All The Little Flamingos

 

All the little flamingos

who used to hang around eating candies

turning themselves pinker by the hour,

where are they now? 

They used to carry Rod McKuen in boho bags

and spice their spring water with Tanqueray. 

All the infallible flamingos

confusing the Salton Sea with the Isle of Capri,

posing on one leg, demure and goddessy.

I miss the little flamingos

riding in paper gondolas, hating the pea hens,

in love with themselves, beatifically banal. 

I misremember the little flamingos

smiling behind Japanese fans, loving leopards

on screens for their mysterious silence.

So shallow and fresh, faces dipped

to the worst most brackish water, honking unmusically,

naked under their feathers, one more awkward than the next.

All the little flamingos.

Scornful, inscrutable, fragile flamingos.

I was there with them.

I was one of them. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Poetry Out Loud. 

Athena and the Air's Machinations

My lungs speak, one to the other,
all night while owls tap at the window
sending Morse love poems to Athena.

They know I don't trust the air--not since Athena left.
I wear this bulky space suit everywhere, even into my dreams.

A fixer with a burlap bag gathered the owls and brought them back,
along with window glass, some putty, and a frame.
Now my lungs discuss the view, plan pilgrimages, and pointedly exclude me.

Athena loved the poems I could breathe out at will,
but wearied of my ladder collection and habit of communicating only by hieroglyph. 
Now everything is lungs, owls,
night, space suits,
and the stilling of the back door still redolent 
with Athena's scent and the trackless void of my own exhalations.
_____

(belatedly cos my I was off the grid) for Sunday Muse #79.

Whee, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The G's

"We are but a moment's sunlight"

In the stylish modern kitchen of God,

we are all just a glass

dropped from the Divine Hand.

All that came before

and all that comes after

stretch immeasurably in every direction--

God's crib is huge.

Ahead of us,

the Italian marble the Divine Dogs tread

will smash our vessel to smithereens.

For now, though, there's this weird fleeting instant

while we're in flight,

very importantly sweating which way we slosh

inside our little temporary capsule.

Very soon we'll be released,

set free to flow in the Cosmic Spill.

Don't worry, He's got cupboards full of Waterford,

and we'll be launched again

like space monkeys.

Until then don't stress, Little Rider.

Just let the vessel rock you like a cradle you can trust

but won't remember

from this time when you are dinky, but growing. 

_______

for day 18.

and for Paul's "Write Here, Right Now" goose at Toads.

the quote at top is from the song "Get Together" written by Chet Powers aka Dino Valenti and made famous by the Youngbloods, Jefferson Airplane and others.

Many pardons are begged of the Goddess for my frivolous portrayal of Her as male in this poem.  I'll be doing dishes in the Celestial Kitchen for a year. Or emptying waste baskets in Her corner office on janitorial night shift. I am but a froward fool.

 

Sand & Water

"Solid stone is just sand and water, baby; sand and water, and a million years gone by." --Beth Nielsen Chapman

They say that if you love a Selkie,
she will leave with the tide, and not return for seven years.
Lovers of Selkies walk the beach collecting shells
and other empty things, here...and here...and here.

They say that if you love a Selkie,
to keep her, you burn the seal-coat she's shed.
Then you'll have a Selkie wife
silently crying in your bed. 

Here I've been, since who knows when,
Drawing pictures in the dust on the sill while you slept.
Don't say you believe, in me, in us
anymore; what's been burned can't still be kept.

Down through the town, past the fields, to the water
with my seal-coat stitched from paper and leather,
I slip back home, on my back I'm carried
by the change in the waves, in your heart, and the weather.
_______

for Margaret's Artistic Impressions at Real Toads.



 

Just Because

Just because
I wear work boots--
the brown ones, with nails stuck in them, and wood splinters--
does not mean that you mayn't kiss my hand,
call me 'Ma'am",
and worship me like I just dropped out of Heaven like a vended miracle.

I have found
that pink lace invites being taken lightly. Behold, I carry a copy
of Saison En Enfer, and I shall be happy to brain you with it
if you displease me
or in any way betray your true feelings, excepting blind devotion.

