In This Room

Here, in this room, is where I left it. 
I carry a key,
cold between my breasts, hard against my heart,
that I will never use again.

You--reaper, slayer, bitch--
I bear no mercy for you, no kind thought.
May fire ants climb up your cunt and kill you very slowly,
and the balm stay in sight just out of reach.

Here, outside this room, is where the husk-body walks.
It lives, while the heart that was its passenger browns and curls beyond the door.
Love for my familiars is strong
but the rest I have driven nails through and fed to bald-head vultures.

Killer, drooling lunatic, dust-souled woman-forgery,
I spit on every mote that's left of you;
I feed your ghost great troughs of hate,
and curse you for killing me, again each day, as long as I have memory.
_____

for Susie's "If Death Were A Woman" challenge at Real Toads.

 

My Happy Place

The New Year arrives at My Happy Place late in the afternoon
By postal motorboat.
We pick it from the splinters and debris in the churning surf,
And carry it up to the house;
"Welcome to My Happy Place," we tell it,
But it only stares fixedly, as if dead.

We put The New Year to bed in one of the guest rooms,
After taking away its shoe laces and belt.
At My Happy Place, we are always at the ready for visitors--
We keep soft restraints in a drawer,
And kindly old Doctor Bubo looks in, though we are never sure that he really understands
Us,
Our guests,
Or My Happy Place at all.

At twelve, The New Year steps out into the night
Near the cupola.
It uses its torn bed sheets to communicate by semaphore
With various monsters and suicides
Out in the deep.
We want to release a flock of doves from the lawn of My Happy Place,
But all that we have is a dead pigeon;
We toss it up into the gale, and it seems to fly for a moment
--noble creature!--
Before thumping listlessly against the bricks and then the ground.

Welcome, New Year, to My Happy Place!
Be mindful of our pitched and slippery roof;
Hold that rose firmly between your teeth,
While stretching out your arms like an aeroplane.
They say that
Birth and Death are less different than the same,
And that all the doors at My Happy Place
Open as easily outward
As in.
____


Happy New Year's, my second least favorite holiday after Independence Day.

The Lemon Laughed

I cut a lemon in half, and from its heart

Came a spray of words, vulgar, stinging.

The vile fruit stained pages full of poetry,

It outstripped me,

It published obsessively.

It left itself everyplace, like some sort of acidic gospel.



I said, well,

That's just fine.

I picked it up,

Used it for an eye,

And saw a crazy dandelion world through the burning.

I tell you,

I wept.



The lemon mocked me.

Each half claimed to be more than I was, whole;

It insulted me,

Because that's how it rolls.



I said, listen,

I don't have to take this from some bald, jaundiced little turd who can't even stand up.

How dare you?

Who do you think you are?



At this, the lemon laughed.

"Rage on," it said.

"You, with the knife in your hand."

__________

Bartleby the Personal Computer

Like Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener, my ancient comp has been increasingly apt to respond to requests that it do its usual tasks with an uninspired "I prefer not to." And like Custer's Indian scouts, it further decided, yesterday morning, that "it is a good day to die." And so it did.

I am at the library tapping this out, and it may be a bit before I can trade enough ambergris or animal pelts to acquire a netbook or something to get back here with. Until then, I am a library rat and will check in as often as I am able.

xox

Shay, back to the stone age

PS--please feel free to check out my "best of" list on the sidebar, if you need a Shay poem and no one is here at the counter.

Groundhog Day

Where's my god dam doll?!?!?