AP Stray Cat Yawp

 

Think of a time when you embarrassed yourself

and the cold wet sand of your heart 

dropped in clumps down 

through your stomach.

Start there.

Fetch up a memory of raw-throated sobbing,

when you beat the sofa arm or the floor

as if it were responsible for the

wasp's nest in your heart. 

Open up, little glass, fill with it.

Leave pretty sunsets for painters or postcard publishers.

What we're after here is waking inside a coffin,

falling from height, the whole empty belly

lonesome lack of it all.

Don't shake your head like you don't know. 

The thing you cannot even think is the thing you have to tell.

Will they consider you crazy, the only one

who ever did/felt/wanted/made love to

that?

Behold the mute tongueless many saying you spoke for them.

The poet is the person who threads out their own veins,

stews their every experience, fears nothing,

stands on one leg on a high wire,

all because they can't not.

Otherwise, they would just be cross-eyed babies

waving bright toy telephones to nobody,

and calling it art.

_______

for Desperate Voicings

Music: DJ Dero The Horn 

Cassandra

With barbs through my swollen lips,
I told huge lies
about an angel.

With a cracked skull, I said every wicked thought I had,
to the wind,
to the wind.

The angel warned every neighbor and cousin about my evil.
She wept,
and swept her reptile tail discreetly out of sight.

I ran, such an ugly girl that the sun turned away,
and the clouds
abandoned white for shroudy gray.

No one believed anything I said--
not the stupid, swaying trees,
not the flimsy hollow-boned birds,
not the thin air I spread my screams into.

No one, until I found her in the crack-glassed mirror,
spit on by Apollo,
disregarded and accurate--

Cassandra.
_____

for Ella 

Memento

You gave me a lock of your hair,
and said--

Well, I can't recall. Something about love.

From the lock of hair,
a head

began to grow, but with lips no one could kiss.

The gray skin, the eye askew, the wild black hair,
half dead--

it spoke in the night and told me you don't care.

Your body is sweet, but the head is there
when you are not,

and honest. Oh, the things you kept from me!
and so much
it has to say.
______

The Fix Was In !

Darling readers, I have something to talk to you about which may shock you. No, I'm not referring to Mama Zen's lesbian experimentation while attending Bryn Mawr in the 80s. Curve magazine has pretty much covered that, don't you agree?

Let me begin with a confession: I have been dabbling with watching NFL football. I know, you thought I was better than that. I'm sorry. But, here in Detroit we have certain traditions: big American cars, Thanksgiving Day football games, blight, corruption, and losing. So, every Thanksgiving,  I watch the Lions out of a sense of civic duty. Then I go back to compiling collections of haiku. 

However, this year, the Lions won. I think it did something to my brain. In any event, I kept watching. I watched as they rolled to mighty victories over a series of dispirited also-rans, and I watched as they lost a game at Green Bay for the division title. (Why is there a team in Green Bay? Where the hell IS Green Bay?) Ever the lady, I made no unkind remark about announcer Joe Buck's absurd green and yellow knee pads. Further, I admired how he was able to call the entire game despite keeping Aaron Rodgers' long bomb in his mouth the whole time. Linda Lovelace was nothing but an amateur. 

But I digress.

What I want to tell you about is the game after that. The playoff game (!) between our beloved Lions and the host Dallas Cowboys, whose fans are mostly a backward, inbred group who vote almost exclusively Republican. Indeed, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was there, jumping up and down like ten Tom Cruises, and bro hugging anyone who wasn't nailed down. I should have realized right then that things would not be on the up and up.

The Lions built a 20-7 lead. They could have won. They should have won. But some funny things happened on the way to the next round. Fishy things.

With Detroit needing a first down to keep possession and put away the ridiculous Cowboys, a fine young man named Mathew Stafford stepped back to pass. Up went the ball, hurtling toward its intended target. But then, a Cowboys defender leaped upon and climbed the Detroit receiver like a Family Values congressman on a Bangkok whore. This miscreant pulled the receiver's underwear up over his head and then spun it around backwards like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Finally, he stuck a "kick me" sign on his back and tripped him. Quite rightly, the official threw a flag, signaling pass interference. The penalty was announced, the yardage marked off. But then, an official dressed entirely in Cowboys fan gear emerged from the stands and picked up the flag, mumbling something about "it wasn't that bad." He then awarded the Cowboys the ball, a hundred thousand dollars, and a Pulitzer Prize. Even Joe Buck's jaw dropped in astonishment. 

