January

 

I said to January,

just born and tilting like an upset vase

between heartbeat and nothingness,

"Borrow my hands

to hold yourself here. Rock yourself

into this motherless place."

Summer is an orange

in sections, skin as thin as a pulse,

her bright dress never meant for us. 

I said to January

with her hair of stars and darkness,

"You were born to grace the river ice."

January said to me,

"There is one kimono, spun of morning silence--

wrap with me inside it, as pleasure does with melancholy."

We slept and were steeped

in both love and loneliness. When she vanished,

I kept both and went on, into what was, and would be.

_______________

Shared with What's Going On?

Crow & Astrolabe

 

Crow, obscured by wing and leaf,

there we were

under the stars.

Who knew then that we would bond

over common language

and common loneliness. 

You came when you would, and not that often,

like others of your kind

I had known before.

I thought, if I can crack the seed your heart will open

starved as you were

starved as I was. 

Crow so black against indigo sky, I lacked

Rosetta Stone

or Tarot deck.

So, I wrote you poems upon an astrolabe

looking for heaven

Deus ex machina.

Crow with your song in ghost-ship semaphore,

you sang to me

beautifully

Yet crows are crows, and stars are reclusive.

Astrolabe and downdraft

broke both our hearts.

I have learned wariness of crows, and they the same

both poorer but safer

for such sad education.

Still, I have my astrolabe, an antique affectation

like the love I once had

for an obscure bird.

_________

Jennifer over at Poet Laundry--no doubt prodded to do so by a thousand devils--challenged me to write a poem about or including an astrolabe. This is that poem. I encourage you to go visit her there; she is a genuine peach of a poet. 

Music: Alana Davis Can't Find My Way Home

Handsome Man

 

A very handsome man--

everyone remarked about it. 

Simply leaning back in a chair

with his coat open,

and that devil-may-care casual air--

it made me feel a little drunk, just watching him.

He wasn't gay

as some of us assumed. 

Vi said no, with a canary-cat smile

and she would know, better than us sparrows. 

She told the story

how the war shattered him.

Six weeks in hospital

and the art therapy that brought him back.

Looks and talent, despite a hand tremor that lasted a year.

He was elegant.

You'd feel like the only woman in the room

just because he offered you a cigarette.

With a wave of his hand he dismissed his work as trash

and said better to be

a bricklayer or a dentist.

The thing is, he seemed to mean it

and it felt like watching him vandalize his soul.

He was loved.

One look at Vi told us that.

She said there were nights when he believed he was dying,

and went to doctors in the morning.

They told him, you're fine, really, stop worrying.

He was on the phone one evening with his sister

when Vi said his face changed. 

When she asked him he said he'd mentioned his art 

and the sister had laughed

saying, oh, you're still doing that.

He loved to walk

at night when the air was cold and clear.

He told Vi he was going out for a smoke--

this war veteran,

this handsome, talented, loved man--

and he did.

Then he'd stepped off a bridge into the cold water far below.

At the funeral, Vi slapped the sister, caused a scene.

He wasn't there to smile and smooth it over, for any of us, anymore.

________

for desperatepoets "death by broken shoe laces." 

Music: Billy Joel Goodnight Saigon

The Boffin

 Of course, we all fumble at first,

doofing up out of our childhood like baby turtles.

There it is, all at once, 

the Sea of Love,

and we scramble for it, driven by

instinct

movies

pop songs

and our own bodies bolting away with us.

But that's kid stuff.

At some point we think we've got it,

that we've become some sort of love boffin

smug in the sugar bowl of partnered mid-life.

Look! No hands! 

Up on the two-wheeler and thinking NASA needs us.

Oh, little turtle, little turtle rules the waves. 

Hang your heart on the sawtooth coat hook a few times

and all that changes. 

You find out you married a Matryoshka,

a total stranger.

Big and slow, you're back out there among the hatchlings,

drinking too much

doing stupid things to your hair,

fumbling again, tangled in the seaweed,

wishing you were dead.

Oh little boffin, doofing up out of Love's trash can,

now you know how much you never knew.

What was it all for?

