Motto

 

This is the hospital

where the nicked-up blown-up bastards show up.

We give them ice cream 

and a priest.

There is a river

down the middle.  We launch ourselves into the current

and it is unclear

who is drowning, who saving.

It's a system of gradations, and if you don't die in Emergency,

why then, we come into your room with cake and streamers.

Presto! You're ambulatory, then outpatient, then nurse, doctor,

surgeon, administrator, president emeritus, cutting ribbons

instead of flesh.

See one, do one, teach one is the motto. See the staggering

son of a gun falling to the floor with wounds beyond telling.

We lift him as if we were angels.

Yesterday, we were lifted.

Tomorrow, who knows?

Nothing stops the flow of the river or the flow of patients.

We are Boatmen, and Mermaids, reaching, 

saving, being saved. We are heroes of the

Carousel Horse Cavalry, coming over the 

hill, with bugle and blood pressure cuff,

dizzy with purpose, maybe dying, learning as we go. 

________

for Desperate Poets We Can Be (SUPER) Heroes. 

Music: Brass Band of Battle Creek Song of the Volga Boatmen

Brick-Dumb Motherfucker

A co-worker, a woman I'd liked quite well up to then
for her quick mind and ready smile,
said, as we were completing a delivery together,
that she thought
lesbians
only went that way because they couldn't get a man.

She said it as an observation
without any rancor
and without any idea who she was talking to.
Then she looked at me to agree, the way women do.
I thought of my then-girlfriend
and how she knew me like a crow knows its nest.
I thought of her blackbird eyes,
her sure touch and drag race temperament.

"That's not true," I told my co-worker, who remained
unconvinced.
It's death by a thousand cuts, this living on the outside,
but we are warriors--have to be--and we keep on.

Later that day, I read about a transwoman who was murdered
by her boyfriend, who felt
he'd been lied to.
Listen, you brick-dumb motherfucker, I thought,
the woman beat herself up every day,
all her life,
until she found the stupendous guts to live as herself
and living as yourself
is always the stone cold truth.

The next day, some god squad evangelist
told me the bible says how I love is an abomination.
All I know is,
his squeaky clean Sunday jesus
wouldn't last ten minutes--
would be curled up fetal-style in some vestibule by the mailboxes,
sucking his thumb and begging to go home--
if he had to live where we live all the time.
_________

for real toads "women's freedom".

Hero To Us !

Corey Rowley walks into Danny's Coffee Shop.
Her eyes half-closed, the Succubus purrs, "Hi, Dreamboat!"

Chloe the serial killer steps in front of her.
"Pay no attention to Sleepytime Gal over there. Let's go get better acquainted, Cor."
With a roll of her hips, she steps closer,
looking down then back up.

"I can't consort with sinners, " says Corey.

"Huh???" say the Succubus and Chloe in unison. 

As Corey sits down, Denise the waitress brings him a bottle of tequila and a suggestive smile.

"None for me," he says. "Bring me a bottle of Squirt, and a lime, please."
She does, but with the most quizzical expression on her face.
When she sets them on the table, 
Savanna the teenage runaway takes the knife from her boot
and offers it, handle first, to Our Hero.
"For the lime."

"Is that a weapon?" he asks, sounding shocked. "Do your parents know you carry that? Shouldn't you be in school?"

As the Danny's girls all stand around looking at him as if he'd grown an extra head,
God the waitress walks up and plants herself in Corey's lap.
Crossing her legs, she unwraps a candy bar and feeds it to him.
"It's a Snickers, baby. Cos you're not you when you're hungry!"

He downs the candy bar and looks a little dazed for a moment.
In the next booth, the Dark-Haired Chick is wearing way cool shades
and petting the Queen of the Vampires, in black panther form.
The QOTV sets her ears back, shows her fangs and lets loose with a fearsome growl.
Corey blinks, then smiles.
"Hi, Shay!"

After that, Corey hangs out and plays guitar for the Danny's girls, 
who are all over him like white on rice.
Somehow, he endures.
_______

for Real Toads "penny for your thoughts."

National Summary Execution Month

Bernard begins to find NaSumExMo burdensome.
Oh, it was fun at first--
the camaraderie, 
the challenge,
the attention!
from reporters and police.

But now,
NaSumExMo seems like a mistake.

His girlfriend, Ashley, does not understand.
"I was talking," she complains.
"I was trying to tell you about something,
and you just keep fucking with that guillotine
and those god damn melons!"

She leaves him.
Her fragrance fades, replaced by the smell of gun oil.

Bernard finds that he has a blemish
on his cheek.
He frowns at it in the mirror, while shaving,
and would turn it if he had not made
this stupid commitment.

"Show me the thing that cannot become a commonplace,"
whines Bernard.
There are days when there really is no deserving miscreant,
and he goes about his business out of duty
rather than joy.

Blam!
So what?
Why did he think this would be worthwhile,
or fun?

"Kill me," he begs another participant.
Ennui has left him unhinged.

Ashley finds him, rocking like a defective in an alley,
twirling his hair,
mumbling.

