En Graved (A Love Poem)

 look close--

here is your engraved invitation

the Hubble at your disposal.

A long bone

and rose thorn comprise my stylus--

the blasted dust of the moon we thought so lovely

is wounded into an imago

a blighted imbecile twin, 

love lost and lunatic.

_________

for Quadrille Monday "Engrave Your Name Across My Heart"

Image:  from the excellent indie film Another Earth

Music: Til Tuesday The Other End (Of the Telescope)

Dear Katie

 

Dear Katie,

                  please pardon the confusion--

mine,

yours,

the weather's.

Today in group they wanted us to talk about

someone who really loves us.

I started to laugh

                            like slipping on ice

I couldn't wave myself fast enough

                            to save a fall

and the laughing became an ugly cry.

They like us to do things with our hands here

so I made

                a love potion for you.

Yeah, too late. like checking a smoking oven.

But,

       I can still portion by intuition

like how much to kiss you in the morning.

I used

a pinch of rust from a love lock

the memory of five black tulips

and 1 tsp essence of caramel fudge ice cream--

       Jeff Buckley ballads to taste

        baked at 350 until the moon turns silver like your poetry.

Gosh Katie,

                   they took away my books,

said I needed to engage with others.

I went back to group today and said, whoa, back up--

let's do that thing

                              from yesterday.

I pulled my shit together this time, not like before,

and I said,

                Katie mon amour

                 Katie je t'aime je t'aime, je t'aime.

This one bitch goes, you're not French,

you're not even Canadian you fucking freak

But she never stumbled drunk up the stairs with you,

poetry ringing in our ears and the summer night on our skin.

More to be pitied than scorned,

                                                    I can hear you say.

Anyway,

              love ya girl

Katie mon amour,

              Our Lady of Tulips and the Silver Moon.

________________

for Dverse Poetics, "From Your Valentine" hosted by Sanaa.

Music: Chantel Chamberland-- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Let's Talk

 "Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars.

Out here, we is stoned, immaculate."  --Jim Morrison

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

I'm not some sort of spokesperson for eternity.

Still, you keep popping up,

asking if anyone wishes to communicate,

then you wig out when I answer back.

Let's talk about how I got here. 

I was in the back seat of Daddy's Oldsmobile.

The baseball game was on. 

Then I was launching off from some crazy trapeze into...this place. 

No mom.

No dad.

Just another bauble in the costume jewelry box of the universe

shining brightly in the dark.

Now let's talk about you. 

You're miffed when I don't answer, but shit your pants when I do. 

I can't tell you where your dead Granny is.

I can't tell you if she's in glory or misery.

I can't tell you how much I'm starting to hate that silly planchette of yours.

So why did I answer in the first place?

Like Cole Porter says, It was just one of those things. 

Let's talk about not talking anymore.

Whatever you're asking about--it's not my clowns, not my circus.

I'm just a bit of incorporeal ash floating around in the ether.

I vant to be alone

and boy, am I.

At least, until you came along, like a chatty seatmate on an airplane.

You say hello--hello hello!--I dont know why you say hello, I say

Goodbye.

________

for Word Garden Word List--The Circus In Winter.

and

The Sunday Muse #255. 

Music: Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb

Debutantes

It's like a telephone call from the bones,

a song that sings you, whether you love it or hate it,

persistent as a blow to the head.

While all this is going on, you must smile,

set the table properly, oyster fork to the far right.

Lay a linen napkin across the mocking lie.

Walk through the funhouse to your job, 

your marriage, the gibbet of your identifying papers.

Become an object of hilarity if you finally birth yourself.

In short, do anything but this, and then

cut a rug, or your wrists, when all other options expire.

We are the girls half gone by the time we start,

Brave, gorgeous, cursed, strangers even to ourselves.

Lillesden

Sure, we've let a few things go, but
the moon got in our brains through the skylight
and try as we might, everything seemed silver
and possible
and dreamy creamy to us, while all you had to say was,

"Girls, girls, girls," in that clotted voice of yours.

Now, we will do what we will,
as slowly as lunar transit,
and glacially as math comprehension
when there are madflowers in the spring,
outside the ruptured panes
of mind and custom.

Girls, girls girls,
that's what we are, or were, at least,
now lazing with roses in our teeth
and all the time in the world to
receive and revive
our lovers driven to insensibility

by the clock-stopped way
we do them when the dawn is postponed,
attendance dispensed with
and the Ouija board stuck between YES and NO
like a stutterer who can't speak and so sings
like a hypnagogic hallucination of

Girls,  girls.   girls.