I Am a Human

 I am a human

raised by a robot

cut loose in the garden

carried on the water

carried on the water

cared for by the winter

and my mind--that's ice

nice nice very nice.

nice nice very nice

making poetry from paper birds

and a magpie in flight

under a fragrant sun

under a fragrant sun

cut loose in a garden grove

where the robot rusts, in time we trust

carried on the water like the rest.

________

for What's Going On? BEING HUMAN

one line is taken from the Ambrosia song.

they stole it from Kurt Vonnegut.

Your Angel

 In a curio shop you bought a small angel.

The first thing the two of you did was to eat each other's hearts,

Hospital or cemetery? I asked, wiping spatter off my sleeve.

We have a nest inside Danielle Steele's blastoma, you said.

Take us there. 

Little soft-spoken angel, my partner's darling

breaks playmate's noses when things don't go right. 

There is the law, and there is what is clearly sick and wrong.

The two of you swing on a blade between the two.

Brilliant Ideas, you get them by the bushelful.

Marriage, madness, ill-advised rambles, and your angel

smashing the crucifixes.

Yes, I tried setting her on fire but your tears put her out.

It is her nature to be unnatural. It is mine to try to survive.

Dawn breaks. The neighbor's rooster kills itself. The sun lists.

What about our family, you ask? I scream, I want a divorce!

You smile and it shatters the Hummels like a cheekbone.

_______________

Paris

 

So here I am in Paris

but it isn't really.

It is only what I imagine Paris to be

or would like it to be

or have hoped it would be.

So here I am, in Paris, with you

but not exactly.

You are not what I imagined you to be

or would like you to be

or had hoped you would be. 

So here I am alone

in a strange place.

I am not how I imagined myself to be

or would like to be

or had hoped I would be. 

I wish I had a loaf of French bread

and a sweet pastry

since even in my imagining, wine is out.

I wish I had a hand to hold

or a book to read

written in both languages.

I wish I had a balcony

overlooking a busy boulevard

full of small cars

and bright bicycles.

I wish there were geraniums in hanging pots

and a flowered gown to wear.

I wish that for a day

I could be not-old again.

There would be an unmade bed,

also a dog,

and perhaps a man, or a woman.

I'd be happy either way.

So here I am in Paris

but not Paris.

Here I am with you,

but not you at all.

Here I am

whoever it is that I am,

leaning out from my balcony

in my flowered gown,

completely mystified like a little girl

giving her dolls names like

Hortense

Matilda

Jeanne Marie

or Shay Caroline

calling them by name and serving tea. 

_________

I used THIS list of prompts again, this time #9. 

Orphans

 

We were made orphans by the war and brought here

fresh as the day's catch, stunned and open-mouthed.

Maps at the front of our classrooms had to be updated daily

as bombardments revolutionized cartography.

We liked to climb things. Nearby hills, the orphanage fences,

bunk bed ladders, walls, and each other when the explosions came too near.

We lost many things. Teddy bears. parents, barrettes, books, brothers and

sisters, homes, friends, cereal bowls, pets, and our sense of fear.

Years have passed, along with everyone we knew except each other.

Our teachers turned dead and brown like ivy from the gas.

We developed immunity and emerge now changed, arriving in towns

across our devastated country, with our steady gaze and detached manner.

We are young, beautiful in our way, outwardly unmarked and shining.

Approach us, kiss us, make plans to repopulate and recover

from the waste, carnage and horror through us, the only hope remaining.

We are as bold as bullets, jacketed, calling you pretty pigeon, townie, lover.

__________

for Sunday Muse #260

and shared with desperatepoets open link  #4. 

Music: Tommorrow from Annie. A favorite of mine.  Yes, I'm a sap at heart.

Medea Visits Phaedra On The Ninth Floor

 

Hey Phaedra, what gives?

I came as soon as I could.

Creepy how they lock the door like that.

Hey Phaedra, shh now, don't cry.

You're emotional and it's late in the day.

They said something happened with the kids.

When they call like that, it's never good.

Acamas will be all right, he's in his room with his cat.

Demophon told me it's all a lie

and Hippy himself won't exactly say.

Did they give you those little cups with lids

for pills to take with their shitty food?

God, Phaedra, it's so hot, why do they lock the thermostat?

Theseus will be all right as long as his martini's dry

and I'm sure he doesn't think you're cray.

So, Phaedra honey, just tell me this,

was it Hippy who put you in this mood?