But that's not all! Last week at Green Bay (Come on...it's a made-up place, right?), Lions' star Nadonkeykong Suh dared to step on the precious, fragile, namby-pamby girly legs of Aaron Rogers. Joe Buck immediately fined him 70,000 dollars! But in the Cowboys game, Mr. Suh was tackled, relieved of his wallet, and dynamited into oblivion by a Cowboys' lineman, while the Dallas quarterback, sitting in an armchair, tossed a fourth down completion en route to a game-winning touchdown, and nothing was called at all. 

One last thing. Immediately following the final play, the offending referee was picked up by Chris Christie, driving a limousine with steer horns affixed the the hood. One would hope that the league would at least make some kind of pretense of fairness. That the referee's seeing eye dogs would not be wearing Dallas hoodies. Oh well. Call me bitter. At least there is one small comfort for me...

Now the Cowboys have to go to Green Bay, wherever the hell that is.   

Motion

"It ain't the meat, it's the motion" --Maria Muldaur

"All the lazy dykes
cross-armed at The Palms
their legs astride their bikes
indigo burns on their arms" --Morrissey

"Desire is a powerful thing",
that's what the lady said
from her hospital bed.

They had to re-break the bone
to re-set it.
As for the bike, forget it.

Another thing: no more beget or begat.
She woke up a dog,
now meet the cat.

These days, she in-line skates
with a lovely
woman-fine sway.
_____

For Flash 55 at Real Toads.

A twist on Kerry's selected phrase "Man, you gotta go," this is based on a documentary I saw years ago, about a transgender woman, a former macho hockey player, who couldn't face her own inner reality until she was injured in a motorcycle accident. Now she in-line skates and is the picture of a woman comfortable in her own body. You go, girl.

 

Double

There are stupid women everywhere--
thick as pigeons on every sidewalk;
if you step on one she will try to lift her snapped neck
to kiss your boot heel and make it better.

I am not like them,
any more than a tigress is like a turnip.
I am nothing like those women laid out on the berber, weeping,
as if they were human carpet runners in the rental house of Love.

I have perfected the art of being solitary.
I cup my hands under the good sturdy faucet of just-enough.
You can lean on my doorbell all day, caress it like a clitoris, 
but I will stay in the far room, as bored as a blind Burmese.

Once, though,
in the months after Us,
when I spent my time plying puny needle and thread
building swaying rope bridges to find my way around the bomb-scatter of my heart,

I wept for you like a child.
I kept your last message on my machine until a power outage erased it.
I took myself for long walks and was jostled by strangers
who hurried through and past, like bad news from a Ouija.

Sometimes they looked like you,
and I would coo to them,
from my broken throat
like an imbecile.
_____________

for Karin's "entwin(n)ed" prompt.

 

Bitch

I am not your bitch.
I am not the hottest looking bitch in this place
I am not one skank ass loose lip bitch
I am not here to take your shit
and I am not about to stand still for being called
bitch.

I will not dress to please you
smile to please you
go slack jawed stupid time airhead easy breeze to please you,
I will not deny my body
I will not deny my appetite
I will not deny my comfort
I will not deny anything except your entitlement you are so used to,
that you don't even know it's there
that you think is just normal business as usual
I will not play that
perpetuate that
suck up to that
just so your dumb ass won't think that I'm a
bitch.

Look at the crap that comes out of your mouth,
all the
bitch
nigger
fag
dyke
ho
that comes out of your cake hole,
all the
you are not the same
you are not worth respecting
you are not even human
crap that comes out of your face,
that allows you to not care
That allows you to beat and mistreat
that allows you to kill and brag and turn yourself to stone.
head heart skin fingers soul of stone.
I am not your bitch!

Look at all the poisoned puke from the pulpit
all the vile, excluding, tiny-minded, pseudo-holy
god in the image of man 
that's spewed out by smiling
clean cut
barbie blonde
well dressed
tenth tithing
bigots cherry picking their bibles
for something to justify 
their fear
their hate
their spiritual laziness
and all the righteous boil drain that says
you are not the same
you are not worth respecting
you are not even human.
I am not your bitch!

I will not change myself to please you, because
I am not your bitch.
I will not dumb it down, because
I am not your bitch.
I will love whomever I feel love for, because
I am not your bitch.
I will say "vagina" in a public place
on tv
in front of Congress
in front of God
I will say it
scream it
whisper it
and I will not be shy, because
I am not your bitch.

I will not be silent
I will not be obedient
I will not watch your gone-stupid summer blockbuster
unless there are two women, with names, who talk to each other in it
about something besides a man.*
I will not send my son to be fodder in your war
I will not sacrifice my child's life in order to spread testosterone around the world,
because I am a mother,
and I am definitely not your bitch.
I am a lesbian, 
and I am so not your bitch.
I am a Catholic woman and will call down the saints
to drag pedophiles out into the streets,
and to put a woman in the Vatican,
the White House,
the coffee house,
the whore house,
the big house,
every house,
BECAUSE WE ARE NOT YOUR BITCH!

