Lebanese Dove Lost in A Mexican Market

 

I awake on a sidewalk as a bird

and in a moment of comic idiocy

I fly into a store

                         where a woman swings a broom at me,

shouting, "Un pájaro!"

She misses me by inches

as I have missed so many things

by inches or miles

                             and if she breaks my wings

her dustpan will be my grave.

Once, I knew--or dreamed

your skin by Tiffany lamp.

In those days,

                      the mornings were quiet and damp

like a woods at first light

where we could go walking

and not worry where we'd been.

I careen into packages of pasta

which fall like pilgrims to the floor.

The woman spits, 

                              "Ay! Diablo!" and has no more

pity for me than a loaded gun.

How did I become a bird

in this ridiculous situation?

I remember the day when you left

with your bags like a brood of chicks

gathered at your feet

                                   in their nest of sticks

like burning incense.

Now, I am a mourning dove without a sky

with a new woman now, who shouts, "Diablo! Ay!"

_______________

For Word Garden Word List--Light, Coming Back

Music: Gary BB Coleman The Sky Is Crying

Black Walnut

The moon shows through the filigree
of my black walnut tree's
branches.

All summer, the boastful sun 
kept after her, one
day into the next,

And though she did not love him,
she needed him. She thinned
by degrees.

The moon paints my black walnut tree silver
where the thick green of her
is gone.

The sun comes less and less, bored
with his conquest;
the moon stays, but is mad, 

And my walnut tree lays her beauty down
upon the earth cold and brown,
indifferent as a grave.
__________

Sky, Earth, Sky

sky,
earth, sky,
never try
piloting prop
when you're sad and high.
last night i dreamed that i
cleared my head, got out of bed,
and walked down the wing to kiss you.
never take random pills with warm wine--
sky, earth, sky, fall, roll, rise, you, us, i.
______

an Etheree for Play It Again, Toads.

Madness

Beautiful One,
committing rabid bloody murder
out on the wind-howled dust flats
of this dismal place, come back.

I have repaired the roof of the Environment,
and gotten some of the circuits to work again.
The hours here are intolerably empty without you,
like space, indifferent and suffocating.

At the Program, when we still had futures
fragile as the ecosystems on rocks that circle dying stars,
you were the only Scottish-Asian woman there,
or maybe anywhere.

I should have known then
that I had no chance of discovering anything distant,
when the only launch I cared about
was of my fingers through the black tracklessness of your hair.

Each heart is a rider contained
within a human ship of beauty and bone.
How fragile, how vulnerable we are
to a touch we have longed to know without knowing it.

How defenseless we are when the right face appears, 
making us feel everything,
or the virus which can disguise itself and enter
without being felt at all.

Doubt, fear, terror, carnage--
these are the commanders we answer to now.
Madness sprung from alien chemistry--
destroying us golden gods of science as if we were cardboard.

Cruelest of all, each infected madman here believes themselves sane;
it is the others who have clearly become maniacs.
Honey, if you have disemboweled Anderson from C Deck,
you had to do it. It was self-defense.

At the Program, our lives and our passion had possibilities,
lined up, sparkling and precious, like gem stones in a row on proud display.
My collection was always only
your warm skin, your wicked smile, and the seeking of them both, eternally.

I hate to think that we have shared our last moment
of strictly illegal carnal sweetness.
What I mean is, if I can never kiss you again,
then freezing under a too-distant sun is no different to me than living on.

Eckhart, from supply, looked so crestfallen when he saw what I had to do,
yesterday when we met in Pod B.  
I didn't know that it would be so gory, so awful,
or that he would just stand there, waiting for the blow, his mind already gone.

The rest of the crew is either dead or reduced to
quasi-human, semi-ruined caricatures, carrying flamethrowers and bibles,
ever-present and ever set on the complete destruction
of all that is still good, and gentle, and ennobling.

Listen to me ramble, I sound mad myself, don't I sweetheart?
I'm not though. We are the last two, the Anna and Eve of the end of the world,
and I cannot bear it here without you.
Come back. I'll leave the airlock unsecured,

to let you in, and on the monitor I will see your face,
like a picture of home, or of our days at the Program,
when madness was a delicious thing, the high we wanted again and again,
and if there were consequences, well My Heart, what a way to go.
______

For Get Listed with Kenia! I used the entire list, and kept the sci-fi theme of her book from which the list was taken.

Image from the movie Another Earth.

Union

In the winter,
I married a small wooden box.
I carried my devotion around in a coal scuttle,
and named each of the kitchen utensils
as if they were children who might one day attend university
and, subsequently,
slowly forget us.

