Swans At The Door, Complaining

Swans arrive at the door, complaining
that I stole the horizon.
The lake (they claim) has drained, 
and the plumbing bill is enormous.

"Do you think we can live in a desert?" 
they demand. "Where will the sun rise?
Have you, thief, considered that?"

Never before have I been shamed by swans.
Never have they appeared at my door en masse
with their troubling litigations.

I produce the horizon and brandish it
like nunchucks. Feathers fly. I am torn by beaks.
The sun loiters down on the corner, watching.

The swans persuade me to have the plumbers re-install the horizon. 
The sun ascends.
The swans disperse.
The lake is calm.
My door is sulky but will get over it.

Now for my next heist....
______

for post #100 at Sunday Muse.

Consummation

I would tell you absolutely anything
if my mouth did not fill with pebbles,
my teeth to a breakwater,
my tongue to a dying whale
each time I try.

See how the sun hangs in the sky, lugubrious as a defective,
lighting our possibilities with its dusty shine?
I would dance for you
except that ravens have collected my shinbones and tarsals
as trinkets for their nest.

Still, joy is possible.
You shove the Universe, I'll pick its pocket
and we'll set up the world's most elaborate lie
to stun ourselves into devotion.
That's when you'll guess my name, Mary of the Maritimes,
and skip yourself over my body like a thrown stone.
_______

A second poem for camera FLASH! at Real Toads. Again, I was inspired by the lighthouse card, already posted on this blog with my first effort.

doll trio

Mama's mama's mama
ran a boardinghouse.
She had more once;
her own home with new glass in the windows
and a man who filled a tuxedo quite pleasingly.

Mama's mama's mama
stashed the credenzas and the china cabinets,
the oil paintings of pheasants and fruit,
and all her fine blue-edged china 
upstairs in the attic, above the second floor lodger's rooms.

She didn't lock it,
choosing to believe that people can be trusted,
despite her handsome husband taking a birch branch to the temple
five years before from the angry husband of her best friend Rose.

Mama's mama's mama
used to fix snap beans and talk to her little girl
about the man she would meet when she grew up
and the house they would have
and all the fine furniture upstairs that would be hers one day.
"There will be a guest house in the back with an apple tree for me.
You'll throw wonderful parties and use the punch bowl with the etched swans on it."

Mama's mama's mama's lodgers
cleaned that old girl out.
Every stick gone, except for three ceramic-headed dolls
sleeping on a bed of straw inside a box. 
Mama's mama's mama
gave her those dolls and she mostly wanted to spit on them every time she saw them,
as if they had ruined her dreams themselves
and only stayed behind to gloat.

Mama's mama's mama
died when her girl was 22.
Mama's mama never took very good care of herself,
never cared much what dress she wore or for how many days in a row.
She did learn to make ceramic figures, though,
and yellow giraffes and brown stallions filled the kinck-knack shelves
of her California bungalow.

Mama saw how fragile the figures were,
how easily they could fall and shatter on the floor.
To such a serious and somber girl, 
creating anything like that seemed like asking for it.
Her mama had given her the three dolls and she saved their lives
by never taking them out of their box.

One summer, mama's brothers teased her
cos she wouldn't jump from the tire swing into the river.
Finally, they got her to do it and she landed wrong,
in the shallows,
and the bone sticking out from her leg 
looked white as porcelain.

Mama was a careful woman.
She showed me the three dolls one day,
laying them on the bed where they lay in their casket box.
Mama was a woman who believed that nice things should last forever,
and in 1996 she still had the chairs and table 
given to her as wedding presents
in 1939.

Mama wasn't going to make the same mistakes her mama's mama had made.
She saw the shady side of everyone,
and told me who to beware of
as I rode in the back, trying to keep my feet still
so as not to get dirt on the seat in front of me.
I always knew that mama's things were more important than I was,
and when she finally gave me those wedding present chairs, 
I carried one out to the back yard
and took my husband's sledge hammer to it.