We are flesh and blood,
heart and soul,
the keepers of the next generation--
they will not be your bitch.
With time, they will change the whole vocabulary of the world,
and you will join them,
or be left behind, irrelevant, cursing unheard against the wind.
_______

* the Bechdel movie test

A Howl for the Real Toads mini challenge.

 
 

 

 

The Last Thylacine

When you told me you had gotten married,
I thought about the last thylacine.

Isn't that just like me?
You, who once knew me so well,
Know it is.

In eight years, a lot of things change.
There are always more dingoes,
More hunters,
More outlet malls, all the same.

Normalcy eludes me--
Me, with the stripes on my back.
Maybe I saw things that were not there,
Like desire in return,
Or other thylacines.

Maybe I only embarrassed you,
Or myself,
But I always believed you rarer
Than you ever turned out to be.

So, when you told me you had gotten married,
I thought, of course...
Of course you did;
And if, in time, I cried, it was not for you,
But for the last thylacine.
______

Never Send A Man To Do A Woman's Work

Look what you done, babe
with the angels,
angels in your eyes...

Look what you done, babe
with those angels,
angels in your eyes...

You make me wild, like a devil's child
but all a girl can do is try.

Down by the reeds where the cat tails grow
where the river,
the river slides through slow...

Down by the reeds, where the cat tails grow
where the river,
the river slides through slow...

When you put your sweet sweet fingers to my lips,
if you asked my name I wouldn't know.

You give me pleasure like a rumblin cat,
and pain that makes me moan
Sweetheart,
Sweetheart,
I'll do anything
just to be with you alone.

See the sky, it's gonna storm real bad
send the lightnin,
the lightnin quick and bright...

See the sky, it's gonna storm real bad
send the lightnin,
the lightnin quick and bright...

Sweet Jesus love you all day long,
But he knows nothin 'bout the night.
_______

for the blues challenge at Real Toads

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.

______

Special Delivery

I mailed a dream I'd had to a person I'd forgotten,
So the post office had me arrested,
Charged with impersonating the weather.

I obtained a signature from a memory,
And used it to rain myself onto a mustang prairie
Where the moon had cleverly hidden herself within their silver hooves.

You'll say I'm faithless,
While tying my feet with rose-shaded ribbons.
You'll claim I snowed longing into your favorite January
While you slept--

But truth makes better postage,
And I know that Mercury is both a woman and a mnemonic;
Is it all coming back to you now?
You, kicking sterling wings into the flanks of the night?
_____

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

 

Selkie

Has she bewitched you?
She never set out to do it.
She came up from the sea to dance upon the rocks with her sisters
--wet gleaming smooth grace against hard gray stones--
Your eyes and hopeful nature did the rest.

"She would never say where she came from"
You would die there,
So you cannot go--
While she must always return,
Dying in her own way,
Leaving the antique ring upon the table.

There is darkness,
And there is cold,
And some become beautiful there.
Play your fiddle, fool,
She will come.
She is like no other you will ever know--
More enchanted,
More dangerous,
And neither by choice.

On the day when you cannot find her--
When the stony sands mock your panic with their resolute vacancy,
Will you believe that she did not love you?
She will have loved you
Until she could bear it no more.

The weakness will be yours,
And she knows it better, and sooner, than you do.
She is a beauty who will change, and see your face change, too.
She can surface, but the depths reclaim her.
She is human, in your arms,
But she is both more and less than that in her deepest nature.
You will lose each other and suffer for it;
Only the stones, in their hard indifference,
Will endure.

_________

The song "Ruby Tuesday", from which I have quoted a line above, was written by Keith Richards.

sel·kie also sil·kie (s l k ). n. A creature or spirit in Scottish and Irish folklore that has the form of a seal but can also assume human form. 

Many thanks to my blogger friend Lydia, for inspiring me this morning with this post.

 

Nantucket Sleigh Ride

In a room where I had already been,
I used a dictionary of words I already knew,
To help me write poems backwards.

When my hair broke the scissors,
I set fire to my shoes.
The smoke spoke only Spanish and wore a red shawl--
Why I was surprised by this is a riddle for a lunatic.

In the stream, down the hill,
The rocks are black and slippery, like whales' backs.
I am dancing across them barefoot when my heart starts again like a Nantucket sleigh ride--
I laugh, a thawing bell, in the moment that I realize
How careless real love is,
And that I might fall.

______

A Nantucket sleigh ride was when New England sailors and their boat were pulled along by a harpooned whale.

This is a poem about the end of my marriage, a decade ago.

For One Shot Wednesday. Happy one year!