My work boots
Announce my arrival on the wood floor of the local pretentious coffee bar
even better than trumpet fanfare.
Subjects, knock me your lobes, here's my new poem,
laced up in leather
but made of feathers white and weightless as God's eyelash in a china dish.
_______

for the endlessly talented Susie Clevenger's challenge at Real Toads: "Shoes."

"Saison En Enfer" = "A Season In Hell" by Rimbaud. 

 

Stunt Double

She calls sometimes--that's how I know she's in on it.
Her voice is nightblue and crushed strawberries;
when she calls me "baby", my true and sure gets a shiver up it.

Her stunt double makes coffee, takes the car,
fucks me, says we have to talk.
I know it isn't her.
I know the bloom from the stalk.

Stunt Double feels the cold in my kiss;
cries real tears from the plastic bottle in her head.
Stunt Double spreads her arms, says, "How'd we ever get like this?"
Like I know her. Like let's pretend.


I wait for the ringtone, a drop of honey from the bee that's gone;
nightblue and strawberries, helpless at her softest command--
there it is--I answer--a sinner for Gilead's balm,
when the Stunt Double comes in from the next room--


your phone held in her palm.
______

for Karin's "A Whole Lot Of It Is In Your Head" challenge at Real Toads.

Brain injury can cause a person to think that everyone in their life has been replaced with "doubles" who look just like their loved ones, but aren't. It's caused by damage to the link between visual processing and emotional response. If someone calls them on the phone, they recognize them, because it bypasses the damaged part of the brain. On the other hand, one can be in perfect health and know that the other person has checked out of the relationship.

 

Knife & Basket

Early morning, knife and basket
to cut and lay the iris blooms;
in vase, by parlor's dying noon,
tasked to do the thing I ask it--
lift melancholy; move the moon.

Fool to love you, fool to miss you,
more foolish still to think a vase
--that plenitude of empty space--
could soothe my heart and keep the bloom,
or separated root replace.
_______

for Artistic Interpretations With Margaret at Real Toads.

image: Still Life: Vase With Irises by Van Gogh

The iris's history is rich, dating back to Ancient Greek times when the Greek Goddess Iris, the messenger of the gods and the personification of the rainbow, acted as the link between heaven and earth. Purple irises were planted over the graves of women to summon the Goddess to guide the dead in their journey. (source: www.proflowers.com)

My Haiku

because you all seem to want me to write one. heartless heartless mob.

If a haiku came to me,
the safe lady wearing waves of soft sweaters
and funky book-lady glasses,

I would place it tenderly in traffic
in front of a steamroller.
My hateful heart would expand like an old furnace
and I would say, "Die, you horrid little thing.
Become one with everything, the pavement in particular."

Having murdered the haiku, I would sleep better,
though the cherry blossoms around my bed would turn brown,
then black, with bitterness.
I would dream there in the soot, beneath the stacks my own inferno.
Eat your hearts out, monks.

Here is the woman I secretly burn for, packing her things
chipper as a bluebird,
hugging me one-handed, a book of haiku in the other.
So long, she says, ticket in hand.
Minneapolis might as well be the moon; I hope it snows all summer.

moonlight on water
blackbird on cherry blossoms
soft fruit in stone bowl

If a haiku came to me,
I would tan its little hide, give its dinner to the dog,
and then later, turn the key in the lock to its solitary cell,
bringing the best of all that I have managed to save,
saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I know just how you feel.
_________

  

Types of Birds

Types of birds:

sparrow
blue jay
hawk.

All birds love the church.

the tower nest
the tower bell
the sky spread out overhead, inexhaustible altitude.

Stacked stones in geometric statement offer sanctuary.

pigeons
crows
cardinals and a heart to beat them into the world.

My love, lit match, black book, dark eyed juncoe,
taloned starling,
raptor asleep in the afternoon,

I have gathered every rain and made these glorious stormy wings.

Why can't I touch God?
Why the gauntlet between us, the tether, this madhouse distance?
Wrap your one wing around me as I will mine for you; we rise together semi-divine.

Types of birds:

male 
female
juvenile

striker
stricken
cartwheel in the open air.

Have faith in Me, sayeth the Lord.
Just trust in us, baby. At midnight, music playing.
Types of song, shades of color, each requiring light, air, love.

