Paris

 

So here I am in Paris

but it isn't really.

It is only what I imagine Paris to be

or would like it to be

or have hoped it would be.

So here I am, in Paris, with you

but not exactly.

You are not what I imagined you to be

or would like you to be

or had hoped you would be. 

So here I am alone

in a strange place.

I am not how I imagined myself to be

or would like to be

or had hoped I would be. 

I wish I had a loaf of French bread

and a sweet pastry

since even in my imagining, wine is out.

I wish I had a hand to hold

or a book to read

written in both languages.

I wish I had a balcony

overlooking a busy boulevard

full of small cars

and bright bicycles.

I wish there were geraniums in hanging pots

and a flowered gown to wear.

I wish that for a day

I could be not-old again.

There would be an unmade bed,

also a dog,

and perhaps a man, or a woman.

I'd be happy either way.

So here I am in Paris

but not Paris.

Here I am with you,

but not you at all.

Here I am

whoever it is that I am,

leaning out from my balcony

in my flowered gown,

completely mystified like a little girl

giving her dolls names like

Hortense

Matilda

Jeanne Marie

or Shay Caroline

calling them by name and serving tea. 

_________

I used THIS list of prompts again, this time #9. 

Bimbo Season

 

Summer and I cannot really be friends--

she is tiresomely popular

with her garish daylight that extends

heedlessly into my delicious darkness.

She's the hot girl, skin-deep,

boring me to death with her obviousness

too loud, too cheap,

queen of the surfer boy entourage. 

If only there were some ceremony

that I could perform

to summon chilly winter here for me,

my old bestie returned.

I would live in a bus with bed and blankets

and a storm outside,

all the windows hung with trinkets

and--weirdly--streaming tv.

Yes, an all-comforts bare-bones hideaway

out in the distant sticks

up on four wheels on a winter's day

with soup and chocolate!

Sadly, here I am with this bimbo season summer,

my imagined paradise

far away and impossible--bummer!

White it out winter,

Come back with your cool quiet and I'll write you a killer poem 

to knock your woolly socks off. 

_________

for Word Garden Word List--Night Road

Music: Fleetwood Mac Bare Trees

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"

Three Wishes

This day,
as I lay musing with my cheek upon the chopping block,
I may as well wish for anything.
What's to stop my REM-eyes from following
what they will while they can?
Who's to tell the old bird
that she cannot sing while circling
earthbound on one good and one broken wing?

I have three wishes, and the first wish
is for the Amish, the Amazon,
the changeling who bears the mark of my tribe.
Like me, she wrapped herself in plain disguise
before trying talons and flight feathers rare and serious.
What wish might I find fulfilled
while looking into 
her eyes
my eyes
eagle to eagle
eye to eye?

My second wish is a southerly desire,
a migration my lighter self yearns to undertake.
Could I just let go and fall, find myself in gulf-warm waters,
where what is spoken is often sweet but never simple
like the bible hidden under the bed,
filling with better psalms by proxy,
strung out and sung on the heard sighs of women instead of
ladies, promenading and proper,
privately contemplating sultry summer on the church steps 
while holding folded gloves empty and colorless as a northern winter?

My third wish is as southern as the second,
though a hickory wind has swept out the ashes of the morning
to be built back into fire all the way to the match tip strike.
Silver is a fine color for the sky in such dreams,
and whenever I spare a girlish glance at the expected blade,
and shift my unkissed cheek as the executioner sets aside my hair,
I think that surely now is the time
for dreams that can never be,
desires that laze just out of reach,
because, after all,
if my wishes are worth the quicksilver they are drawn upon,
a girl could find herself together again
with the wished-for squeeze, and why not?
If I'm to be mistress of my own madness,
let it be all that I imagined. 
Let it be soon. Let it be sweet.
_______

for Real Toads mini-challenge featuring artist Lisa Graham. The image at top, "Wishing Sisters" is hers, used with permission.

Process notes, only for the truly curious. If my poem pleased you with no explanations, then skip this!

After a month of living my life unencumbered by having to go to work, tomorrow the salt mine beckons. Hence, the images of pending execution. But while a girl sits daintily on a hard bench in Hell's waiting room, she can dream, can't she? And so my three idle wishes involve my three celebrity crushes, in ascending order.

First, Kelly McGillis (on the left above, with Jodi Foster), who is as tall as I am, and who is also a lesbian, making her doubly "one of my tribe".  She starred as an Amish woman in "Witness", and so there's the Amish and the Amazon of it. The "plain disguise" is because she says she didn't think she was attractive as a girl, and in fact was teased for being "fat". I didn't think I was attractive, either. But we grew, into nothing so predictable as swans, but rather, birds to be dealt with!