You've been just like a mom to him. No one's denying that.

I know it's cringey but what happened? Tell me. Try.

You know I'll listen. I'm here. I'll stay.

This all got Theseus where he lives.

He's gone to Poseidon's to bitch and brood.

Phaedra baby, Hippy's just talking trash.

He's confused or maybe even high.

Aw honey, who can figure brats today anyway?

_________

Rimas Dissolutas for Dverse Poetics. 

In Bohemia

 

In Bohemia, where the Moldau

flows and hollyhocks rise beside the cottages,

I went, as a child, into the dark woods to escape 

the terrors of the monster behind the door of mine.

At night in Bohemia, where the wolves

go and the moon rises over the trees beyond the cottages,

I rose with it in the night to escape nightmares

as the wolves sang to me like imaginary mothers.

In Bohemia there are hands, and cookies shaped like hands

full of sugar and poison. In the mornings the monster

fed me hate because I was a mirror, but the wolves

told me I was a lake and a home for the wandering moon.

In Bohemia, there are little girls carrying wicker baskets

beside the shores of the Moldau, where the rooks rise.

The rooks are born from ice in the blood of monsters

and they say, "we are the rooks, we love you," as they peck.

In Bohemia, by the shores of the Moldau, many children

disappear, into forests, or ovens, where monsters sent them.

The wolves heard of this and began to follow ceaselessly,

so closely that I became them, and they became me.

In Bohemia, where the Moldau 

flows and hollyhocks rise beside the cottages,

a Gypsy girl and her wolves shrank a monster

who starved on its own poison cookies.

So I ask you now, Sir or Madame come down the lane,

to my fairy cottage by a lake beneath a golden moon,

looking for love and loaves and a soft situation,

do you really want to fuck with me and my wolves?

Better you should go, and take your monsters with you.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #189, where I am hosting. 

Youth & Age

I met a woman with hands made of ice,
she said you're burning 
with fever, 
poor thing.
She gave me a bible, some old wedding rice
and a bell
too tarnished
to ring.

She said, child, you come like a saint with a gun
to bless me
or kill me
with cures.
I stood there and called up the moon with my prayers,
fed it honey,
then gave it
to her.

Don't give me your pity, it's you who need mine
said this woman who cracked 
when she smiled.
Then the moon called me back and erased all I'd done
and the woman said
don't you see,
child?
The woman said
don't you see,
child?
_____

for Sunday Muse #94.

Single Parent Adventures

A man gives birth to a pair of pliers.
The first thing that happens is his friends punching him in the arm and calling him "mommy", followed by snorts and guffaws.

Doctors repair his dignity and hand the pliers child to it.
The man's dignity gets its own apartment.
The man's friends deride his singleness, call him "Lonesome."

One night while fending off bro punches, the man's doorbell rings.
His pliers child is at the door, remarking that it never asked to be born.
The man phones his dignity, and is advised to deal with the situation himself--it is his dignity's kickboxing night.

Fleeing his friends, the man carries his pliers offspring out to the garage and hangs it on a pegboard with the other tools.
"Goodnight," he says, and closes the automatic door.

His dignity calls, as if it had eyes all the way across town.
"What kind of father are you?"
"I've tried to be both mother and father to the pliers," he begins,
but his drunken friends start swinging golf clubs inside the house. 
There is arguing, shouting, police involvement.
He hopes the pliers won't wake up, hear, and speak badly of him later to his dignity. 
_____

for "Let Us Labor" at dverse

When The Circus Boat Sank

When the circus boat sank

there in the sound,

both schedule and physical limitations were suspended

and everything slowed down.

Children dove to us as falling leaves

with apples in their mouths for our horses; 
manes like the arms of women whose chests hum with lullabies 

remembered from the drowsy south.

The tiger and I dance as months go by

and rescue loses meaning, light its immediacy.

One child has kept with us, here,

and looks to me for starfish and story.

"Once upon a time," I say to her,

"there was blue tiger, blue water, drowsy you, dreamy me." 

And so the story goes,

ever blue,

ever more,

everlastingly.

_____ 

for Sunday Muse #4

The Marxist Coffee Mug

The Marxist coffee mug

hid itself in a packing crate,

deep in the excelsior.

Swinging from a dock crane

above ship and below blue summer sky,

the Marxist coffee cup left the bombs and arrests of its homeland

in favor of the welcoming warmth of Castro's Cuba.

