the nurses deferred

 

the nurses deferred

to masquerade doctors in balloon pants

who told them 

go to the underwater pharmacy

--a nickel a snorkel--

and dispense tobacco to the terminals

because

rules are restrictive

useless

barbaric

and they gave these instructions via telegram stop

from the big band ballroom stop

where the rhumba and the mambo

never stop

stop

and they used the bandmaster's baton

to perform minor surgery

on this poem.

In that town, at that time, the women never cut their hair

because of sorrow,

and the river's edge, and the need to weep

while covering their faces with their hair like bent willows.

In the heavy hour, in the day of the pueblo mission,

a mockingbird perched in the bell tower was singing,

"Come to the river's edge, to the place of no explanation.

Let down your hair as the boatmen do their sails in the silent evening."

the security guards delayed,

unfurling silk kimonos to wear in the confusion of night

and they had dragons

and chrysanthemums

draped over their arms and holsters

and their coffee was rich with a stupendous dizzying energy

which spoke to them

saying,

"you must leave this place and go

to help

and heal

where the real

suffering

is."

_____

for Word Garden Word List--Susie Clevenger. 

image at top: Socorro Mission, El Paso, Texas

I have used a technique I got from reading Grover Lewis, of alternating style and feeling between stanzas. 

music:  Jennifer Warnes "Song of Bernadette" 

The Walnut Leaves, In Their Terror

The walnut leaves fall in groups,
In fear of
Zacky Peanut, who brooks no nonsense
And is ferocious (but fair.)

Into their bags they go,
Silent siblings to the sticks
Also lately fallen.

She who has a dog
Need never fear walnut leaves
For he is a Good Boi
And always at the ready.
_____

for Real Toads.

Poem About A Cat & A Blue Fence

As if, having scaled the sky,
he had stopped to gloat
there above my head
with the afternoon sun behind him.

Cat, gamboling among the gods,
are there fish in the sky?
or must you bargain with the deep
for your dinner so desired?

Cat-stronaut, glide down and grant me a boon.
Tell me, how is it when trees become fences,
fences become divine
and cats-turned-to-birds appear at my toe tip

with eyes the color of the Aegean?
________ 

 

Athena, SWF

I'm just a woman
with an owl on her shoulder
and the moon at her back.

I like the windows open,
and the air cold.
I prefer cloth to satin, silver to gold.

I didn't just roll in, some girl from the burbs.
I have marks on my body
from lessons sharp and black.

When you kiss me, if you kiss me,
put your hands on me high, and I'll close my eyes;
just don't forget my owl

with her vigilance,
her talons
and her soft deceptive cries.
________

not for any prompt. *facepalm*