this is just to say

this is just to say
that I was
saving those plums,
but you go ahead.

So much depends upon
a red fire department
ambulance

as your eyes glaze
and water.

Forgive me
the plums were poisoned
so sweet and
so cold

beside your white
selfish chicken ass.

______

I hate William Carlos Williams poetry, and I especially hate "This Is Just To Say" and  "The Red Wheelbarrow." 

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold 


The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.


Both above poems by William Carlos Williams. Parody at top by me for Real Toads mini-challenge.   

two for souffle

You think I am broken,
moon-damaged,
pepper on the pudding you've melted the world into,
thrust into little glass cups,
ruined by the seasoning of my inventive curses.

Won't you soften, just a bit,
and step out onto the precipice with me?
We can march to our own drumbeat, here,
high above the street.

I am tall enough that you could kiss or climb me;
bite the bullet, chew the notion.
Pretend that we have taken the water-carriage all the way to Trinidad
and that you actually like calypso music,
new things,
and my ways.

As we rapidly take on water,
I'll say something cryptic, yet suggestive,
and you will believe again.
Fancy the healing our colliding idiocies can fashion!
Can we just close our eyes,
forget about leverage and vengeance
long enough to be in the moment,
teetering,
one foot each in mid-air,
the other cramping
and the dumb greedy ground yawning below.

You can never master me, you know,
but we can affect a certain edgy hipness.
We shall wear exoskeletons like crickets,
and when night falls, we shall touch our index fingers together
in the divine joke that is us, and say,
"BANG," darling.
It is the only way we will ever fall.
______

for Get Listed at Real Toads, where Timoteo has given us a list of 20 words, and I have used every one because I am a good and obedient girl.

 

 

Babs is back.....

....what could be more elegant?

Objets D'art. HERE.

spirit jars

i have hung spirit jars on the fruit tree outside our bedroom window,
and i have done this slowly, with intent,
like a kiss.

i have set out soft furs and colored cloth,
lantern light,
and a basket of bread.

the days, they do their evil, honey.
every good woman is wicked scarred, knows the bad-ass blues at noon,
and how to cry so no one knows.

never mind, my only heart.
in the evening you will find me just in reach of the porch light,
and no harmful thing will dare come near you, because

i have hung spirit jars and made the sign of the cross with my fingertip across each one.
i have done this slowly, with intent,
for you, using all my magicks

like a kiss. 
________

 

Fireblossom's House of Voodoo

Quite some time ago, some of us bloggy poets were asked to show our writing space to the world, on our blogs. I didn't have a camera at the time, but now I do, and though I am woefully late to the party, I still thought that some of you might enjoy seeing Chez Shay. 

Once in the door, you would be in my living room, where, when  am not working, I spend most of my time slack-jawed, watching tv or dvds and communing with Bosco, who heartily approves of tv time, as it is usually food time, too.

His Majesty. Isn't he handsome?

Okay, last chance to head back out the door. Note my voodoo dolls hanging on the wall! Oh all right, they are really marionettes. 

Bosco cannot believe that you are still reading this.

Here is my desk, where I write all of my poems. It was my father's desk before me, and is older than I am. The green book on the left is my volume of Lorca, a gift from my BFF Hedgewitch. The little brown postcard is my lioness from Kerry, Queen of the Toad Pond. I like my writing space spare, as you can see. My screensaver image is a young Emmylou Harris.

Next to my chair is my music, always within reach. Right now it is loaded with three cd's: Joni Mitchell "Songs To  Seagull", Erin McKeown "Manifestra" and the self-titled "Bryndle", which was a group comprised of Karla Bonoff, Kenny Edwards, Andrew Gold and Wendy Waldman. 

I hope you enjoyed this belated tour. Now I must go serve my Master. Woof! 

3 fibonacci poems

My BFF Hedgewitch has decreed that we write Fibonacci poems, and so, naturally, I have applied myself to doing exactly that. Here are three: the first one is a reverse Fibonacci by syllable count, the second is by word count, and the third is a mirror Fibonacci by word count.

THE TERRIBLE HOUSEFLY

Behold, the terrible housefly--
followers crowd its
compound eye;
maggot
turned
Caesar.

COUNTRY CLUB CHRIST

Wonder
Bread
must contain
a tame god
bleeding a very thin wine
building bland believers twelve ways, Sundays before noon.

21

September
Gina,
do you
remember orange evening
in my little garage apartment
hardly big enough for birds, or a bed?

You were 36 and settled as high summer;
outside my windows, the moon
was your twin--
brightly lit,
silently
knowing.

_______

 

hook echo

Close your eyes.
Let me come to you as an odd storm,
one that places the soft-stunned bird
back upon her branch, feathers floating from the ground
to take their places in sequence along her wing.

Let the lost home rise up again,
the lamp righted and lit.
Dream and imagine your heart, unbroken.
________

________

for Artistic Interpretations with Margaret at Real Toads.

And a 55 for the super fab G Man.