Power

"The scientists say
It will all wash away
But we don't believe any more
Cause we've got our recruits
And our green mohair suits
So please show your I.D. At the door."--"Sin City" by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons

Power only lasts a minute,
like lion piss on the trunk of a tree
keen on the next rain.

Girl, you're somebody's Venus,
but not everyone's;
while you give some fool your smile and make another one wait hope and suffer,
here I am, up from a trap-door Hell, denying you mine. 

Zebra have nightmares of being chased,
when they dare sleep at all.
All are destroyers to the ant, even a bumbling child.

See the sun, the same one that burns
the cat, the commander, 
the egg shell CEO and that cunt on the corner,
rising above them all.

Feel your own roar shaking the earth itself.
Dig it, but remember,
the legions with their whips and cages and clocks
have a circus to make you the foil of
in a Rome you've not imagined--more real than this desert you terrify today.
_________ 

for the mini-challenge at Real Toads: "Juice."

Have A Chair

Have a chair.
Have a seat.
No, not that one!
Over there,
out in the street.

Let's talk.
Let's chat.
Yes, right here, why not?
In the cross walk.
You down with that?

Never mind the traffic never mind the cursing drivers, never mind your
clueless mansplaining poor fucker of a husband, never mind any of that for now.

Let's diss.
Let's discuss.
You'll feel better, trust me.
Start with this:
Start with us. 

Have another coffee, my treat.
Have a good sharp stick in the eye.
Have at it, girly-Q--
Say it neat.
You know why?

Because, darling,
cherub,
bitch of the century,
yesterday's news,

I need the chair for somebody else. 
______

for Quickly. "Chair."

Younger Woman

I want to be a younger woman in a former time,
working in a clock shop,
living upstairs with my nine-lived cat.

As a baby, I was dusted with shine from the moon,
refracted through my window at a different angle for every dream.
Mama said, dreams are nonsense
and life is mostly duty and a difficult business.

I want slender wrists and a silver watch;
hips as round as the bend in a river stream,
and my hat piled high with blooms and feathers.

Mama's half dead now, not remembering what she said five minutes ago.
I say, "Mama, look at the moon, changeless, ever the cool Mistress
of outward sky and inward seas."
At last, mama doesn't contradict me. She has forgotten how.

I want to be a younger woman in a former time,
wearing deep blue dresses flared at the shoulder and cinched at the waist,
with white lace at every edge.

"Pussycat," I will ask, in the night quiet above the clock shop,
"What do you suppose we were, when we were older?"
Her attention will stay on the skylight, and the moon beyond, 

as if there were no answer there;
or as if there were, and what foolish girl could fail to see it?
______

for Kerry's challenge at Real Toads: "Youth & Age"