Diuretics

 I fell in love with your shadow

and lay on the floor with it while you slept.

We had an affair, your shadow and I

while you made mine visit your parents in Buffalo.

I became contemptuous of you there in bed

reading your stupid pop novels.

You became contemptuous of me on the floor

claiming a headache for the thousandth night in a row.

After the divorce, we sat at outdoor tables with friends

who nodded while we droned and overshared,

laughing, shaking our papier mâché heads, sucking down coffee

as the sun went right through us to the sidewalk, bright af. 

Palomas Perdidas

"How different it all was from what you'd planned." --F Scott Fitzgerald

 Here's the thing about love--

you can't finesse it for long once it's

worn away

                      like a river stone,

lost in the mail,

the ring gone down the trap.

Oh, you're right, it doesn't stay

cinema big-screen hothouse bloomed

the way it

                   starts out,

all fever-fine experiments in joy.

Just because you get lucid in the drowse of time,

doesn't mean call the hearse,

cut the roses,

ask the waiter for something mild and bland

like some blue hair breakdown of the heart.

No.

When we reduced, though, in the long shadow of years

to a shorthand slang for what used to be

a poem written

                                 with the soul-vase of our bodies,

we became pilots in a sky without any gardens below.

I'm sorry, you know? I envy the old dog still loved,

still a sunrise in someone's eyes,

or to be the one with a candescent heart as fine

as old art,

                    stars forever swirling over lamplit groves.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--Our Man In Havana

Palomas Perdidas "Lost Doves"

Music: Concrete Blonde Mexican Moon

Hurt Bird

 

There it was, a hurt bird

panting and skittering in circles

on the grass by the berm.

Feeling badly for it, I reached out,

tried to pick it up and help it if I could,

to cradle it and quiet its thrashing about

but it buried its beak in my palm,

a short sharp angry stab

that brought blood spreading across my hand.

I threw it down, said god damn bird!

but immediately felt my heart shrink in horror

and I bent over it, sick over its hurt.

The bird, on its side gasping,

its upward eye a mix of panic and hate,

beheld my gaping face as the last thing

it would ever see, its every

agony saying damn your help and damn your pity,

wishing only to die there by the berm without this hovering intermediary.

_______

for Sunday Muse #223. 

Music: "Something" by Julien Baker

Ten Years In Five Lines

babe, around my heart

a rusty saw tooth of words

both spoken and unspoken

venoms the sugar core--

the magnolia darks to blackthorn.

---------

a Wayra for Dverse Poetry Form.

note-the berries of the blackthorn (sloe) plant can be eaten, but the seeds are toxic.

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)

Penance

I am a ghost looking for spirits; steam searching for smoke. 

I wear my long duster, and carry a kerosene sun.

I am a nun praying my penance; a singer struck by stroke.

I am your grave digger; you, better loved than anyone.

I wear my long duster, and carry a kerosene sun.

I am found by dire-light, turning scripture to palimpsest. 

I am never done, though my diet is the slenderest.

I am a nun paying my penance; a singer struck by stroke.

Collecting throats in my pockets, renaming them all night.

I have choked back every longing, and paled your name with white.

I am your grave digger; you,  better loved than anyone.

My all-and-none, my crossroads queen awoke,

I am a ghost looking for spirits; light transformed to smoke.

________

This is a trimeric, for Sunday Muse #184.  

Two Mugs / A Dollar Each

There were/ two pretty mugs for a dollar each.
I had a truck full of mail/ outside,
a sick dog/ at home
a full day/ ahead
and a heart weighted/ by a gf's silence.

I bought them/ both
and they became/ favorites.
Every morning for years/ one chosen
and filled/ first thing.

One broke last winter/ doing dishes
and the other, in carelessness/ this morning.
My time is / my own,
my new dog is/ healthy and strong,
and "choose me or lose me"/ is good advice. 

There was a continuous line/ of so many days
leading back/ to two pretty mugs, a dollar each.
A me who I used to be/ bought them both that day--
but I can't bring them back/ or now remember
who that woman was. 
_______

129 words for "mono no aware" at Real Toads.

 

Here

Here are the blue walls of the blue bedroom
of the Cape Cod cottage by the blue sea--
here is the blue handle of a blue broom
on the floor of the penitentiary.
Here are blue fish in a blue basket
to clean and fry on a blue afternoon--
here is the blue face in a blue casket
and the blue of the ocean and the moon.

Lapis this lonely feeling, slate the sky
Carolina the soft chime on the air--
peacock the pride, azure the things that die;
admiral the clock that takes me unaware--
sapphire this sense of the heavy, the high,
and this indigo poem, like foxfire there.
______

For the mini-challenge at Real Toads.

It's been brought to my attention that the following song is sung by Katie Malua, not Amy Winehouse. 