Second, Sela Ward, who is from Alabama. She's got that whole southern charm thing going on, and is just ridiculously sexy, seemingly without half trying, which I think is an art. I went into deep mourning when I ran out of Once & Again dvd's to watch, and have been reduced to watching her on CSI:NY instead. Nonetheless, her Once & Again character Lily Manning is my favorite, though I never know if I want more to be with her or just be her. Yes, I know, she's fictional, but we're talking wishes here.

Third, and most ardently daydreamed over, is singer Emmylou Harris who was born in Alabama and grew up in North Carolina and Virginia. I referenced some of her songs, "Hickory Wind" (also associated with Gram Parsons), "We'll Sweep Out The Ashes" and "Together Again." Silver is a fine color for the sky and also for Emmylou's gorgeous hair. She said she started going gray in her 20s. 

My life of freedom and happiness may soon be over, but perhaps one of my honeys will swoop in at the last minute and support me in the style that I wish to become accustomed to. What, I'm the only one here with rescue fantasies??? Send me my Dyke In Shining Armor, even though two of them are straight. Damn. But hey, my wishes, my rules! :-) 

Sisters

dedicated to my Sista Poet, Dani.

I've always been hungry for female company,
Having grown up with none
Save for my own.

(You'll ask, where was my mother?
My mother was crocodile;
I spent my days hiding.)

I used to daydream that I was some sort of Grand Duchess,
Speaking a language with hard R's, and sipping lemonade on the porch of a dacha.
I would have a thousand sisters.
The men would wear uniforms and do vague things
Always at a distance,
Unless we needed admiring.
Then, they would be lavish,
And we would feign indifference.

I still haven't any sisters,
But I have a yard full of wild mulberry trees.
Botanist, sit down.
Don't bore me with sexing the greenery--
I know what I know about the souls of things,
And my mulberries are female.

At first there was only one.
She barely touched the lowest edge of the garage roof,
But over time, she became tall and beautiful.
When the big prideful locust behind us fell in a storm,
She was ready to fill the empty place, to take the sun and protect us,
Like an older sister doing what needs done
And doing it smoothly
While swaying to a song on the radio.

There are two near the windows. 
They gossip;
I love their nosy, familiar companionship.

Two others love the side fence.
They are the restless ones--
They wear birds from all over, and lean to visit our neighbor next door,
Though he is an idiot who sometimes hurts them for their efforts.
I walk out to them, when this has happened,
And mother them
In soft tones.

Finally, there is my mulberry closest to the house--
Practical men with pick-up trucks have advised me to remove her,
But I cherish her.
In weaker days, I cut her down twice--
I am not proud of having done it.
She grew back each time, and never mentioned what I had done.
She is Russian, I feel certain, and knows me better than I know myself;
But these days,
I listen better.

In summer, I drink lemonade in her shade, while she prefers rain water.
She is our graceful matriarch--
I and the other mulberries are her girls.
So, you see?
Some wishes do come true,
Even if a little differently than I used to imagine.
_____
for Kenia's Wednesday Challenge at Real Toads.

 

Justice

The rhino is renowned for his horn, and is often a target of poachers.

They haunt the jazz clubs, acting all normal, when in fact,

Their minds crawl with evil.



The rhino wears a pork pie hat and a thin black tie.

He plays "Poor Butterfly" and everybody cries.

He plays standards and experimental pieces;

The work of the masters and his own compositions.

His eyes are like cotton balls behind his dark glasses,

And he never met anything fried that he didn't like.



To save him from poachers, the city council has him placed behind a moat in the zoo, expecting that he will eat hay, swat flies with his absurd little tail,

And crap great mountains of rhino shit on the hard-packed bare dirt of his enclosure.

His friend the lesbian sneaks in at night and lies on her back on top of a big fake boulder, smoking a cigarette.

"You're an artist." She gestures with a sweep of her arm, as if she were Cleopatra idly sending a million sailors off to some stupid foreign war.

"What's all this supposed to be? Where is your horn?"

He has it,

But he cannot play it.

He is too sad even for "Lush Life" or "Am I Blue."



Days go by.

The month ends.

She smuggles him a file inside of a lopsided birthday cake.

It is a useless gesture, but a pretty one, and kind.

Finally, there is a full moon.

She describes it to him.

He takes up his horn and plays "That Old Black Magic."



If it were up to her, the poachers would be hung by their heels over a teeming colony of porcupines.

