Famous Contemporary Poet

 

I'm trying to finish this famous contemporary poet's

fourth collection, which groans under the weight of

all the glowing blurbs on the back cover.

The famous contemporary poet avoids rhyme as if

it was a downed wire--half grand mal seizure, half

pit bull off the chain and charging.

The famous contemporary poet writes a few poems,

carefully packed in vignettes, snapshots, and musings,

all the excelsior found in any packing crate.

In high school I had an acquaintance, this guy.

He'd toss out something cryptic and then wait

like he'd flipped you a Rubik's Cube.

Everything out of his mouth was a test and he'd give

you this bright smirk, like can you figure it out and

get to where I am, up here?

I would like to meet the famous contemporary poet

and show her one of mine, plain as the flat of my hand

when it breaks her nose and the blood comes.

I am trying to finish the famous contemporary poet's 

fourth collection even though it's like watching a movie 

with muddy sound, in dialect, no captions.

______________

Coffee Can Cosmos Can-Can

I wrap myself around a stem,

serpentine.

A green throat waving, a 

Chinatown

dragon

but its teeth are on the leaves

to devour 

the sun,

and here I am 

in my taxi yellow dress with black frilled cuffs

a vagabond imposter,

a fool in the sky.

The Tiger Moth and I shared a womb,

our mother

a razor blade in an oxblood robe,

sash tied off like a wound.

Colorful sister, 

displayer of dialects across each wing,

our delirium

has made us.

Look at the dough-ghosts jeering

as they

sag in a bag of ashes.

Shine, inventing parlance with every flutter.

I wrap myself around the wolfs-bane,

my house a blue

roof over

green walls.

I carry solace sticks in a wicker basket,

tincture of Tiger Moth,

and false sun for pale children slate-stone weary.

I slip into the sky

as if it were a jersey

a Merino

atmosphere

that needs me, like you need me

though you don't know it yet,

poor cold

baby,

mon pauvre petit ange!

______

a second poem for Word Garden Word List--A Season In Hell.

Image at top: Clémence Poésy 

Music: The Rolling Stones "She Comes In Colors" 

A Man

A man grew
up, out of the April Michigan ice
in my brown grave of a garden.

This man was never a child.
He never bounced some goddamned ball
or climbed into my lap for a story.

What I'm saying is, this man wasn't natural,
though he grew there
among the astonished screaming jays.

How can I sleep, knowing this shapeless bastard
is leaning upright out there,
moaning like the last lover on earth?

For now, the hard earth is his vice,
he stays half-born, entire,
fucking with my head, expecting some sick future.

Slashing rain and warmth as sudden and wrong
as a stranger in one's kitchen
will free him, he will roar the mud from his throat and tarnish my name on the dead medicine of his lips.

He will call, I will come, terrified and scalded,
to be touched and opened by him,
to weep in his arms, hissing damn you, darling, damn you."
_______

for day 13.

The Woman Who Does Not Trust Roses

The woman who does not trust roses
consults a dream her lover has left
concealed between sections of orange.

Breeze loves roses, 
both stem and bloom.
The woman who does not trust roses
reads by fingertip the morning moon.

Her lover's dream 
is of breeze in a secret bower,
and crescent hips gone almondine. 
______

for both "camera FLASH! at Real Toads, and Flash 55 hosted by my BFF Hedgy.

Almondine:
 Adjective

1. Garnished with almond slices.

Usage notes

Unlike most English adjectives, almondine typically follows the noun it describes, rather than preceding it.

Origin From French.

Noun (plural almondines)

1. A gemstone that is either a deep red garnet or a purple spinel.