Remains

The first thing they noticed was an earthquake; then the shape that the earthquake revealed.

A once-living thing,
like a bank president or jilted lover,
it had turned to stone and worn the same expression for lo these many millenia.

An expert from the university was dispatched,
along with a few dozen anonymous local sherpas who would be doing all the work.

The expert knelt, pupils dilating, and forgot to breathe.
"Is he going to propose to it?" wondered the sherpas.

Once, the thing's gut was filled with enough sweet summer grasses
to fill all the holes left by the earthquake, and then some.
Its tremendous scat was as big as the expert.
It knew a tropical sun and carried bizarre shrieking birds on its back.

Sometimes, when you are just trying to run a business,
or staying in bed willing yourself to die,
some know-it-all bastard comes along and tells you that you have to evolve, 

or pull yourself together for the children.
This is when aftershocks come in handy,
and rubble suits become these officious fucks,

who, in a thousand or a million more years will find your visage unchanged
and earthquakes as impotent as priests or Pollyannas. 
_________

for Day 16. 

NOT the "official video" btw. But still.

Internal Injuries

I hear dead people.
1965 continues endlessly,
elms rustling in summer breeze,
baseball and Beatles cards spread on the sidewalk still,
screen doors and monarch butterflies fragile but immortal.
You can stop now
(don't stop)
you can stop
(don't)
you
(don't)
stop.

Don't listen. 
Drop the sound out.
Roll with it if you can.
This house has been on fire for decades, why panic now? 
I hear dead people,
jumped up from eternal rest or damnation
telling me what they always told me:
child, you're fucked, and it's your own damn fault.
Can I stop hearing it now?
Can I stop living
(don't stop)
or start?
(don't start with me)
or
(you)
me
(us)
stop.
STOP.

1965 continues endlessly,
elms rustling in the summer breeze. 
________

for Poem As One-Sided Conversation at Toads.

 

 

Jubilant Bob

Jubilant Bob
loves you 
and describes this love in tiny notes
on the backs of postage stamps which he then uses
to send you empty hatboxes.

"Within, infinity," the eeny little card reads.


Jubilant Bob
hates it
when you sleep with a boyfriend.
He hangs himself in the vestibule of your building,
making it awkward getting to the mailbox.
Inside,
a minuscule note folded multiple times
explaining his despair.

You and your boyfriend look at each other, sigh, run upstairs, do it,
then hate yourselves, but not that much.
Love is strange.

Jubilant Bob
revives,
finds you with a girlfriend,
writes a best seller about his near death experiences, 
both from the noose and from you.
Bob requests his royalties all in pennies,
using some of them to weigh down roses
he leaves for you
on the stair.

Will you never have pity?
Will you never stop fucking around?

Jubilant Bob
gets religion,
forgives you as you stand there blinking.
"Oh for fuck's sake, Bobby," you say, stamping one boot on the pavement.
"Wake the fuck up."
He thought you were better than you are,
hates it when you curse,
and keeps a microscopic cameo of you under his tongue.

In the vestibule,
his fans,
your lovers,
and enough flowers for a parade or a funeral.
Go on, marry him.
File a sharp tongue on his stupid postage machine.
Let him feel you up every Sunday.

Feel free to regret all of it.
_________

Letter To An Old Love

I have arrived here, no wiser.
I'm sorry, a million times over,
but for what? All and nothing.

I meant well.
I was hopeful.
Weren't you?

Every beginning is a poison tree.
I know this and still I
tend each one as a favored child
and wear the blooms in my hair like an ingenue.
________

For Kerry's 55 Plus at Real Toads. The "plus" is to write with your favorite tearjerker song in mind. Here's mine:

 

Rich In Words

I am rich in words,
but words are shadows.

Every beautiful thing I can twist out of nothing
is just the fuck-you of a joke prayer.

The lens of the eye is a bald liar--
refraction masquerading as color,
upside down on the back of the brain

like love, like sky 
the blue-black
of rotting
card sharps.
_________