Lions

Lions are wash-outs at counted cross stitch,
Disasters at building model battleships,
And show no aptitude for playing the piano;

They have feet the size of pancake griddles,
Brooking no bullshit--
Where they stand,
The earth stays.

Lions make piss-poor babysitters,
And cannot become pope
Or president;

But, as the stumbling gazelle can attest,
At a single touch, lions can impart
Everything in the world that is worth understanding.

_______

Photo by Adam Romanowicz for One Shoot Poetry Challenge

Art Critique

She is not that beautiful,

Many agree.

Not as much as

Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Nor as several of the bricks

In the masonry.



Her hair is lank,

Her fingers fat.

I quite prefer

The landlady's cat.

Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Says she is a tiresome example

Of the bourgeoisie.



What has she ever done that was noteworthy?

Or good?

She is too pale and passive, it seems to me,

And should be made to wash the floors

And the upholstery.



Melody Farnsworth

From 14 B,

Does not like artists

Particularly.

To create such a hag

With such lashless eyes

Is completely indefensible,

Morally reprehensible.



A moonbat from hell*

Is what Melody sees,

And makes her pronouncement

With which I agree.

Melody and I

Are smart, hip, and gorgeous,

And bear a distant

But telling

And very cool

Relation

To both the Roosevelts

And Borgias.

________

*thank you, Hedgewitch

for Magpie 59

I actually do claim a slight familial connection to the Hyde Park Roosevelts. Or maybe it was Fala.

________

Missionary Stew

"Don't you believe

In the literal word of God?"

Said they.



Let me think.

Let me see.

Let me consult my heads on sticks

With their eyes so pretty stitched

So wise.

So gay.



They say no.

No, we don't.



Besides, we find it surpassing odd

That you believe in one single lonesome God

Watching "House" on Hulu...

Such a strange drooping deity

Will never do.



I believe in

My neighbor's thighs,

And

The sun and stars.

Things that aren't,

And things that are.



"Would you like to discuss these things with me?

Stay for tea?"

Said me.



They say no.

No, they wouldn't.



All one can do,

(I say to the heads)

Is offer the truth.

They nod,

Painted and beautiful in the evening breeze,

They hang.

They agree.

________

photo from Beetlejuice


________

And Now, The Fabtabulous Truth (and one lie) Revealed!!!

Petlets, it's time to reveal the truth (and one lie) about Fireblossom! You'll recall that in my post Fete Me Baby I listed five statements about myself as part of Sioux's Memetastic Meme. Four were true and one was a big whopping doozy of a lie. Did you guess which one was not true?

1. I said I sleep with a night light. True. I didn't until about the age of thirty. Then I started having trouble with something called night terrors, which differ from nightmares. They usually happen to children (I always have to be different, as my mother has been known to bitterly complain), and they usually happen within an hour of falling asleep. They don't have a storyline...just a shadow or some other vague threatening presence takes the mortal terror from zero to 90 in about three seconds. They involve physical thrashing and screaming and all sorts of neat stuff like that. Anyway, I discovered that a little bit of light where I sleep prevents them. So, let there be light. A night light.

2. I said I can't sleep in a silent environment, either. True. I use a white noise machine. I prefer the "waterfall" setting. I lurv my little white noise machine! It's either that or run the dryer all night every night. The noise machine is cheaper! As a child, my parents took me with them to the Great Smoky Mountains one year. We stayed at a place in Gatlinburg that was right on a rocky stream. I never slept better in my life. All night long, it seemed to go shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I need something like that to stop my brain from thinking and keeping me awake.

3. I claimed that I lived in San Antonio, Texas, for six years and never owned a car. True. I used public transportation. I was your friendly neighborhood stone-broke artistic type. I spent most of my twenties doing two things...drinking and studying, though never at the same time. I self-educated. I worked part time to keep body and soul together, and used all that extra time to read everything I felt a young wannabe writer should read. I read Kerouac, Brautigan, Burroughs, Dreiser, Hardy, Lawrence, Amy Lowell, Christina Rossetti, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Kesey, Vonnegut, everything I thought I might learn something from. And guess what? I couldn't have spent my time in a better way. I learned how the masterful use words, how the brilliant think about things, and how the greatest hearts express themselves. And I learned a great honking wealth of wildly diverse trivia. 

4. I said that, the summer I was eleven, my middle brother got married. True. And that the best man stayed at our house. Also true. I said that I didn't like the girl my brother was marrying. True true true. I went on to say that I hid the best man's shoes, thinking that then the ceremony would have to be postponed. Did you pick that out as the lie? Because, if you did, you were right.  I never hid his shoes.

5. And finally, I said 

I don't care if I'm stange, I ain't gonna change

And I don't give a damn about my bad reputation!

True!

_________