Carnival Rhyme

 

The curtains reach out

moved by the breeze

for as long as she shall stir them

but they cannot hold the breeze.

In love with the brass bed

the breeze winds around it there

caresses it to move it

but the brass bed couldn't care.

You are a carnival

so the fortune teller swears

in the mirror where the Gypsy

weaves narcissus through your hair.

I write this poem for ticket

to the carnival of rhyme

and curl as the curtains curl

as on the bed you lie.

Yellow the narcissus blooms

and lonely pale the breeze

lovely as you lying there

as empty as you please.

_________

for Word Garden Word List--Jackson C. Frank. 

also shared with Dverse Open Link, hosted by Linda Lyberg.

Poet

 

Loving you is like dreaming I am made of water

and then trying to run within myself.

I hallucinate a sun that rises in you refracting,

while the real one grows dull and tired turning grass to hay.

I compose ridiculous letters on bird feathers about the sky and its desires

with dust ink and lead bindings, to be read in the dark.

Nonetheless, all the brilliance with which you rule me, all the fascination you wield

is just a trick of reflection and depends upon this whim I dress up as magic

like a rabbit out of a hat, a thing that seems like a better thing, grand, ordinary, pure trickery.

____________

for Linda Lyberg's Poetics: Breakfast At Tiffany's. I used the following quote:

“It’s better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes.” 

― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

Alley Cat Queen

 

There she is, the one the cats call queen,

the one you find fearless,

standing by the resale store

holding the rising sun in her half-curled fingers.

You quit getting stoned when you heard the trainman

blow his whistle in a nightmare at noon,

but now look--you're wasted on this woman.

Her, with her corona of crows, and pigeon entourage.

Love is lazy, chica. It sleeps cos it feels like falling,

and only gets up to set the winter on fire.

You need those ice-bones that doxed a coffin

but you're pouring yourself out like a tapped sugar tree.

I know, baby, I know. Love the buzz, hate the forecast,

but here's religion, honey, here's firecrackers on the altar:

the bright on her body, the heavens in her hand?

It all came from you. She's just a moon, reflecting,

And she blinks out every time you close your eyes.

_________

for Word Garden Word List #4 (Laura Nyro).

image: Chinese actress Fan Bingbing

Painted Meat Envelope

 The painted meat envelope in its gauzy cocoon 

opened its food hole to show its bone rows,

Charming the larger meat envelope, who vocalized:

You're the most beautiful bride ever, Gina."

_____

for Sunday Muse #180. 

Dyslexia

 

I caught an echo of my father

in the way you wear your coat

In the way you're not entirely there

but linger on like smoke

I was looking for a thing that's gone

like those pens with tubes of ink

like mucilage or gum erasers

or feeling loved, I think

Now I've freighted you and burdened you 

and slowed you from yourself

with drapery of memory

I should hook and part myself

But all it was, was honor, sir

all it was was need

to make of you a palimpsest

that I could sigh and read.

_______

For Sunday Muse #178, where I am hosting

the image is actor Alden Ehrenreich

Courtship On The Edge Of The World

The girl whose face was time
was sought after for love, though she was immune.
Sailors dashed their splintering ships at her feet
and crawled the carapace of the rising moon.

Beauty is the star-marker, the sailors called,
and your visage the horizon we perish to unfurl.
She scoffed and said, my face is a mask
and you a troupe of clambering fools.

Behold, behind you, infinity spread!
cried the sailors as one, then fell down dead.

Dropping the guise, the girl confessed
my face is a cipher, the void my nightdress.
__________

for Sunday Muse #88. I have the flu so be kind, please.

The Bone Cage

Do not mistake the bone cage for the free wing.
One is just a draped cloth,
and the other, oh honey,
is everything.


I love you for talon and soft breast, both.
Whether we're gray or black,
with wings we're born,
and so formed, can go.

Do not mistake the bone cage for the sky entire.
One is filled and forgotten,
while the other finds its own
with endless unbordered desire.
________

I think the image, which I found at weheartit.com, looks like my love.

I am greatly saddened to hear of the passing of one of my lifelong favorites, Joe Cocker. So here he is.