We do the best we can. We pray. We kiss. We fall willingly into the sky and vanish.
________

for Real Toads.

  

 

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.

Three

Chloe the serial killer is having the devil's own time dragging the tv pitchman's body into the weeds.

How's that for an opening sentence? Eat my dust, rubes.

She had had her thumb out--
cute as a box cutter in an angel's hand,
chin up
hip cocked
standing in the harsh shine of the rising sun.

She hadn't given a damn about limescale.
She hadn't cared how many ShamWows he had in his trunk.
Now his shitheap Hyundai is parked crookedly on the shoulder,
and one lonesome long-legged caffeine junkie is trying to stash him behind the hollyhocks.

It must be the Bohemian in her.

She has almost got him to the center of the cloverleaf when she hears something.
Shit. She's not alone.
Chloe turns in a slow circle. 
Then she sees a dark form nearly obscured in the shade of a trash tree--
it is the Queen of the Vampires in black panther form,
and she is crying.
Have you ever seen a cat cry?
They do it silently, but with their whole soul.

"Here is the place," she says to Chloe,
"where Athena, Artemis, Hestia and I used to hang out.
In those days, we killed all the developers before they could draw their first breath.
Artemis used to turn guys into jackalopes; no construction crews.
Hestia would build a fire,
and the four of us would pass the Mad Dog around.
I liked us better then."

The tv pitchman forgotten, Chloe sits down in the tall grass,
as the Queen of the Vampires resumes human form.
She continues:
"Now Athena is some muckety muck with the power company.
She lives in a condo,
and her owl is just some detailing on the door of her fucking Audi.

"He used to hunt here, swooping down from the trees,
and Artemis loved him so much, just as if he were her own.
She would coo to him like he was Head Baby at the Adorable Factory.
With a mouse in his talons.
And those big eyes.

"Arty lives with some woman who wears an ankh and runs bullshit workshops.
She's gone vegan, and doesn't even remember Orion at all.
Chloe....?" She falters.

"Yeah, hun? Tell me." 

The Vampire Queen lets out a shaky sigh.
"She...she spells woman with a Y."

"Oh, hun." 

"I know, right?"

They are silent for a long time, the tv pitchman stiffening up beside them.
"What about Hestia?" Chloe asks, putting her arm around her friend.

"She runs a B&B,
making English muffins for couples from East Candyland,
chatting them up, then washing another god damn load of sheets in the afternoon.
What happened to us, Chloe?
We were cool. Why do we suck so hard now?"

Just then, there is a rustling in the grass.
Chloe looks up, the sun seeming to traverse the lenses of her shades.
"Look what the cat dragged in!"

It's the Succubus, fluttering her black wings lazily.
"What's this?" she asks. "GSA troop 17?"

Chloe explains, shrugging a shoulder at her friend sitting next to her.
"She's feeling old and uncool."

"Fuuuuuck," says the Succubus wisely,
as she and the charming serial killer lift the Vampire Queen to her feet.
"What you need is some coffee, lady.
And guess who's sitting in your favorite booth at Danny's as we speak?"

The QOTV sniffles and wipes her face with her sleeve.
"Uh...Emmylou Harris maybe?"

"Nah. Even better. The Dark-Haired Chick."

"She not in Toronto?"

"Nope."

"Not in Chicago?"

"Nuh uh."

Not in L.A.?"

"She's at Danny's, waiting for you, you silly shithead. C'mon. I saw a Hyundai we can steal. We can be there in fifteen minutes."

So the three of them step over the dead tv pitchman and in fourteen and a half minutes,
they are at Danny's Coffee Shop,
once again the cool queens of caffeine.
_____

black night hollyhocks

Although I only used one word ("queen") from the list, it was mood wings's word list that inspired me. This is also for the Real Toads mini-challenge. Kelly Letky's photograph "Dance With The Ghosts of Tomorrow" made me think of the spontaneous scrub that springs up in unused patches of land, like next to freeway interchanges. The top image is hers. 

Athena, Artemis and Hestia are the "maiden goddesses".

Diana the Huntress (Artemis)

Dedicated to cool girls everywhere.