"Come on, Bernie," she coaxes, softly.
She leads him home,
to the old couch with the floral sheet spread over it,
and the cats.
She heats some chicken noodle for him,
as if he were seven years old and 
home with a cold.

Later, in bed,
She kisses his chapped, razor-nicked face,
and asks,
"Sooo...what are we going to say, if they ask you again,
next month?"

"No..." he replies, eventually, in a vacant monotone.
She kisses him again,
happy to take him back.

"That's right, baby."
And it is.

_______

Doctors

Dr. Demerton diverges from strict protocol,
taking out his ink pen and prescribing trephining
for a patient complaining of an itchy scalp.

How many ear aches can one man stand to encounter
before his mind tears into ragged strips,
like a wet napkin?

How many common colds can he diagnose before wishing to 
press each stuffy head down into a basin full of water 
until all complaints subside?

Next door, Dr. Baynedda cures all with a toss of her hair,
or a sultry glance above her bookish eyeglasses.
White canes and old wheelchairs accumulate outside by the dumpster,
while their owners cartwheel home
or read eye charts placed in the next county.

When Dr. Baynedda walks in, she dispenses cures from the pockets of her immaculate white coat,
and nothing hurts, ever, except the sharp pangs of desire
felt by her patients,
her staff,
and even by people in far away countries at the simple mention of her name.

Dr. Demerton feels eclipsed, and a little bit depressed,
watching the misery which teems in his waiting room,
be it ever so common;
be it ever so dull.
He strays further and further from standardized practice,

incorporating voodoo, the herb smoke, and 
non HMO approved pentagrams into his treatments.
But still,

everyone prefers Dr. Baynedda.
One visit, and soft white-feathered wings emerge from their once-slumped shoulders.
One smile from her, and sluggish hearts race,
twisted, useless limbs become supple and strong,
and the dead--yes, the dead!--rise, just to fall at her feet in adoration.

Dr. Demerton gives up practice, becomes a busker in the subway,
with a little fez-wearing monkey he rescued from a lab
by holding the director and his staff at bazooka point.

And Dr. Baynedda?
She wears the uniform of mercy,
the colorful costume of genuine radiance,
and all who see her, all who seek her,
become pilgrims on a holy journey
into Yes Sugar Yes.
_______


 for my own Fireblossom Friday prompt, "I Love A Man (Or Woman!) In Uniform". I think white lab coats count.

 

Christmas Jane

Christmas Jane loses her seasonal job,
And so she returns to Summer,
Long days on the high grasslands
Laid out flat on the back of a silent black horse, she sleeps in the sun.

Christmas Jane eats peyote,
And hears bells.
There are no churches out here;
Just the wind that's born at the ends of her hair,
Making it long to travel.

Christmas Jane sends a post card home;
Sleeps with a guy in the heat mirage morning,
And with a girl under the stars that night.

It is not so bad, this loose wandering.
She loves the buffalo herds, both ghostly and real,
And stays between their hooves, light as a feather, easy and unharmed.

Christmas Jane loves the Autumn,
The fires that begin,
And the smoke in the air.
Whoever she is, she isn't Christmas Jane anymore,
But her black horse will carry her across the frost
To the next place,
Always,
With a nicker she interprets
As a prayer.

______

Fly Girl

Fly Girl say,
Whoa yeah--
If you lyin
If you lyin
She know it.
Fly Girl see
Twenty-four of everything,
And if you hustlin that hard
You sure enough sellin bullshit.
Don't think
Don't even think
Fly Girl don't know it.


Fly Girl look
Right into your eyes,
And anything you are
Shine back multiplied.
She hip
She fly
She see twenty-four of everything
Two dozen times in each big eye.
Stop lyin
Stop lyin
You might fool your mama, or fuck with the man,
But Fly Girl don't play that.
Fly Girl understand.
_______


for dverse poetics "superheroes" HERE

 

Question

I took the perfect picture
of the perfect girl
I always wanted to be--

So smart.
So sexy.
So fearlessly,
flawlessly
me.

I wanted to offer myself to you
like a thin mint on a tray--
so undeniably fine,
so de rigueur and avant-garde,
so gay.

But I put it in my pocket
and it got bent up.
I fell off the rails,
went outside the lines,
and got
thoroughly
worrisomely
fucked up.

And so I'm wondering--
if I'm not quite intact,
not exactly all that,
a little worse for wear with leaves in my hair--
would you still love me as I love you?

As is?

As I am?

______

Always there, wearing fur of a bear...

This post is dedicated to my BFF Hedgewitch, who, when she isn't polishing the horns on her Viking helmet, is about the best friend a girl could have.


Even when I bore her to death with my 19th nervous breakdown, she doesn't run me through or tape my mouth shut. Teh coolnezz...she haz it!


^^Keef!

Skay Boder!

Tonight I had to go to the pharmacy to get Bosco some more insulin. In line, I was behind a pretty woman and her toddler son, who sat backwards in the cart, facing me.

He looked at me for a moment, and then got this gimormous smile across his face. He pointed and said, "hemmet! hemmet!" The woman turned around, looked at me, smiled, and said to him, "That's right! She's wearing a helmet!" He was so excited about my helmet. It was adorable.