My husband was made of cherry wood,
wide as he was deep.
I mailed him the dust from the nursery
where we grew liniment and bitters
from window boxes buried under the floor boards.

One day, going on spring,
the sky turned the color of a fouled well.
It rained river perch;
they came down inside overcoats of ice, like a devil's fairy tale
and all the while,
my husband was one lung and I was the other--
with no heart in between,
inspiring and expiring
without any conscious thought at all.
_______

for Mary's Mixed Bag "connection" at Real Toads.

Pantry Chef

When I was younger,
I washed lettuce heads in cold water.
I would set them on my cutting board, gently,
As if my hands hummed with lullabies.

I lifted tomatoes from their cardboard carton beds.
I lined them in a row like nursery babies,
And my starched jacket was always white and clean.

I knew romaine and bibb,
Beefsteak and cherry.
I kept my hair tied back, my nails short,
The right knife sharp and at the ready.

I didn't know, then
That lovers remember the wine, not the greens;
The sugar, not the side plate.

I wish you were here to kiss my hands
With their swollen knuckles and cut-scars.
What was I doing with my tenderness
When I had someone who wanted it?

When I was younger,
I had a paying job, a small talent,
And a driver with a dolly at the back door
Coming every day to keep my walk-in cooler stocked.

I thought that was bounty.
I thought there was no harm in staying on through another fall.
I never considered that what I made was not mine,
Or that someone else was paying for it all.
_______ 

A Ballad In Shades Of Red

Am I your best girl?
Let me ask the doves--
But the gamesman's killed them, one by one;
What was he thinking of?

Am I your best girl?
Let me ask the fox--
But the gamesman's set out poisoned meat
To save his hens and cocks.

Blue morning glories climb the post,
Red roses crowd the door--
I keep my head held shameless high,
My dress pooled on the floor.

Am I your best girl?
Let me ask your back--
The gamesman brings you bright gold rings
And birds with broken necks.
_______

Mail

Dearest Heart,


Darling Mine...

I am picturing you, wearing your dragon kimono, with your dark curls tied loosely back, carelessly, beautifully, standing in your doorway where the yellow forsythia appears every Spring,

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You could break my heart, you know, just standing there, fanning out the bills and ads, but with that look on your face that you get when you're unaware of yourself; the look that expects something pleasing, something nice, to happen at any given moment...

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My love, how you won my affection with that, from the very beginning. And now, I will be the one to ruin it all. Now that what I feel is so much more than affection, more than desire...more than I can bear, anymore, because you have become so indescribably precious to me.

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You have always been the one to see what I never could, by myself, and to believe that I was so many admirable things that no one else ever had. Now, my only one, you will see that I am owned by others, and heartless, and not even worth hating.

VOTE BOB McDUFFY CITY COUNCIL, A VOTE FOR BOB IS A VOTE FOR SENSIBLE CITY GOVERNMENT. PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF BOB McDUFFY


You know what the price would be, for us to make a life together. You would do it, I know; you would fight anyone, even put yourself between the world and me, if I asked you to. Oh honey, I will tear myself to pieces writing this, and doing this to you. By the time you hold this letter in your hands, the hands that can make me tremble even in memory, I will be gone. I will do what is expected of me, live the life that has been planned out for me, and I will do all of it with a dead heart. I will be called fine, and proper, and pleasing, but what I will be is hollow and weak.

CALL FOR A FREE ESTIMATE ON GUTTERS AND SIDING! WE HAVE WHOLESALE PRICING AND EASY FINANCING, ALSO WINDOWS AND FENCING. SUMMER IS COMING, MAKE YOUR HOME A SHOW PIECE, CALL NOW OR VISIT US ON LINE!


In my life, I will only, ever, love you. I am so, so sorry. I leave my heart and all that is best in me, here, with you, though I don't expect that to mean anything, after all I have just done and said to you. I am a coward, but I do love you, and always will.


Sarah

_____


for dverse patterns pictures and poems


top photograph by James Rainsford. Bottom photograph by Robert Holden.

 

Glory

There was a war, and as with all wars,
Glory fell dead in her boots the first week.
The Orthodox priests were there as we boarded the trains.
They blessed us,
Made the sign of the cross and assured us
That the God who made us, down to the smallest sinew and bone,
Wished for us to be shoveled
Like coal
Into the fire of insanity
Which breeds behind the shining eyes of rulers.