Class struggle dissolves

when conga and brass trumpet combine

in the rising air of sultry evenings.

The parrot's wing is 

red for passion,

yellow for unity

and green for plenty, by the hand of the noble proletariat. 

Imagine the alarm of the Marxist coffee mug

when, a day after arriving and being thieved from a government-owned warehouse,

it found itself in the hand of a woman named Consuela

who smashed it over the head

of her unfaithful lover Miguel.

When you dream,

when you love,

and most of all when you take up a cause,

remember the Marxist coffee mug.

Realize how closely the bones inside your flesh

resemble ceramics,

and the white around the sideways eyes

of your fellow traveler,

El Noble Loro de la Revolucion. 

_____

("The Noble Parrot of the Revolution")

 

Sadie Hawkins Dance

At eleven, we were hollow-stemmed, yellow-haired flowering weeds,

all taller than the boys,

chained around a crab apple branch like thaw drops.

We were departing swallows

quicker than afternoon;

smug with our lessers, cowed by our betters,

kites with cat-tails, casting for a clue.

Want to go with me?

Say no, say yes, say no, say yes!

Whatever they said, it would be years before we felt this power again,

at the high arc of a cycle of seasons,

calling the steps, knowing the music would change.

___________

day 16

for Rommy's "Fun and Games" prompt at Toads.

Dolly

You dismiss us;
me and Dolly.
"Run along to your room," you say.
"Stay there...all night. All day."

You think we don't know
that you crawl with every loathsome perversion
of flesh and spirit.
You believe that Dolly and I don't see it.

Fine. We will whisper over our tea set,
cups as delicate as a veneer.
We'll discuss you, you know, and send anonymous notes
to Mrs. Muffington, the police, and in the pockets of strangers' coats.

Dolly says your lungs are weak.
You stumble when you walk. Cough when you speak.
"Hello," we'll say, "Hello, what's this?"
as you lie on the floor we'll give you a kiss.

Dismiss us once more.
Wave your hand airily.
Say, "Go talk to your doll!"
but...

my doll talks to me.
______
 

Devils

There are devils--
never doubt it.

They are in the details,
and they lounge on the brass cross-piece at the foot of your bed
all through your decumbiture.

Decarnate devils fuck with your read outs
and your precious little decastich.
This little devil screwed the meter.
This little devil scotched the poem.
This little devil cried we we we 
will goose you at your desk
at our will
and all the way home.

Here's your désobligeante 
with a devil on the box beneath the moon.
Here's your digitorium
with a devil to call the tune.

Forget what you've been fed
about doromanic deities.
All there is is devils,
all over,
all in,
all red.

Die now. Why not?
The devil gonna getcha anyway.
Maybe tomorrow.
More likely today.

But what about redemptive grace?
What about angels?
Oh, grow up.
To shelter?
To save?
The devil you say.

_____

thanks to march debzati for some devilishly darling D Words.

decarnate      denied or deprived of physical bodily form
decastich      ten-line poem 
decumbiture      the time spent by an invalid in bed 
désobligeante      carriage for one passenger 
doromania      obsession with giving gifts
digitorium      silent piano for practicing

 
 

 

Last Night

I had put away the cat's teeth,
and the blood of what I had to be, and do,

because, darling, I am after all
just caught up, mid-step,
as you are,
in the way of things, and in the set of the stars in their indifferent sky.

Still, there is only one Moon,
and only one for whom I wait softly like this,
unguarded,
all girl and garland, asleep in the ribbon grass.

Soon, the cat will come back,
and with her, the harsh edge of all I must do--

but last night, why was the air so chill,
the Moon so dark?
and where, sweetheart, where
were you?

________

Wreath Around The Moon

I'm the ballerina in the open air,
the broken neck at the bottom of the stair;
I want to kiss your breast,
be your baby and
Best In Show,

I want to know what it means to
be the coffee on your lips
and the color of the tile beneath your toes.

I want to step out on the stage
like a rose wreath around the moon,

I want us to slide on down to Austin
by train, in a storm,

where you'll call me Cat Mama Honey,
check us in, and lock the door.
_______

The Ballad Of The Black Swan

I called the swans,
but they were lazy from being loved by the Winter.
They lay everywhere,
wings spread and still across the dull world
like protective mothers doting over an indifferent, implacable child.

From that day, I hated the swans.

In my emptiness, I prayed that Goddess would send me a weapon;
stupid with cold, at first I thought it was the night that had turned my dreams black,
but it was your arriving kiss,
and I fell in love with Fire.

