Let's Talk

 "Out here on the perimeter, there are no stars.

Out here, we is stoned, immaculate."  --Jim Morrison

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

I'm not some sort of spokesperson for eternity.

Still, you keep popping up,

asking if anyone wishes to communicate,

then you wig out when I answer back.

Let's talk about how I got here. 

I was in the back seat of Daddy's Oldsmobile.

The baseball game was on. 

Then I was launching off from some crazy trapeze into...this place. 

No mom.

No dad.

Just another bauble in the costume jewelry box of the universe

shining brightly in the dark.

Now let's talk about you. 

You're miffed when I don't answer, but shit your pants when I do. 

I can't tell you where your dead Granny is.

I can't tell you if she's in glory or misery.

I can't tell you how much I'm starting to hate that silly planchette of yours.

So why did I answer in the first place?

Like Cole Porter says, It was just one of those things. 

Let's talk about not talking anymore.

Whatever you're asking about--it's not my clowns, not my circus.

I'm just a bit of incorporeal ash floating around in the ether.

I vant to be alone

and boy, am I.

At least, until you came along, like a chatty seatmate on an airplane.

You say hello--hello hello!--I dont know why you say hello, I say

Goodbye.

________

for Word Garden Word List--The Circus In Winter.

and

The Sunday Muse #255. 

Music: Pink Floyd Comfortably Numb

Word Garden Word List--The Circus In Winter

 

Hello mes anges, It is time once again for your weekly Word Garden Word List! This time our source is The Circus In Winter, by Cathy Day

It's a collection of interwoven short stories about circus people in the off season and spans from long ago to contemporary times. I adored it and urge you to check it out! Though the stories may be set among carnies and such, they are chock full of home truths. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. It need have nothing to do with circuses, but you get an extra squeeze of the Bozo nose if it does. Then just link up, visit others, and take a victory lap standing up on horseback in a sequined costume, arms spread dramatically as the audience cheers with wild abandon!

And now, in the center ring, your List!

ash

baseball

bauble

charm

circus

clowns

Cole Porter

cookies

elephant

incident

miffed

misery

Oldsmobile

papier-mâché

Podunk

popping

spokesperson

trapeze

wig

Winnebago

My Detective

 

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--

everything is up in the air. 

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.

Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl

even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.

I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz. 

Your heart is the President of the United States of America. 

We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara. 

My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.

They know him there.

They hire cellists. 

He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you

via telephone

with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.

I want the call recorded

and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe. 

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.

My small black cubs frolick nearby, 

climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.

My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo. 

The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.

I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.

I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.

My detective wears a felt fedora

and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel. 

I am The Queen of the Mist,

suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary

where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti. 

Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.

I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg. 

He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.

I am innocent. 

Love is a marvelous thing, a joyful thing. My love is happy now, laughing.

_______

For Word Garden Word List--Zachary Schomburg.

Music: Angelo De Pippa Funiculi Funicula

Word Garden Word List--Zachary Schomburg

 

Hello my pretties, and welcome to this week's slightly late Word List. In olden times it might have been a Worde Liste. Anyway, our source this time is bizarro prose poet Zachary Schomburg, who writes about weird telephones, strange zoos and odd islands. Think The Far Side but more unsettling than funny. 

All of the words on this week's List are taken from his book The Man Suit. I'm not sure where I found it. It's just there on my shelf, as if placed there by elves. I've read it, on a winter day one year, when my mind needed expansion. Now I bring it to you, set upon a little burgundy-colored pillow, with accompanying fanfare. 

Okay, so, ready to get weird?!? You don't have to, but extra credit if you do, in the spirit of Zachary Schomburg. What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words provided and use them in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, then bake your poem and theirs in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes until the edges caramelize. Easy peasy!

And now, your List:

aquarium

aviary

axe-murderer

bear

bullpen

cellists

detective

dove

Leon Czolgosz

loudspeaker

lumberjacks

machines

mailbox

opera

owls

radiant

revolver

snow

telephone

tuxedo

Kathy

 I felt bad, after

like a house of dirty windows

like my heart had hit a quicksand ditch going 90

and my ribs kept giving me a sharpwire bone-hug every time I breathed.

Kathy came by, 

crossed her arms

dipped her chin and said,

"Well don't you look like hammered crap."

Knowing I'm sober,

She goes, "Wanna get wasted?" 

and there's that shit-eating grin.

"Yeeeah," I tell her with a loud sniff and a lip twitch.

"Well you can't, stupid," she says.

Filling my coffee maker, she strings together some very inventive,

vile, and hilarious names for Ms. Thang until I finally snort and shake my head.

"You are one fine fucking mess

and more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" she says, tilting her head. 

I know that.

"And I love ya, ya goof."

I know that, too.

Then I am crying, and she is rocking, 

and the coffee maker burps and coughs like it might die, but doesn't. 

_________

for NaPoWriMo day 5.