Mykonos

 Sugar plum, fairy

who kindly took me in,

you looked like one of those

white buildings on Mykonos

clean as a tide

in an open shirt.

Me, just a ragamuffin then, but

you treated me like turquoise and silver,

a small sparkling thing.

I loved your love of Gato Barbieri

and the notion

that I was worth the introduction.

Sugar pea, you knew me better

than I knew myself,

didn't you?

That soothing shade of Greek blue is called

Ambiguous,

and it's lovely, like early morning

or an offered hand

in a pearly cuff.

______

for Dverse Poetics "double dipper." 

I used Sugar Plum. 

Red

Nick Gravenites: A woman...

Janis Joplin: yeah?

NG: A woman...

JJ: yeah?

NG: A woman...

JJ: yeah?

NG: Just makes me mad.

JJ: Aw man....sheeit.

--"Ego Rock", from Joplin In Concert

While i was in the hospital
being the world's shittiest caterpillar,
you bought me
JOPLIN IN CONCERT
the double live album i coveted bad.

you were leaves on a high breeze.
i was a silk grenade.
we were young once, weren't we?
in Birmingham
so far down the rabbit hole, the wrong way down the telescope.

nothing from then is still the same.
i kiss the feet of the Goddess who arranged *that*, but
the desire i had to will wings out of my body
and rise is still there,

just like
JOPLIN IN CONCERT
and though i rarely play it,
i see the red cover
and there you are, smiling still, and standing right in front of me.
______

for Bittersweet Melodies at Real Toads.
 

Artifice

Tell me I'm beautiful,
and that you could fall in love with me.
I'm a pretty billboard splashed with promises--
be the slant-boards holding me up.

She broke my heart--
I'm a big empty box full of shards.
Don't shake me, just let me be a star that doesn't move--
I do give some light, if you do all the work.

Sir Knight, I admire you truly--
broad shoulders do something to a girl, even me.
I like the careful knot of your tie, your cologne,
your starched shirt, your smile.

I'll make you laugh and feel good,
all without risking anything, because I won't feel more than fondness.
Then, just when you think we really have something,
I'll be gone, caught up by some woman

Like a kite in the wind, and as fragile.
______

For mag # 299.