Then, bouncing in his seat, he crows, "Skay boder!!!!" His mom goes, "Skateboarder? I think she's probably on a bike, honey." I fessed up that I was.

That little boy was soooo excited about it. Fireblossom, sk8ter chick? Hmm, maybe not, but I walked away grinning.

Aunt B.

She was my favorite aunt

With the big laugh

And the ashtray always close at hand.



My father's half sister,

I still miss her at odd times

And wish I could sit with her again now.



No matter what silly thing I had to say,

She would always pass the time of day

With me while one of her dogs snored away beneath the table.



She loved her mutts

And her Tigers on the radio.

She loved women too, I think,

Though now I guess I'll never know for sure.



The day she was buried was the last day I drank.

I arrived late and stayed late at the cemetery,

Where the overturned earth looked weirdly like chocolate cake.



I hope that where you've gone is as sweet as you always were to me.

I love you, Aunt B.

That's all I really wrote this poem to say.

________

for Thursday Think Tank #50 at Poets United.

Book cover: "The Well Of Loneliness" by Radclyffe Hall. My aunt had this book in her little glassed-in book case where she kept her special books. It's an early lesbian classic, but by the time I realized that, it was too late to ask her about it. Anyway, I'd love to hear her infectious laugh again.
_______

In the time before Joan Jett....

In the time before I knew there was Joan Jett, I had a different musical crush. I still remember being in a record store (yes, a record store, where each album took up about five square yards of space, had the singer or band's entire biography on the back, a poster inside, and all of it shrouded in mystery by an artsy cardboard sleeve.)

Anyway, there I was in the record store, morose little thing that I was, poking around, looking for new Leonard Cohen or Laura Nyro or Tim Buckley, when I saw a new singer with just the cutest face and hair (turns out she was Miss Dust Flats Junction or something, at one time) and had to investigate.

Well, as you all know, I cannot be tempted by anything, and so I left that album right there in the record store. But after I had had time to think about what I had done, I went back to the record store and bought "Elite Hotel", and fell completely in love with Emmylou Harris.

I love her singing, I love her song selection, I love her looks...okay, especially that. I have always really liked long straight dark hair, long and straight being the style when I was a shrimp, and so it even to this day makes me feel young again, so that I can nearly summon the gumption to throw off my shawl and wheel my chair a few feet down the hallway of the home before falling asleep again drooling on my cardigan.

But wait! There's more! My girl went gray somewhere along the line. And....she looks fantabulous that way. The nerve of some gals. Plus, she appears to age only in reverse dog years. That is, one year for every seven the rest of us do. I mean, look at me, I look like I just climbed up out of the crypt most days, while Emmylou looks hotttttttttt. Life is completely unfair.

In recent years, I had managed to forget about Emmylou somehow. Too busy listening to Wall of Voodoo, I suppose. But now I have remembered her. Damned nice of me, I think. And now I am smitten all over again. She's even got the tragic love affair with the late Gram Parsons. The woman has it all. I hate her. But I don't. Sighhhhhhhhhhhh....

Women Who Rock

Sweet readers of mine, I am still lame, so here is a short post to tide you over. I want to shout out to my friend La Belette Rouge, who is celebrating her third Blogaversary! Go visit her, she is extremely elegant and, well, she's my friend and that's it and that's all, so scat and go see her already lol.

I also want to express my breathless, swooning admiration for my friend who boldly kicked the butts of the crooked car repair place that tried to gyp her. When the smelling salts revive me, I will tell you how cool I think that is! I can't say which friend this is, cos, well, I haven't asked permission to do so. You know me, all about rules to the bitter end.

Hehehehehe.

And lastly, a superfluous bonus picture of Joan Jett, because it's my blog and I can!

xoxox

FB
______

Fireblossom, Chosen By God, Unleashes Super Powers

Twin, Twin. Have you fallen on your head or something? This morning I awoke to find that my beloved Twin, Riot Kitty, had gotten on her blog and spouted something about Wonder Woman needing to cover up. Has she completely taken leave of her senses? Or is this simply part of the heterosexual agenda? You know, Twin, I've been prepared to overlook that about you, even though it's not what God wants, and yes, I do speak for God. She said to me, "Shay, sugar, deal with these earthlings for me, won't you? I've got mah jong!"

If Wonder Woman starts wearing some awful green pantsuit from K Mart, where does it all end?

Zatanna in a snuggie?

Batwoman (who is now a lesbian, by the way, pleasing God) in a bhurka?

Red Sonja (Ily???) in sensible shoes?

I don't think that I can bear it, and so I am taking it upon myself to save Zatanna, at least. (picture courtesy of the amazing Mrs. Mars, though I think it looks suspiciously like Mama Zen. Maybe not.) 

Won't someone save Wonder Woman?

And Batwoman, too?

Remember, some fashion mistakes can never be undone or outlived. Twin, please remember, a generation of little girls needs role models. It's Zatanna or Greta Van Susteren. Need I say more?

______________