Mama never gave me the three dolls, though.
I expect they've gone some eighty years pristine and perfect,
never being played with once.
On the other hand, I had several of my mama's mama's figures--
I loved them, and through life and moves and hurry,
all but one have broken and now there is just the yellow giraffe left.
One of her legs has a flaw, like mama's does,
but here is the difference between them:
Grandma Hammond made them both,
but even as a child I knew the hand-made giraffe loved me.
______

"doll trio" at top by Jennifer MacNeill

for Artistic Interpretations with Margaret at Real Toads

My grandmother made me this horse. The horse is actually the lone survivor; my favorite, the giraffe, broke years ago.
 

Angelina Aztec

Angelina Aztec, pretty as a poisoned pie--
her snowstorm hair melting at a touch;
she loves the spring
and birds that sing--
just not very urgently;
not very much.

Take the high steep steps to Angelina's place--
bring her tiny sweet cakes, and jelly in a spoon;
put your flowers in a vase,
set them in the fireplace--
lean always toward her lips
as enticing as the moon.

Angelina Aztec is an old-fashioned girl--
she picks apart the artichoke, leaf by leaf;
paper birds, silk blooms,
placed all around the room--
turning seed-sown love
into ribbon-wrapped sheaf.
_______

for Real Toads mini-challenge

artwork by Kim Nelson 

Homecoming

Mama got candy and a burlap sack,
opened up the bag and stuck it in the back.

In went one girl, three, then six,
crowding in the sack for the peppermint sticks.

Mama closed the bag cos Mama likes tricks,
took us to the Elbe and threw us off the bridge.

Six girls fight and six girls scream,
Six little witches on the surface of the stream.

We didn't sink and we didn't drown,
big black dog came and led us back to town.

Six in the door and six up the stair,
six little witches with leaves in our hair.

We hit Mama in the head with a brick,
then stabbed her through the heart with a peppermint stick.
______

for A Word With Laurie ("burlap") at Real Toads.

photo: singer Amy Lee

the 4th stanza refers to Trial By Ordeal, in which an accused witch is bound and thrown into a pond or other body of water. if she sinks, she is innocent (albeit dead), but if she floats she is guilty of witchcraft.

large black dogs are a common symbol of the devil or evil.

666 is, of course, "the number of the beast".

A Remedy For Robbery

Remember the guest
Who stole the room
You gave her to stay and be sheltered in?

Beware the door
That opens to nothing--
A void where no guest can stay, again.

At the station, the stealer
Is stopped by her burden--
A room on a chain on the platform, stopped;

The thief is charming,
Policemen pet her,
Debating whether to hold her or not.

She steals the station,
The train and the tracks,
The schedules and benches, the smoke from the stacks.

Shutter the house,
Leave the lack,
Take only your heart and never look back.
_______

Gregorian Jump Rope Chant

Here's a little Frenchy fable--
Cook put cat bones on the table;
Crossed and crossed and crossed again,
They turned back into cats again.

Black as pitch,
Black as sin.
Where had all those pussies been?

Outside the Bishop's window, singing--
Cracked the bells and stopped them ringing;
The Bishop fumed, the Bishop frowned,
He read his bible upside down.

Call the Cardinal,
Call the Pope.
Tell them bring some strong lye soap.

Pox on Monday, Tuesday plague--
Cook serves raw piano leg;
Sister's late, where has she been?
At the bottom of the Seine.

Voici le chien, voici le chat--
Voici les jambes, aussi les bras;
The Bishop and his whole Cathedral,
Wide the arch, so small the needle.
_______

for Fireblossom Friday "devils"

the French lines say: "Here's the dog, here's the cat, here's the legs and also the arms" There is also another way to read it, but I'm not telling. 

Buddah Moskowitz Invades Fireblossom's Dreams

So I dreamed that Buddah Moskowitz mailed me all this stuff.
So much!
It wouldn't nearly fit in the mailbox.

There was poems.
And crazy bullshit, little gadgets I couldn't even understand what they were for,
And his old watch. What am I supposed to do with that?
The face is as big as my whole hand!
I wonder if it works underwater?
I wonder if you can see what time it is inside a cave at midnight?
I wonder how he got my address?!

And oh yeah, there was these five big boxes full of old newspapers, and
And...
(Should I even be telling you this?)
And like a zillion dollars in cash.
Man, can this girl use it.
Thanks, Mosk. I like your blog too!

