When You Love a Doomed Thing

 

When you love a doomed thing

you know from the start that the wind will win. 

Friends say, can't you feel

the tremble, can't you see the lean?

but love is a bird that can only do as birds do

until the day it dies.

There is a fire and split inside me now

with no mercy--the ash bird eats my heart as I knew it would.

When you love a doomed thing

you know from the start that the wind will win.

Laika

 

Looking up through the trees in my yard at night,

what does it matter that the stars we see are already dead?*

I look to God as my dog looks to me.

Still there? Good. Anything you want me to do?

Sometimes I think about Laika, the Russian space dog,

so happy (as I imagine) to be rescued from a pound,

given a job and a pack. Did she look to them

as my dog looks to me and I look to God?

They sent Laika into space though there were no sticks,

no fields, no soft bed, no pack to go with her.

She must have wondered where everyone went,

and been so bewildered and lonely.

Who's a good dog?  Oh, you were, Laika.

My own dog looks to me as I look up to God

in tears and asking, still there?  

----

*required line written by Amy Woolard

for Dverse Prosery--Amy Woolard, hosted by my friend Dora. I don't normally write prose anymore, but made an exception. 

Music: Tom Rosenthal It's OK

Snowblind Jane

 

I have thought of the gray cat for years now,

though the gray cat thinks of me

no more than a gray cloud would,

or a window pane,

or a key chain.

I leave my life in a dish for the gray cat to find,

but the gray cat is gone

like yesterday's breath.

Who knew I could hurt like this?

If I drop the dish, it doesn't even shatter.

The gray cat's main concern is the moon

and garbage and gray cats and food.

I was sick once,

and became more beautiful.

The fever fell in love with me, poor thing.

Outside myself at last, I hover,

asking what's wrong.

"Bring me my gray cat," I whisper, crying like a child.

Other Me laughs,

says you'll never come back

and were never gray,

                           never gray,

                                      never gray,

but black, dear, black.

______

shared with Sunday Muse #243. 

image at top by Jocelin Carmes

music: Once Blue Now That I've Disappeared

Blues #3

(image is "Play For Me" by Ian Dooley)

At Susannha's, when they asked for "As Time Goes By,"
you gave them "St. James Infirmary Blues."
That's when I knew
Suss had chosen right.
You play as crisp as your white shirt 
and as blue as the river my brother never came out of
when he was just eleven.

I showed Suss his notebook
with the stories about stowing the teacher in a closet
and running down a dirt road in summer.
Suss said she liked his made-up world better,
kissed my cheek and whispered, "You're a dreamer, too."

When I slide my hand between your suspenders and white shirt,
you play "St. Louis Blues" when they want "Sweet Georgia Brown."
It's my fingers running through your hair,
and my breath on your cheek when it's Suss's you want.
Then you play "Smokestack Lightning" to break the moment.

Bobby, upstairs I've got
spray starch on the shelf,
raspberry jam on the table. 
Here, you've got Suss's picture instead of sheet music.
It's late, close the lid over the keys.
Come sleep on my couch again
and play "St. James Infirmary Blues" in your head.
I miss her as much as you, dear Bobby,
and wish it was me instead.
________

For Margaret's images at Real Toads.

 

Three Short Poems

"Jones"

Jones
finds Empty
and fills it
with lonesome lies
in a fake truth suit.
There were better Parts Unknown meant for you.
_____

"Chop Shop"

Chop
this shit
into lines-
it still won't be
poetry, baby.
You have to pay to learn that foreign tongue.
_____

"Mercy Clouds"

Look--
water
ripple-topped.
Gone tomorrow
with the mercy clouds.
Kiss me now. The sun will warm my suitcase.
______

for Fussy Little Forms--tetractys. 

Suicide happens when a person's emotional pain exceeds their ability to cope with that pain. But there is help. If you are in trouble, pick up that ten ton phone--tomorrow can be better, even if you don't believe it right now. National Suicide Prevention Help Line: 1-800-273-TALK.

"Goodbye...my friend. I didn't know you, but I've been places you've been." (Tim Hardin)

 

yulimajiri

A ceramic cup

--winter-white--

is my body--my bones are

stems of brushes--

my blood is paintwater.

The window is nine panes.

The walls are blank, the door to the hall ajar.

Outside,

wintry mix.

Traffic, graylight, finger-wind.

Rain falls of its own weight--

snow's geometry fragile as dreams.

When they kiss, one disappears--

the dull shine of sidewalks

leads everywhere, nowhere.

A ceramic cup

--winter white--

is my body.

I touch yours (again) in the stems of brushes,

soft tips brilliant and singular

then done, swirled

in the cup's anonymity.

_______

for Toni's "Shades Of Rain" at Toads.

Jose Feliciano's amazing rendition of a Fred Neil song about rain:

 

 

 

 

Grackles

"Why?" she asked,
holding a headless sparrow
that the grackles had killed.

The sun was out,
but could as easily not have been.
I could have been someplace else.
She could have never been born.

Here, it is like
stepping off of the unfurled tongue of a devil.
For hell, it's cold.
People work here, collect checks like anybody else.

Once, she was spinning.
I caught her in my arms.
It could have been someone else,
but that day, the sun was out.
That day, the sparrows were thick around the backyard feeder.

At a certain age, she started locking
her bedroom door. There I'd stand, blind in the hallway,
holding laundry warm from the dryer against my arms.
Here, they let you look, their faces a question.

His eye is on the sparrow, so they say.
I was someplace else, collecting a check like anybody would.
I came rushing through the front doors,
from a window to a hallway to an elevator, one level down.

Someone caught her in their arms.
Now she's here, oh Jesus.
Oh God oh sweet Jesus, yes that's her.
My knees buckled, the floor came up. It could as easily have been someone else.

"Give her some water," someone said.
"Is her husband on his way?" 
Oh oh oh oh no no no no.

Every day of her life has run through
every day of mine. Once, she was spinning,
dancing to some song in the living room. 
She was smiling. Her arms might have been wings.
_______

For the Real Toads mini-challenge. Write about a building. I wrote about a morgue.
 

Skittles

She didn't make it. Her little kidneys gave out from infection caused by the ectopic ureter problem she was born with. I shall miss her more than I can say. 

I took these pictures earlier today as she was enjoying the sun and her yard for the last time. 

She got two hamburgers from White Castle and was surrounded by her family as she slipped away. I have no idea how I'll function without my wing girl.