As a sign of my devotion to you,
I grew my red hair long, to my waist,
overnight.
The violence of your love sent my name into hiding,
but the delight of your rough endearments
made the sun rise,
crimson and punishing,
out of the screams I offered you like candy.

That day, I went to murder the swans' darling.

There are glass children, and there are wooden children.
The glass children I recognize as our own, My Love.
You made me pour out
the grating, useless sand of my desert past--
it was your bright, sudden kiss
that made our babies beautiful,
reflecting the white and silver
like they were born to it.

The swans' child was wooden,
a more clever and wicked devil than I had counted on.
My Love, My Love,
what could I do?
When I stood over her, her many mothers melted away,
--the cowards!--
leaving her alone and at my mercy.
She stirred.
She met my hand, the hand that has loved you,
with a bouquet of burning flowers.
She placed them on her mothers' graves.
She placed them in my hair.
She placed them everywhere, all the way up to our secret aerie.

My hard sweetheart,
do not hate me, your Black Swan. I am the creature who will be devoted to you forever.
And, my adored one,
do not hate this child;
she bears my true name, and I have brought her home to stay.
_____

linked to Kenia's Wednesday Challenge

The Succubus Athena

When I was young, and the world too loud
Too bright
My defenses thin as tissue paper
Ridden with nightmares
Blessed with visions
Hammered with practicalities
Shoved in a box,
Unfurling only in secret
After dark
Under covers like dense fog, and I the ground,

She came.

Her owl twisted its head, as if hanged and broken-necked in a gale.
She turned hers, the picture of grace and calm.
I closed my eyes, hard.
She touched me with her black glove smooth upon my face,
And my bones gathered and rose as one,
A white flock within my flesh
A firework
A soul released and rising.

"Little girl," she said in her perfect blackwinged voice,
"What has been happening here?"
Spirits seemed to peer from behind her shoulders, listening.
A blackberry bush scraped the window outside.
The door turned its own lock and breathed.

I had believed, always, that I was dust on a smooth tabletop,
A smear,
A trial sent by someone I couldn't remember,
To perform some evil that I didn't understand.
I tried to stay out of the way.
I swallowed my words.
I was the only red spark in a house of heavy dark emplacements,
A male preserve.
I set myself on fire constantly,
In shame
In silence
Sitting politely,
Going up.

I opened my eyes.
"Who are you?" I asked the woman, my visitor.
Her owl swiveled back, to stare.
The lady's eyes widened, just for a moment,
Then narrowed.
Trees sighed, swaying above the house like mourners, unseen.
Anger floated off her, like bright dead leaves, then scattered.

She looked away.

"This must be paid for," she whispered, to the dark room.
Turning back, she was calm as a frozen sky.
She leant forward, soft as a rumor.
"I am the Succubus Athena."
"And who am I?" I asked, not even realizing it or meaning to,
And half afraid I was about to die.
For the first time, she smiled--
Dark--
Beautiful--
Perfect.
Smooth as skinning a kill, she peeled off her gloves and took my face in her hands;
She kissed my hairline, soft as the falling of full dark,
In the spot where the silver still stays.
"Little girl," she murmured, in a tone I had never heard before,
"You have always been
And will always be
Mine."


_____

linked with Real Toads open link

Foolish Breeze

(This poem reprises the Witch of Waxahachie, first seen HERE.)

Breeze, Breeze
Late summer lady wearing a necklace of ice,
Don't rock across the cat's tail--
Don't steal down beneath the railroad bridge
And wake the Witch of Waxahachie.

Well now, stupid girl,
You've gone and done it.
She is 116 years old
And wakes up meaner
Than the dog you stole the bacon from.
Howl howl
Snarl and shatter--
One year older.
One year madder.

The Witch of Waxahachie
Married five men
(one at a time...she is decorous, if dangerous),
And they are no more to her now than
Five drops in a bucket.
But, Breeze,
Silly Breeze,
She kissed one woman
And never knew such sweetness
In the afternoon,
Nor such a bitter emptiness
As she felt that evening looking down the Grange Hall Road--
The very one her darlin's feet set on fire when she left.

Breeze, ridiculous thoughtless Breeze,
With your sun-deep skin and your
Dead white smile,
Now you have woken her.
Now you have reminded her.
There is just the one way out, and it goes due west--
I would take it if I were you.
_______