So, I did what any sensible, well brought-up Catholic gal would do...
I bought a ginormous honking handgun,
A black 1960 Chrysler with an engine a girl can feel right through the bench seat,
And went on the run.
Eat my dust, assholes!

Guys with soul patches tried to swipe my stash,
But their bullets may as well have been made of pudding.
I was fierce! Rawr!!!
Gitcher motor runnin'...
This beat going to work any day.

I took it out west.
Lookit, Arizona is still there! I'll stop and see Dani.
We can eat at some dopey chain restaurant and order anything
Cos I've got a zillion dolla.
More quesadillas for you ladies?
Why, yes, we don't mind if we do.

Thank you, Buddah Moskowitz, for the zillion dollars,
And the creepy guy-watch,
And the poems, which were eggs-ellent.
I will think of you every time I floor the Chrysler.
I will pay your tab at Danny's Coffee Shop.
I will put the top down
And let the moon work on my head a little more,
Whether that's wise
Or necessary
Or not.
_____

Miss January

Miss January leaves her
summer heart
in her boho bag
on the fucking credenza
in the corporate apartment,
and so she has to make do.

At Philippe's,
she is the coldshock girl
at the VIP party
with the killer kiss
and the sweet side shave.

Sleet is the new sincere,
blue the new red,
freeze-blistered the new happy;
kick the bum,
be the face,
don't forget the swag.

Vântului

There is a music unheard
at the edge of sensing--
I have danced to it until I was out of breath,
and my own beating heart surprised me.

There are stars unburned
in a blank black sky--
I have seen them in the interstices of dreams
until my eyes, gone full, awakened me.

Now,
there is only dark Russian loaf
fresh butter
and blackberry jam,
all of them sweeter to me than they have ever been before.

Outside,
the branches are bare,
they can't hold the wind;
my dog, gone blind, can't find the stick,
but he looks back at me with love
as he has always done and always will.

Still,
I have begun to hear a tune that I can't shut out,
though I try.
There is a burning that wasn't there before,
and so if you find me here in tears and ask me why,

I can only say how I'll miss it all,
how I wasn't ready,
but nonetheless
I can feel it coming...
without affect
and relentlessly.

The Best Trick ( or, Cywydd Llosgyrnog Does Toad Aid )

Woman, never trust a gypsy.
She will thieve your heart so easy,
And if she doesn't, then she's fake;
Watch hard to catch her at her crime,
The stolen dollar, pilfered dime,
The smooth climb of the charming snake.

Faith suits saints and children, not you my dear--
Cradle fear like a favorite shiv;
Hold it low and easy beneath your skirt,
To hurt if you must, but also live.

Woman, never trust a liar,
Hearts will fall that fly that gyre--
Better to wire a trap that keeps;
Catch thieving hand in fox quick fist,
Bind fast your gypsy by her wrist--
The best trick's sudden, sweet, and cheap.
________
for Grace's Welsh form prompt at Real Toads. Hey, I said I don't LIKE to use form, not that I couldn't!

J. Jenkins Pomeroy Considers

It takes no small talent
To turn nothing into something
The way I do,
And though everyone may not admire
The Godlike way I make things happen,
I do. Oh, I do!

You see this building here
With its ancient cheap veneer--
A false-fronted horror, how I detest it.
See the pantywaist poets inside
Drinking coffee from styrofoam cups--
They all hate me, I can sense it.

But I don't care!
And what's more,
I can already see the trendy upscale store
That is as good as built.
I won't trouble with these weaklings, or curse them;
I'll simply have the officers disperse them.
Bring in your crew, Mister Harvey,
Place good strong charges between the bricks
And let them fall on whatever heads they will.

Profit is fine and simple, but never simply gained;
People envy a man like me,
And my starched white shirt doesn't show the cum or the cocaine.
These boneless little squatters may not like
The way I get things done, it's true,
But oh, I do. I do!
_______


for dverse poetics "the other"

Family Snapshot

"Speak your mime," they said,
so I did,
only to find myself both mute and vilified.

"Open wide," they said,
and sent the carts,
rattling along the darkened tracks like spastics.

At the bottom,
is everything I ever choked back;
milky-eyed, fat-lipped horrors, with folded, featherless wings,
and a knack for surviving on each others' blood.