What did we care about the French, licking pastry crumbs from their fingers,
Or the English?
At Masurian Lakes and Tannenburg, we were guided to our doom by imbeciles,
And for what?
Let Willie have Poland;
We cared nothing for it.
We cared for bread, and shoes, and getting the lice out of our hair.

The Little Father came to rally us--
He did not carry the stars inside his coat.
No sign of Divine favor radiated from him.
He was a runt;
I wanted to stand him on a crate and then face the crate toward an executionary detail.
He would fall, you know,
Just as we did.

The next day,
My horse was hit in the flank, and the wound became infected.
I had to shoot him myself.
That was different, a greater obscenity,
Than killing strangers for no reason;
I realized that our beasts,
Dumb brutes that they were,
Were holy
Compared to the imps who compelled us to be part of this.

There was a war, and like all wars,
It was a devil bathing in blood,
Washing filthy vileness into us
And setting screaming nightmares loose inside our riven skulls.
So don't ask me to tell you about it--
I left my tongue there,
Torn out and mute,
Fodder for empire,
Profaned and lying speechless in the mud.
_______


for Real Toads weekend challenge. Photograph by Talon.

Mission Of Mercy

Arctic explorers come to my door.
Their eyes are desperate medicine vials filled with bitter latitudinal madness,
And their breath freezes in the air and falls
Like shattered tea cups
From the hand of a once-genteel madwoman.


I invite them in,
But they only stand there.
I may as well offer my hospitality to weird lights from out of the sky,
Or something stupid and made-up,
Like the perfect lover.


I would offer them a map,
Showing the way right to their doors next to the fruit stand or the public house,
But all I have is old napkins with your promises scribbled on them in spit.


I would offer them a drink, poor freezing miserable souls,
But I can't seem to locate anything in my broken-crate cupboards except
3-in-1 oil and kerosene.


I think the arctic explorers may be spirits, ghosts,
From the way they are blurring and wavering in front of me.
I go to light a match, but I have grown great useless paws--
What would you think, if I touched you now?
I think you would laugh.
I think you would slam your hope chest closed on my fingers,
And roll out your new husband on a trolley, to introduce us.


I try to tell the arctic explorers about how you once sought my kiss, my breasts, and the warm skin sanctuary of my body;
I try to tell them that I cannot rescue them,
And I see some human glimmer deep in the airless ice of their eyes.
They look even sadder, more lost, and then they say,
"But, madame, you don't understand.
It is us who cannot rescue you.
_______

linked to Real Toads Open Link Monday

Cindy & The Unfortunate Birthday Cake

Cindy did for the birthday cake.
Damn the thing anyway,
As if enough Bisquick and bullshit could 
Make her husband keep his dipstick where it belongs,
And keep her kids from going wrong,
And make everything as orderly as the numbered pages of a Redbook magazine,
Lined up flush and sequential,
Not loonbat crazy in the middle of the afternoon.

Cindy did for the birthday cake
With a ginormous honking big knife
Longer than a mother in law's memory,
And someone's got to answer for that,
For the gashes in the easy to clean table cloth
And the fucked up frosting
And anything and everything that Cindy faked since forever,
Like interest and orgasms and staying sober until five.

Cindy did for the birthday cake,
And it felt hella good.
____

for the dverse Tuesday night cattle call

my 300th Word Garden post of 2011 

My Sixth Life

for Elizabeth

I brought her early light in a leather pouch,
And a snake's head in a handkerchief.
What a fool I was.

Every April, she crouched on the muddy roads
Like something not human.
First warmth carries taint,
And she rolled until she was filthy with it;
Don't think there weren't those who admired her.

A sick sky will deny that it ever held clouds
And a thousand lies without pause will make it rain,
If only in the upturned palm of a lunatic.

I brought her a ring made from poisonous metal,
And instructions on how to drown herself.
A gray cat is no haloed nun,
So if I grew claws from the ends of my fingers,
It was only to prove before the maypoles went up
That God was mad or that she was. 
________ 

Dead Friend

The dead friend
Tags along with you,
Even though you
Haven't asked her to.

She never takes the hint,
Though you roll your eyes and walk ahead.
Nobody likes her.
She's got no cred.
She's dead.

The dead friend
Is at your door again.
What a stupid bitch.
It's 2 a.m.

She won't leave you alone.
Now she's calling on the phone.
She doesn't get it if you diss her.
She really thinks you miss her.
Dead friend.
__________

for Magpie 90

The Plastictown Flood

Plastictown, Plastictown, lost in the flood!
The Resin River rose!
A plastic disaster of water and mud,
Bringing 1/24 scale woe!


