet d'art he named L.H.O.O.Q.

with enigmatic smile + mustache. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go. 

Music: DJ Dero The Horn (El Tren) Batucada'n Bass Mix

Kathy

 I felt bad, after

like a house of dirty windows

like my heart had hit a quicksand ditch going 90

and my ribs kept giving me a sharpwire bone-hug every time I breathed.

Kathy came by, 

crossed her arms

dipped her chin and said,

"Well don't you look like hammered crap."

Knowing I'm sober,

She goes, "Wanna get wasted?" 

and there's that shit-eating grin.

"Yeeeah," I tell her with a loud sniff and a lip twitch.

"Well you can't, stupid," she says.

Filling my coffee maker, she strings together some very inventive,

vile, and hilarious names for Ms. Thang until I finally snort and shake my head.

"You are one fine fucking mess

and more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" she says, tilting her head. 

I know that.

"And I love ya, ya goof."

I know that, too.

Then I am crying, and she is rocking, 

and the coffee maker burps and coughs like it might die, but doesn't. 

_________

for NaPoWriMo day 5. 

Remember the Maine

 

(My) lovers might last longer

I say to the dog, a philosopher of sorts himself,

were they more like Teddy Roosevelt

or even Alice. 

They'd look killing

in stiff collars

of khaki

or Irish lace.

Things are never the same

as they appear in the catolog.

Lovers are never as nice

when they want you to do crazy, perverse, upsetting things

like leaving the house.

That innocent carton

knows its milk will go bad, but won't say so.

It still wants to talk about forever,

especially at 3 a.m.

I always recommend blaming the Spanish

for any little thing that may happen to blow up.

You have such honest eyes,

such lovely hands when you take mine.

"Talk to me," you say,

in a voice as warm as Havana Harbor.

"Remember the Maine!" is what I say as you get up to pack,

but Teddy would have grinned

and Alice would have understood.

---------

Image: "Woman Standing In Doorway" by Albert de Belleroche (1864-1944)

Lioness On The Bus

There is a lioness on the bus.
She may want a transfer
if her needs lie elsewhere.

Passengers speculate as to how she arrived.
"On four legs," says some sk8ter dude.
He is now Swami of the 7th Avenue Line.

There is a lioness on the bus.
Nobody tries to perv her. 
She could chase down the passing bicyclist
but she can't open the window. 

If you see a lioness on the bus, it might be her.
She is pregnant. Offer her your seat.

Her eyes are golden. 
Her favorite poet is Lorca.
She wishes the signal bell were more musical,

and that it could be night.
_______

poem #8 of my 39 poems in 39 days. 

Dido

She's so proud of her jugs, but they're only full of wash water.
Who else would wear diadems and diaphanous gowns to do a load of colors?

She says she gets a weird high down there in the basement,
and tells the future to Pecky, miserable in his cage,
more fascinated with millet than prophecy.
The sun, to him, is a fairy tale;
the rattling furnace is as close to a tree as he'll ever get. 

God, I hate her. She's so nice, and so stupid.
Going through the pockets of her man's jeans, she pulls out a diamond
from among the phone numbers and weed dust.
She sticks it in her eye and starts speaking in tongues. 

For fuck's sake, the cycle's almost done,
her kid is howling upstairs because Thomas the motherfucking Tank Engine ended,
and now I have to pick up her slack while she la-dee-dah's around 
like a brain damaged nymph.
"Snap out of it!" I screech, and she blinks, then frowns,
then flips open the machine.

"When did you buy that?" I ask her. What about your precious jugs?
She waves her hand.
Her one diamond eye sparkles, the other looks vaguely up at the ceiling.
Pecky screams, apropos of nothing.
"Bless your heart," she says. 
The furnace kicks on.
Her dog comes down and circles three times, then shits next to the dryer.
"We're blessed," she adds as she hefts a plastic basket on her hip,
then turns and rises up the basement stairs 
like carbon monoxide inside a party balloon. 
_______

for Camera FLASH! at Toads.

Pas De Deux

The cat's always got your tongue,
but mine is loose by nature.
I had things I needed to say to you, and so I have included them
in private prayers by moonlight,
in court documents,
and mixed invisibly with sugar inside of envelopes sent via post.

I see you there,
on your front step, handing out the same bulimic claptrap to reporters
that's offered to your lovers in intimate moments.
You talk and talk, but say nothing--
the reporters starve, weaken, expire on the lawn, wondering how they failed.

I told a few lies, I admit.
Otherwise, the police photographer would never have followed you,
and the polygraph examiner would stand idle, tempted by devils.
The credits are rolling--
this is the time to confess or taunt or break down. You know the drill,
and yet you keep spare judges in drawers in every room,
to issue gag orders across the board at a moment's notice.

For the sake of all that was good, and soft, and funny
between us, say something, please.
Write a tell-all, despite the prohibited proceeds.
Bargain a statement in trade for a change of venue.
Let Old Sparky spur us
to get it all out at last.
We can circle it, like dizzy ballerinas,

Me imploring you to talk,
to open your everlastingly miserly fucking mouth at last,
and you
begging me to shut up,
for once, 
for novelty,
for the love of God,
shut up. 
______

for Skyflower Friday--"goodbye"

 

 

Believe Me, Darling

The thing is,
You can believe in me
When I say
That there's bound to be
A place so lovely
That even we
Can't mar it.

And my love,
In all of your enchanting
Recently repaired
Almost perfection, can't we
Enjoy the evening air
That even we
Can't ruin?

Every time that the planets
Align
In this certain way,
I find myself wanting to say
With only the slightest irony,
"Will you be mine?"

My nodding love,
We don't really need
The crutches that we
Allowed to become more important 
than this feeling
That even we
Can't poison.

So, now that the planets
Have aligned
In our favor, this once darling,
I find myself wanting to say
In an only slightly disingenuous way,
"Will you be mine?"
______

for Magaly's "Out Of Your Own Words" challenge at Real Toads. As per instructions, my 2012 poem "Sustenance" shares an opening line with this one.

 

Woman In A Fire

"You've changed," she said,
and so I have.
Oh my love, get up, put on your clothes
(if you want to make the sun stutter in the sky;
if you want the swallows to go stunned and still)
and go outside.

Everything that was dead a month ago has sprung from the ground
or from the ends of branches.
Everything that was here a year ago is dead and sleeping,
forever, in that same ground.

You thought I was like an old lamp, always there,
always unnoticed and beloved at the same time.
I thought that too.
Now, though, starlings have found a way in, 
and I can barely keep my feet on the ground.
They call me;
they are a cacophony,
reminding me, so much, of--in those first days--you.

I had a dog, my whole heart, Mercury on four legs.
How I loved him! Now, he is gone
and I see a ginger cat in the garden every morning.
Goodbye, my love.
How it twists my heart to say it.
The starlings call, the ginger cat watches the birds,
and I change, rising on an updraft
or the ashy exhalation of a favorite book, now burning.
________