Once In a Lifetime

 Once in a lifetime you get the Big Prize

but it comes wrapped in rainy days

and cotton batting, incognito if you will.

You stupid fuck, wake up will you,

all you have to do is throw out a hand

and there it is, shiny as the 4th of July,

fantastic as a first kiss, spinning like a new planet.

You'll look back like Girl Genius some day and say,

yes yes THAT was the day, the thing that lit you, burned you brilliantly.

Sure, the slog and grind will still be there, grinning with

its lopsided sour grapes grin, the days will still stick with thorns,

but the thing, the marvelous unexpected thing, stays lit, stays true.

Look, Bunky, what I tell you is true, and when it's over you'll

howl and want to die, that's part of it, the lit thing the fantastic thing

that comes once in a lifetime, but if you throw out your hand,

your OTHER hand just as the ship is going under, sometimes

the once in a lifetime comes twice, repeats itself like double sixes,

and there you are, lucky and lucky again, you shiner, you flaming star.

---------

for Dverse Poetics "Once in a Lifetime"

Music: Blaze Foley "Clay Pigeons"

House of Mirrors

 

You can open a window

by lifting it

or breaking it

you, with the bloody fist

of Creation.

"You rotten bastard"

can be said with a sly smile

or with his shit out at the curb.

One tongue can speak two languages.

One pane can break in, or out.

Some windows can't be opened.

This one has nine sections,

none of them whole.

Some are bricked up, painted shut,

or warped by weather.

I could tap on your window

with a lopsided grin

or a brick.

Let me in, I want to love you.

Let me in, I want to mess you up.

The blue window at seaside

is a yellow window after dark.

Open in springtime, so sweet the breeze.

Open in winter, someone has moved away

or died. 

I disliked you, but changed my mind.

I loved you right away, but changed my mind.

My reflection in the night-pane isn't the old me.

Should I wipe a clear spot on the window

or lean from the ledge in front of it?

You can open a window

by lifting it

or breaking it

you, with the bloody fist

of Creation.

__________

written for dverse poetics--the romance of the open window

image at top: Jim Holland "Summer Reading" 2005

Music: The Hollies Look Through Any Window

"Us" movie clip Adelaide meets her double.

Clover Flowers

 

I have a memory of a clover field--

white flowers in the warm June green

like spilled sugar on a farm wife's sleeve.

I have a memory of a spring lamb--

carried to the shed as the ewe screams

under a summer sky blank as muslin.

In the farm house, an old couch.

a television, and a sturdy oak table.

There is a savory aroma and mint jelly

set out with the white china plates.

My memories mix like a bowl of vegetables,

gravy on the tablecloth, blood on the ax.

I don't like to remember,

even in summer, on a bright afternoon.

_______

for What's Going On? "Memory"

Music: Cat Stevens Into White

Two New Poems

 THE MERMAID'S CALLING CARD

The winter blinks its eyes coquettish

then faints as all dreams do at last--

I've saved you flower, fin, and fetish--

all you had to do was ask.

_______

PHINEAS, BACK FROM THE WAR

Phineas comes back from the war

carrying a blood-rain cloud in a folded handkerchief. 

The only things he will eat anymore

are fresh-caught birds and escargot--

one slows his speech,

the other is anesthetic. 

Phineas wears glasses with smoked lenses

and declares it dusk at all times of day.

I bring him his infant child--

he shakes its hand and turns away.

Later, his medals appear

in the crib, like ribboned toys.

Crackerjack For Lancelot

 

I set out Crackerjack for Lancelot,

candy apples for his mount--

licorice for dancing devils

too numerous to count.

I bake pie for the Lorelei

and salt water taffy for the sailors--

honey for all my winning ways

and bitter ale for my failures.

_______

for Dverse quadrille "candy"

Music: Lindi Ortega Fall Down Or Fly

Nursery Rhyme

 There were devils

present at my birth

and veiled angels

in smoky violet shirts

with handbells

they'd stolen out of Hell.

Who is the coward

that devils teach to curse

holding Hope out in a teacup

but overturn it first?

A fool's sun

wanes fast, warms none.

See the rose stem

my assassin's throat was vase for

so that every imprecation

that's spoken only makes more

melodies

across my garden's leaves.

Angels kept my heart

in a box with golden hinges

carried by a devil

on its back with burning cinches

in tandem served--

my hidden heart preserved. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Stephen Crane

Music: Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa "I'll Take Care of You"

Two Poems/ Two Forms

"Getaway"

Stop the crying jag

pack a Gladstone bag

book a lunar junket now.

Stay on the sun side

Moon Rabbit runs by

late for a date anyhow.

Rent you a moon car

with hot tub and bar

green cheese and crackers for free.

Dub yourself Moon Maid

retro your moon grade

stay on indefinitely.

-------

this is a form called an alouette.

for Sunday Muse #169.

________________________

and...

"Recipe For Satori En Flambe"

In the desert, find a mirage that suits,

that lives, that fruits despite the gritty eye,

the thing that dries and rides inside your boots,

the thing that shoots itself but does not die.