Plastictown, fair jewel!
Molded by the hand of God--
We loved the sweet and rolling green
Of your old plastic sod!


Charlie, the police chief stood
On his sturdy polymer base
With a look of uncomprehending horror
On his painted plastic face!


To the stained glass of the First Plastic Church,
Where people sang Old Rugged Plastic Cross--
They peeled the plastic warning bells
And prayed all would not be lost!


Alas, too late the clap-on sun
In its lofty plastic socket--
Its light too weak, its warmth too late
Too stem the flood or stop it!

The cotton clouds, too thick, did bring
Calamity upon the land!
The waters swallowed dear Plastic High,
And the entire marching band!


Heroic Fido swam the current
To reach his master's boat!
Old Dobbin was already aboard,
Still munching plastic oats!


The Plastic Express went into the drink,
Likewise the Main Street trolley!
The Titanic sank over by the bank,
Despite the Plastic Guard's brave volley!


Plastictown, Plastictown, lost in the flood!
In the Spring of '92!
Not a trace of dear Plastictown now remains,
Though the sky's been repainted blue.

(from the book "Realistic American Disasters: A History In Verse" copyright 1952 by Herschel Wadsworth Whitman)

And, by popular demand...

La Vieja Bruja

The bells are as hard as the street,
but, though so much more beautiful than pavement,
like pavement, they can fail.

Fill them with mud, or chocolate,
or a choking storm of pigeon feathers,
and they whisper
like lost children.

The old witch reaches midtown
under a bitchy sky, twin to the pebble-hidden concrete sidewalk.
She knows,
spirits have been walking up and down across them
both the same
like double evils.

Damn the crows who stole my beauty
(says the witch).
Damn the time that took the talent I had
for soft-talking the bells, and filling them
with cayenne sways
like red-skirted gypsies.

Now, the bells are as hard as the street,
and the old witch makes heel-sparks across the church steps,
hurrying past, looking for her stub-tailed cat,
unseen and unremarkable
as dust.

_____ 

linked with Real Toads open link monday

12 Mile Road

Up a steep dirt drive
Atop a small hill
Above a busy four lane road,

Stood a brown house
Amidst bare trees
Heavy-barked and old.

Empty mailbox.
Empty window frames.
Rusted door lock.

I always wondered,
Did someone write to say,
"I'm coming home"?

Did someone cry,
Kiss the letter,
Take the good china down?

Were they young?
Was the feather bed soft?
Did she say, "I'm three months on"?

Why did they leave?
Where did they go?
I'll never know.

The hill is empty.
There's just the moon.
The house is gone.

_____

 

Nothing

Take this nothing,
Carefully collected from the inside of rings
And the spaces between the spokes of your gypsy wagon.

Line up this nothing,
Make it make sense;
Alphabetize it,
Set it under different arches, at different times of day.

Nothing fills the Rue de Rien--
I become a shadow,
Reaching through myself, amazed.

Nothing in your hands when I waited by myself.
Nothing on your lips when I listened unto death.
Throw open all the doors,
Let the horseman pass--
Take back this gift of nothing, dear,
And shove it up your ass.
_____


for dverse

 

Nesting The Burn Barrel

Nesting the burn barrel,

The Dark Bird turns spark to stone--

Song to silence--

And at last...

Her children to charnel,

Hard bone to soft ash.

__________

Dining Car

I took my eyes out of my head and set them in cups, like eggs.



Look at them, I complained.

They are like library lions, guarding the doors from the steps,

And the steps are sinister,

Always rising.



I seek the sun inside an egg shell,

I don't even tap with my wrench,

I float,

Like the heavens over a corn field at night...

But it is the corn field in motion,

Not the stars.



Look,

My baby is blind.

Look,

How my eyes sit paired, set before the morning with a linen napkin lying next to them, an adored and lazy lover.

Reach out,

Splay fingers in empty air like prayer.

Sense the scion settling in,

Wearing a summer suit,

Arriving refreshed,

Combed, cologned,

And hungry.

_________

Sad News

Today I came home from work to discover that my beloved doggy, Bosco, can't see. It's a result of his recently diagnosed diabetes, but it came on so very suddenly. He's happy, and is cheerfully doing his best, but his mom is sad and upset.

So, forgive me if there isn't a new poem for a bit, or if I don't come by and comment as I normally do. And thank you from the bottom of my heart to my thoughtful and dear friends who have already lent their support and information. We love you and we are grateful.

xo

Shay and Bosco