If it were up to her, the rhino could shed his skin as if he were just a ginormous old baked potato,

And his steaming white fluffy soul would fly straight up into Heaven.

If it were up to her, she would meet her Princess Charming tomorrow,

And the rhino,

In resplendent angel robes,

Would play at their wedding, held in some hip club in the quarter.



Instead, she beats out a rhythm on the outside bars with the useless file,

And pretends it is church bells;

Dreams it is Lady Justice, kicking off her shoes, picking up her skirts,

And setting the floor on fire

With moves like she

Never had before.

_________

Laura Nyro, Caroline Polachek, and Me

If you've got your speakers on and you're reading this fairly near to the posting date, you're listening to "Bruises" by Chairlift on my music player. It's my current favorite song. I discovered it while watching a viral video about a baby squirrel trying to jump a wall. Nothing lightweight about this girl, no no nooooo. LOL. The baby squirrel needed a little help in the form of stacked backpacks, to make the jump. Sometimes poetesses need a little help, too. More on that in a minute.

As is well known, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back, and I was curious to know the face behind the voice singing the song. All hail the all powerful Google thing. I found this picture of Caroline Polachek, the singer for Chairlift. She's the one with the microphones. ("Caroline" is one of my favorite names ever, by the way. I've been seriously thinking of dropping the family name of the family that no longer claims me, and becoming, simply "Shay Caroline." Star name for a star poetess. What do you think, readers?)

Anyway, my point. Don't rush me, meanies! LOL. When I saw this picture of Caroline Polachek, she looked so much to me like a young Laura Nyro, shown in the picture that was used on the album cover to "New York Tendaberry." Pretty close, yeah?

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I was over at a co-worker's apartment for some reason I've forgotten now. Nothing racy, c'mon now. She was an older Woman of the World, the height of cool with her own place. Ok, she was probably nineteen and going to community college. But she was what, in my little heart of hearts, I wanted to be.

Sooo, I sereptitiously scoped out her digs for clues on what such a mysterious and envy-worthy person might have lying around, so I could steal the idea. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. She had a stack of records (primitive cd's, children), and the one in front bore this very same picture of a wind-blown artistic looking dark haired woman named Laura Nyro. I thought, yes, this is definitely what a Cool Person would have, and listen to. So I went out and bought it, unheard. Envy is Powerful!

For those who don't recognise her name, Laura Nyro wrote any number of songs made famous by others, including "Eli's Coming", "Oh Sweet Blindness", "Stoney End", "Wedding Bell Blues" and others. But by the time of "New York Tendaberry" she was writing, singing and playing music that was a little less pop catchy, but filled with a deep passion and poetry.

Mama Mama you're a whiz and a scholar, too

I'm at anchor in your glow now

Kiss kiss, even as I go now...

He brings to me buckles off shingles

And a jangle from a Congo love chase;

Early bloomers made of earth and love lace...

Now I live and die and rise with my Captain

Mama I told ya,

Mama say go...

Meet me, Captain Saint Lucifer,

Darlin' I'll be there, now don't you know, don't you know"

(from "Captain St. Lucifer" by Laura Nyro)

I pretty much wore the grooves out listening to "New York Tendaberry" and soon added "Eli and the 13th Confession" and others. But NYT was, and still is, my favorite music by anybody, ever. It made me think that what was inside a person, their emotions and desires, could be made into compelling, beautiful, passionate art. It made me want to do that, too. And, in all candor, I longed to be the girl with the windblown hair and the face turned up toward whatever the Goddess was sending down.

Laura Nyro passed from ovarian cancer. But I am forever grateful for her music, which goes on, and the inspiration she gave me all those years ago.

Shay

PS--My mother used to think it was extremely strange behavior, that I liked to sit in my room with the lights off and scented candles lit, listening to "New York Tendaberry". I didn't tell her I was training to become a lesbian poetess. Yep, it was even worse than she imagined! ;-)

________

Ten Dreams

My skin is keen to dream ten dreams--

One for each of your fingers.

I want to count each one

With my heartbeat,

Sweet One of mine.

I feel like a dangled strawberry.

I feel like a clever crime, gotten away with.

I feel like an ocean wave--

Slide into me,

Be moon to my tide.

I feel as if I were a new jar of peanut butter, smooth and

Just begging to be disturbed.

My arms are like the strands of a ribbon untied.

My hair is falling darkly over my right eye,

And my left is looking for trouble.

When you hold anything, I dream of the stems of lilies for weeks.

I am a wet vase.

Quick,

Kiss me now, before the stars move.

Make my bed your garden.

Tend my love with yours through the night.

______