"Shine your light!" they said,
as burning moths fell from my eyes like splintered bones;
"Fire in the hole!" they cried,
bright with glowing logs inside their own.
_______

for The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Thief

My desire to steal has become so keen

That I can balance on it,

Out here,

Like a black cat carrying a bird through daisies.


Your bedroom window glass was keeping us apart, and so

I wrapped my red kimono around my fist and broke it,

And now, for a minute,

There is a naked woman standing with her toes in your dewy lawn.


The sound woke him.

He asked you, "Who is it, dear?"

You said,

"A banshee and her hound."

You said,

"Sugar melted in cream."

You said

Something in Romany and the sun rose higher.




My desire to steal has become my heartbeat.

I touch nothing if it isn't your skin.

I could wait out here forever,

But I won't.

Gimme

Gimme

Gimme.

Send him away.

Let me in.

Believe me, my scorching dark dove,

The sky is always big enough

To hold every bird.

_______

The Lemon Laughed

I cut a lemon in half, and from its heart

Came a spray of words, vulgar, stinging.

The vile fruit stained pages full of poetry,

It outstripped me,

It published obsessively.

It left itself everyplace, like some sort of acidic gospel.



I said, well,

That's just fine.

I picked it up,

Used it for an eye,

And saw a crazy dandelion world through the burning.

I tell you,

I wept.



The lemon mocked me.

Each half claimed to be more than I was, whole;

It insulted me,

Because that's how it rolls.



I said, listen,

I don't have to take this from some bald, jaundiced little turd who can't even stand up.

How dare you?

Who do you think you are?



At this, the lemon laughed.

"Rage on," it said.

"You, with the knife in your hand."

__________

Scorpion

if a scorpion
wraps herself around your heart,
don't
don't look
don't look at anybody else.

if a scorpion
curls her tail around your heart,
don't
don't love
don't love anybody else.

if a scorpion
has wrapped herself around your heart,
love
love like it
love like it's the last day you will see--
that's all
that's all that there may be--
love dangerous love
now that you've found it;
lucky heart
with the scorpion's tail wrapped 'round it.
_______

Snakes In The Snow

There are doves in the rocks--
In my walls they are sealed--
The whole house may lift away and wheel.

There are snakes in the snow,
Torpid and dull--
"How soft and thin are suede boots and skin."

Late last night and the night before,
Little robbers at my door...

I am Dorothy,
I am Eve--
Afraid to stay--
Afraid to leave.
_____________

for magpie 43

Scripture Lesson

Here are lies--
I stole from the groom,
Then gave to the bride;
I went to her room
And locked myself inside.

Here is nonsense--
God is a woman
Who lives in outer space;
And when she cries, it snows
Little lace-drops from her face.

Here is truth--
A bouquet is on the sill,
And a garter on the bed;
The wolves live in the snowy woods,
Her tracks lead there instead.
________

Profile

Mrs. Upscale sends her little witchlet to Business Pre-School,

Where she quickly flunks out.

A little boy in a blazer snickers;

The witchlet's mouth turns down like a stitched toy cat's.

She makes his feet webbed,

Then burns down the building.

She has to say she's sorry;

She isn't, but the lying makes her happy.

__________

a friday 55 for G Man

Sunday, Bookstore Cafe

Sunday morning,

I bought a blueberry muffin and a book;

The book I set aside.



The slant of light through the big windows

Reminded me of you, and again I found myself mourning;

I always feed my mourning.



My muffin is a sweet golden brown, uneven and pleasing to the touch,

Like your arms with the delicate hairs up and down them,

And, sometimes, the little rising bumps.



I cannot trust my vision,

And so I peel the fluted paper by feel, as I did when undressing you

With fingertips like cirrus clouds.



I have never been able to resist

Sweetness flecked with blue...

I have never been able to allay

My tenderness or my hunger...for you.



Even though I know

The thorn in my heart is not the muffin in my hand,

I seek it there.

Berries plucked too early are tart--

And yet I savor them,

Holding them on my tongue as I held you in perfect moments--

When vivid life coursed up through your body

Like your fingers through my hair.



A little girl says,

"Mommy, that lady is crying."

But I am only finishing my blueberry muffin,

Kissing its soft heart

Even as I devour it

With an appetite I hadn't known I still possessed.

_______