You'll find the answer to that when your own grown child

sits crying at the kitchen table, saying mom it hurts so much.

You'll reach out, try to wick away their pain, and helplessly say,

I know,

honey,

I know.

_______

for Sunday Muse #241. 

Music: Tom Waits Sea of Love

Common Fence

 

Some kind of poison, like a wounding word

has found the vines on the common fence.

My neighbor, fond of bottles,

goes around spraying when he's sober enough--

whole years go by when he's not.

I love the vines, the green view, their wild blind reaching.

They have more faith than a cleric,

more will than any new arrival with a nickel.

The vines are sick and brown on the neighbor's side,

thick and green on mine, and yet,

at the tips of the sick stems healthy tendrils have appeared.

Each morning I go out with my dog to check the vines.

I move slowly. Sleep is an old love whose face is a memory.

The seasons come and go, one dog is followed by a new one.

I worry for the vines, though they seem to be immortal.

The neighbor is the third there's been on that side.

My dog is the seventh of seven and may be a charmed soul.

I can't remember when the vines first appeared, or how the sun

got so high. Ten years go by in an afternoon.

I'm tired and call my dog to go inside. He follows me instantly,

with no thought for the vines, and no doubt at all

that he should follow me. I could cry for loving him so.

_________

for Sunday Muse #217.

Pheasant Therapist Is Cray Cray

Here I am, the answer to all your dreams.
But please, 
stay out in the waiting room;
when the light is on, I am in session.

Preen
preen preen
preen.
Okay, I'm not in session, I'm preening.
The last client left vermin in my feathers,
diminished their shine,
and brought that scary gun.

Pheasants are known for healing, and luck in love.
I'm a pheasant shore nuff. 
Okay, come in.
I'm right here
hiding behind the waste basket. 
Look into my goofy birdy eyes--
yep, you're pretty screwed up.

Let's see what we can do.
Yap yap yap
yap. 
I think what you really want is to eat me;
that could be fatal or fine.
You're a mess but cute. 
I think we made a lot of progress today, even with me creeping around the desk and along the walls. 

Ready?
FOOM flap flap flap FOOM!
Noisy right?
A girl's got to make an entrance. 
You gonna make a move now, or what?
Here I stand, trying again, feathered and fantastic
if not terrifically bright. 
_______ 

for Unfairy Tales at Real Toads. 

According to folklore, pheasants are harbingers of love and good luck, as well as being healers. The only time I ever encountered a pheasant, it absolutely exploded out of a bush, making a tremendous racket that scared me half to death. Perhaps it went on to establish a thriving practice offering talk therapy, tarot astrology, and interpretive dance. It could've.

The Skull In The Book

The skull in the book asks me what I'm reading.
We both know that he only wants to criticize.

The train rolls on, works looms.
I had hoped to get in a few pages, but no.
The skull in the book won't shut his pie hole.

I tell him it's about a woman
whose husband has a secret;
it's about a girl
who hears voices from her closet,
and it's about a cat
who stays on the stairs in the dark, watching.

The skull in the book scoffs. 
He wants spies and intrigue and sex.
"There is, Skully," I say. 
He frowns.

For a while I describe the scenery to him. 
He hasn't got eyes, but he has curiosity. 
He tells me to kiss him, he's a Prince.
"You wish."

At my stop, I tire of it all,
and discard my book with the skull in it. 
I can hear him, fuming inside the barrel with the coffee cups
and McMuffin wrappers.

I think I won't go to work.
I stand there for a second, stupid and a little afraid,
like a woman who wakes up not knowing where she is,
how she got there, what this strange body is
or why she's inside it, casting about for a clue.
________

Athena

Athena--Mama said
not to go out in the
garden
barefoot
after it rains.

Ignore her. Do 
it anyway.
You are a Goddess--

the Earth moves at
your whim,
between
your toes.

Athena--every foot-
print you ever make
will be
erased
eventually.

Never mind that.
Never mind Mama.
Go change
the world

by walking barefoot
in the mud, by
picking a 
flower, by
being you, right now, in the world as it is.
_____

for Hannah's "footprints" challenge. I hope it's adequate; I don't feel much like writing.