 

Sebastian, You're Gonna Break My Heart

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
with your sandals on the stone steps looking so good
and saying the Lord's word,
but baby, there's no shortage of fools and no shortage of wood 
to make a stake to tie my Sebastian still.

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
cos the plague comes off the ships you meet so you can
tell 'em the Lord's word,
but baby, no one knows better than me you're just a man
who can be touched and can be killed. 

Sparrows, sparrows,
if His eye is on you, make Him look this way.
Arrows, arrows,
If He loved Sebastian like me
He wouldn't make him pay so hard, He'd stop the archery.

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
when they leave you there all bloody in the sun
still saying the Lord's word.
Baby, let's go back to France before this day is done
but you won't listen and you never will.

Sparrows, sparrows,
if His eye is on you, make Him look this way.
Arrows, arrows,
if He loved Sebastian like me
He wouldn't make him pay so hard, He'd stop the archery. 
_________

For Day 10. 

Sebastian was used as target practice for Roman archers as punishment for spreading the Word. He somehow survived and was rescued and nursed back to health, only to be clubbed to death later. Sebastian  is the patron saint of soldiers, athletes, and those who desire a saintly death.  

Athena, On The Down Side

When a girl springs, fully formed, from the forehead of a God,
certain things are expected of her.
At Wellesley, they wouldn't let her keep her owl in the dorm,
so she made the first of many fateful decisions and told them to stick it.

Athena sits inside the bus kiosk on 8 Mile Road,
the one that some drunk smashed one of the windows out of with a trash barrel.
She hasn't got the fare,
and her crappy Payless shoes aren't making the walk seem very appealing.
Beside her on the bench is a beat-up backpack.
Behind her, doing a brisk business, is a fish market that must be some alley cat's dream.

For a while, she had a waitressing job at a Coney Island place in Detroit.
Her name tag said "Minerva", and she was on her feet for twelve hours at a time,
setting down plates of gyro petas or feta omelets
for fat truckers and hip hop fakers
while Seger sang about Main Street from the speakers in the ceiling.

Athena is tired, and none of the old Olympian crowd ever calls anymore.
The number 17 Gratiot Avenue bus goes by,
heading east and spinning old plastic grocery bags into the air behind it.
Athena does not smoke or drink, at least not anymore.
She's not a bad gal; 
when she's got a dollar she buys cat treats for Shopping Cart Bonnie's little stray,
but today Bonnie's off her meds and is having a screaming match with nobody anyone can see.

Athena thinks about packing it in,
mostly because her feet hurt and her looks are gone
and 8 Mile Road is so trashy it makes a girl feel she's failed just by being there.
Three things will decide her future:

the condition of the stars tonight; their nearness, the perfection of the constellations, or their absence because of clouds or impenetrable indigo--

the number of headlights heading west on the 8 Mile Road overpass, as opposed to those traveling east. Even numbers denote harmony, odd numbers warn of injury and loss.

the activities of her owl; if the bird returns in the dawn with jewels, gorgeous poems, or small animals with fur as soft as mercy, then she will kiss his feathers and believe that she is still a woman to be reckoned with, the Keeper of the Bolts; but if the bird never comes back at all, or returns wounded, trailing a leg or a wing, she will know her own days are numbered.

It is getting dark and the fish market is closed.
The last 420 bus to the State Fairgrounds has already passed by,
and Athena is still sitting inside the kiosk, 
no place for a lady to linger for long.
She's looking for the stars,
the lights,
and the bird associated with her name when she was Somebody--
Not like now.
Not like this.
Not on a bet.
_______

for Fireblossom Friday

  

   

Girl At The End Of The World

here at the end of the world,
hung by my heels,
my dress stinking of smoke from the bombardment,
picking glass out of my hair 
and my words to the military governor very carefully,

i am not the girl you remember
from the ball,
the one they built the jeweled staircase for,
just so I could descend it.

i never thought i would be the kind of girl to beg,
to promise vulgar rewards,
the kind of girl who would do anything, no matter how degrading,
if only i could get away from you,
hanging next to me
making small talk.

for a lady in my position,
the bright blood trickling from my mouth becomes an involuntary smile,
encouraging you,
and oh, dear Goddess,
you're going to tell me about your younger days,
aren't you?
you're going to rattle on about your children and grandchildren
until i want nothing except to die;
i just know you are,
i can see it in your eyes.

i am going to deliberately provoke the military governor,
so that he will order artillery shoved in my ear and fired,
blowing my happy brains out 
before you can move on to the time you went camping near Carlsbad.

here at the end of the world,
hung by my heels,
lit on fire and stripped of my dainty little gloves,
my dance hall days are over for good.
out of options and batshit nasty,

i'm not the girl you mistake me for--
the straight one,
the nice one,
the one who just loves your stories,
finds you charming 
and wishes you'd tell her more.
______