Tranquility Base

Here is the place. 
The perfect place
for us to abandon ourselves completely.
At last, we can do anything, 
and blame a lunacy so compelling
that no one will tell us, lemon-faced, that we should have known better.

If I could see your eyes,
if your thick visor did not simply reflect my face back at me,
I would know that you agree.
If I bash my lips at your hidden ones in what must seem a frenzy of desire,
my only wish is simply to obliterate my returned image;
meteors have pocked this place similarly,
and perish spectacularly.

Darling, unscrew your cumbersome white gloves.
How foolish they seem in a world made entirely of dust!
Were you expecting more, somehow, my pet?
Did the distant sun or the blue earth render you wistful,
yearning for hotter or cooler worlds
peopled by beautiful deities and not just me, 
fumbling like a spastic?

Let's resolve to surrender to what is, my lamb,
no matter how featureless and grim that may be.
We can undress each other and gasp for breath,
agreeing to pretend that it is because of excitement over each other
and that our bursting lungs and 
exploding hearts
are due to love and not just tiresome symptoms of violent expiry.

In the end it will be all right.
If we squint, the gravity and gravitas that encumbers others
will release us as if we were as blameless as a baby's soap bubbles.
We will rise,
renewed,
seeming to wave to non-existent crowds of our lessers,
departing for our next empty rendezvous,
lighter than forgiven murderers unstrapped from the table, finding grace.
_______

for Izy's Out of Standard challenge

 

Caroline

Caroline's feet are black on the bottom from going barefoot.
She doesn't attend teas.
Her old handbags moulder on a shelf in the closet,
pretty and delicate and all in a row as if they were empty birds.

Caroline loves cheetahs,
and watches every nature show that she can find.
Once, she painted their characteristic black tear tracks across her face,
and was pleased how they looked with her spiky yellow-orange hair.

Caroline's married love calls,
and with every word she hears, it is like flying
loose-backed and sweet-quick across the savannah.
She pours out her heart as if a dry season were coming
and she might not get another chance.

Later, after sunset,
blue and sinking,
she goes out walking with no shoes
across the tall wild grass behind her little one bedroom house.

Caroline thinks of the cheetahs all evening
as she writes her poems by silence and lamplight.
They are so gorgeously gifted--
she envies them so much it becomes an ache,
and she wonders how they know not to spend themselves
on hoof or heartbeat
they can never catch.

By midnight,
she feels stupidly human and separate from her beloved cats
as she lies on her back near the tiny window fan,
overheated,
hungry,
and as still as a stone.
_________

for Fireblossom Friday: "Loss"
  

Mime

when you pontificate
from a to
z,
i seem to agree
if tacit-
ly.

when you decide
uni
lateral-
ly,
it never bothers
no, never mind
me.

i'm not a wife
who nags or sighs;
but don't think i'm
some saintly mime--

the officer asked me,
were you
here?
perhaps in
bed?
or even
dead?

far be it from me
to bend his ear--
and so,
I haven't 
exactly
said.
_____

for Kay's challenge at Real Toads
 
 

The Difference Between A Stampede And A Short Story Can Be Slight

I didn't come up here for any kind of nature shit.
I just wanted to be in a place where a girl can go about her business--
fluff her hair,
fix her face,
without half the magistrates in Canada wanting to know her particulars.

I thought that if I left Calgary and headed north,
that that dumb RCMP fuck would not follow me,
shoving his desk through the snow like a sled dog.

Why can't a girl listen to Tchaikovsky of an evening?
And if scarves get tied to the four poster,
is that anyone else's concern?
If money changed hands and then I had to change the locks,
does the world have to know?
May I no longer wear white? Will my nanny jobs dry up?

Listen--
a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.
If a cabinet minister expires on the premises, 
and I don't wrap him neatly in a maple leaf flag,
tell me,
is it fair to drag me before the courts?
He couldn't handle some five star pussy, that's all.
It's not as if I assassinated Gretzky.

Anyway,
I thought that if I came up here, my pursuers might give up.
I hoped they might tire of pine boughs snapping back in their faces,
though some of them have paid me well enough for similar.
I thought they might get sick of stepping in moose shit,
and going without Timbits for days on end.

I am Bo Peep of the Far North.
I keep moving as best as I can, though my boots are not really made for this,
and I never got a chance to change.
Jack London, listen to me honey--
Save my happy ass, and I'll make it worth your while.
No Esquimo squaw can make it good for you like I can,
and very few of them possess
a whip,
and a pretty, painted
Japanese fan.
________

for Hannah's Transforming Friday at Real Toads

confused by Canadiana? Find the Calgary Stampede HERE and Timbits HERE.

RCMP = Royal Canadian Mounted Police



 

< 3 Story

3 celebrities
die in sequence.
3 funerals in the afternoon sun.

A 3 fingered priest
makes the sign of the cross--
3 children run across the cemetery lawn.

3's a crowd, so they say.
2 will send the third away.
Be civil at the service, for the sake of the kids.

In a 3 room house, I turn 3 times--
let my 3 wishes all come true!
My taxi stays idling beneath the stars outside.

There are 3 things I love most about you:
your eyes, your eyes, your eyes.
3 chances in 4, you'll leave the door unlocked tonight.

3 in the morning, 3 ghosts appear--
famous once, 3 sheets in the wind forevermore.
Now, honey, now's the time to love each other sore.
_______

for Real Toads mini challenge #29.

I was trying to make one of those emoticon hearts for the title, but it wouldn't accept the  < and the 3 together, so I had to leave a space between them. It's supposed to be a heart.