This is the thing you'll need the most,

a far outpost of the soul.

There is no whole thing here, just shards

and acrid tars to smoke.

This is not as bad as it scans,

not some madman's practical joke;

a softly spoken barcarolle,

a gondolier mid-stroke.

In the desert, find a skull that sings,

an awful thing sick with the wound you need.

Take it up, feed it well until it brings

(from horrors) wings of glass, and salt, and seed.

In a rib bowl, mix these with buried roots

and tongues of mutes in ash rain from a sky

too close and bright, the silver-sharp of flutes

some god imputes with holy song and sigh.

________

this is a LaJemme poem.

You can see where the connection failed. When I came back the type changed. 

Arabesque

I am the spine of a book, pages open on either side.

I am steel rails down a valley that two greening hills divide.

I am the corpus callosum, of two minds in every thought.

Am I sleeping or here wakeful, one eye open, one eye not?

I am the nest with two birds calling, both the same but different still,

I disperse myself in potions, both the doctor and the ill.

I am the worm who grew two wings, one of blue and one of gold,

Meeting in the middle when in flight and when in fold.

_______

for Sunday Muse #161. This had three stanzas but I liked it better with just the two.

Instant Karma

We were called by other names,
each of us
separately;
years appeared, shone, yellowed, peeled away
before we called out that falsity and all the coiling lies 
tripping off tongues we left behind.

There were dry years,
each of us
alone in a crowd like single stalks of grass.
Sunrises came, noons blank and hard
with evening riding on the tail of eternity
whispering through the book of our solitary dreams.

But I remember
--and will always remember--
that moment of recognition when like met like.
I have been often confused, mistaken, lost;
but this time it was sure and simple as east to west.
I knew, honey. Right away I knew.
______

for the Sunday Muse #39.

 

Smoov

Hey Smoov,

talking out both sides of your mouth,

tell HER, she's got the rabbit ears for ya;

me, I'm deaf, don't waste your breath. 

All night, she toss and turn if you don't call;

me, I dance all night,

kick the phone right off the wall.

Smoov, you think I'm stupid?

Think you not made of glass, I can't see through ya?

Save your bullshit tap dance for HER,

she hear ya but can't see a damn thing.

She the sweet child, 

I'm the stone bitch.

Everywhere I go, she got to follow me,

crying the blues over you.

She's in my ear,

under my skin,

out to double every losing bet.

Tell HER whatever made-up fairy story you got.

Tell HER how it's gonna be different from now on.

Tell HER, you whiney-ass pencil-dick motherfucker.

Tell HER, not me,

Cos she's the one who loves you.

_____

 for The Sunday Muse #5

Attached Spirit

"You have an attached spirit," said the fake Gypsy at the local event.
I liked her shawl.
She had coffee from Gas-N-Go, and a tip jar;
her booth was on a slight incline, drawing her clients down 
into her confidence, whether by eagerness or gravity.

"I was in a fire once," I told her. 
I like non-sequiturs.  
I like watching people scramble for the thread. 
She paused, then continued.
"This spirit is affecting your mood, your choices, your relationships."
She turned over a card.
I leaned forward without wanting to.

The first time I spent the night with you,
I had a dream that someone was screaming in my left ear,
or there was a bad storm in my left ear,
or maybe an insect had crawled inside and was buzzing, stinger poised.
I sat up quick, breathing hard.
You went, "Unh..." in your sleep, trouble crossed your face for just an instant.
Then...nothing.

The fake Gypsy told me that every person is like a bead on a string.
We don't choose our color,
our substance, 
our placement.
Some woman lays us across her breast, and it's warm there
or it isn't. 
We are treasured, or we're not.
Kept close, or discarded.

"You have an attached spirit." The fake Gypsy 
was speaking the way some people will to a foreigner--
urgent, a little exasperated.
Understand me, you outlandish fool.
"You need to do something about it."

We visited a park in Belgrade once,
and I was speaking to you, a notebook of poems in my hand,
sitting on the edge of a fountain and serving up my heart
as if it were a second helping of chicken paprikash.
I was turned in the wrong direction,
you weren't listening;
I was leaning forward in spite of myself,
and you were walking away like an occupier withdrawing.
That's all I remember.

"I can help you detach this spirit," said the fake Gypsy.
I leaned back with an effort, almost fell over, heard myself speak gibberish.
I felt sick, stupid, dizzy.
"What?" 
Then I was sitting at your kitchen table,
with the portrait of St. Sebastian on the wall,
and the kitty clock, and the insurance company calendar.

I began to cry, like a stupid schoolgirl.
You laughed, shook your head, and said, "You always overdo everything."
Then I was in bed with a roaring in my left ear.
Then I was falling down the stairs, 
coming apart, splitting, scattering.
The fake Gypsy was there at the bottom, holding up a string.
"There, you see?" she said, smiling as I lay there with my fractures on fire,
"One bead still on the string."
Then she leaned down to kiss me, as if she couldn't help herself.
_______

for Fireblossom Friday: I Put A Spell On You.