Emily the Innocent

 

Our Lady of the Upstairs Apartment

tired saints sharing cushions on her couch

welcomes you with chocolate or a half mint

and her kiss at the corner of your mouth

The landlord carries rain in a bucket

collected from the cripples in the hall

no desert-born demon can obstruct it

if a judgment or her lashes start to fall

Our Lady of the Wooden Table Kitchen

serves you holy water in a little cup

and speaks to you in such a soothing diction

the bedtime tales the sofa boys made up

The weary stars lie down upon her rooftop

and she covers them with blankets made of smoke

In the morning they roll cigarettes and wonder

at the comforts as they slept she kindly spoke

Our Lady of the Upstairs Apartment

with her crosses made from cherry wood or teak

she laughs and calls you Emily the Innocent

and leaves you with her kiss upon your cheek.

Black Velvet Rose

When I was a child

I made a catalog of sounds.

My fingernail across upholstery,

birds calling to each other in the yard.

The world spun

in oval vespers

from day to night

as wind spoke to trees in whispers.

Why was my voice someone else

when hearing it on a recording?

Why did I wake up so often

to echoing music in the morning?

Now, when I am very tired,

I hear the dead speak again.

A siren goes past in the street outside.

"I love that sound," says the ghost in my mind.

Rain and rivers help me sleep

with a black velvet rose in my dream

and the kind-voiced sweetheart I've invented there

says that dawn, or the devil, may care.

________

for What's Going On? --"Sounds."

Music: J.D.Souther Black Roses, White Rhythm & Blues

Word Garden Word List--Last Seen Leaving

 Hello my little runaways! Oops, I guess it was me whose Word List was missing last week when I wasn't feeling up to doing it. Allergies kicked my happy behind all up and down the boulevard! Plus, I totally overdid the physical activity and exhausted myself. But now I'm back, like a bad penny! And a day early besides!

Speaking of being missing, this week's List is taken from Kelly Braffet's novel Last Seen Leaving. Yes, I just recently did a List taken from another of her novels, but I just finished this one, so we're doing an encore. Got a prob widdat? 😏

This one is about a young woman who has disappeared and her mother's efforts to find her. Randa hasn't been abducted, though. She's just done with everything and living in a summer beach town unbeknownst to anyone. As always with this author, there is a deft mix of spot-on human emotion and the shadows of things that lurk in nightmares. Read it and find out what happens!

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and then get in a car with a stranger. Wait, don't do that even though Randa, in the book, does. 😕 This prompt is active until next Sunday!

Your List:

appealing

beach

costumes

cows

cure

dubiously

evidence

eyes

goofy

kitten

Lucky Strike

millstone

paper

pilot

rose

sparks

sweet

trembling

underside

wanted

Ode to Jimbo

 

"Kitten," he said to me,

"you are the worst kind of witless cow,"

adding, of course, the rest of the usual blandishments. 

What he meant, translated from Jimbo-ese

and run through a blender filled with

fresh fruits and nectar, was

"You are the sweetest, most appealingly goofy lovebug

that anyone could ever meet, and I am delirious with joy

to know you are mine, my little millstone." 

This is how I ended up on the beach, albeit the one

grandly known as the Salton Sea. Like Jimbo,

it is salty and ruined. Like him, it needs me.

There are locals here, and they eye me dubiously

but warm up and offer encouragements like

"Who the fuck are you? Are you stupid? Get lost."

They've made me feel right at home, they are so like my Jimbo.

I pick up a dead fish and wonder if I could save it.

Just some Evian and Aveeno could work wonders.

My Jimbo lies over the ocean; my Jimbo lies over the (Salton) Sea.

No wait, he's right here, dropping the butt of a Lucky Strike

onto the gray, contaminated sand. "Come home," he says.

He looks like a lost puppy wearing a days-old shirt

and is eating something he probably shouldn't. 

I say, "Miss me, dontcha?" Jimbo squints. "Shut up."

(That's Jimbo-ese for "Yes, baby.")  

Aw shucks and shiny silver dollars, 

if that's not love, I don't know what is!

___________

for Word Garden Word List--Last Seen LeavingLast Seen Leaving

Big Sur

 

Back in bus-and-duffel days

turned out, less to than away,

half-high, with no plan,

I went up the coast.

San Luis Obisbo, Carmel, San Fran

and on up to Portland.

That's where we go now

--people my age--

but this was then

when I had no means, no ways,

and just my naivete.

Out in the water, somebody said

to watch for the whales.

They live in the dark underneath,

and like me, come up, then back down

without learning a thing or so it seemed.

On the bus some guy liked

Gordon Lightfoot

You've Been Talking In Your Sleep. 

He spoke my language like a native

better than the pidgin kid that was me.

He told me a blue whale's heart

weighs as much as a grand piano

and can be heard from two miles away.

Bye daddy, behind me down the coast--

thanks for kicking me out.

I wondered, as Seattle became B.C.,

what if it's all just big empty water,

and me lugging some big booming beater for nothing?

Or what if I'm all ears

but the watersong was never for me?

What then? 

And what now?

I look out these days not at California coast

but at Michigan lakes,

cold and deep, choppy or still.

I know only that I still don't know

and never will.

________

for What's Going On? -- Whales and Other Wonders.

Music: Bobby Womack California Dreamin'

Birds At Dawn

 

Dawn mists shroud the preening swan

forever in her bridal gown

down near the shore where footsteps end

then floating out to mourn again

This is the pond where my true love drowned

never seen and never found

by water lilies twined and kept

in green and silent alphabet.

Dawn obscures the calling crow

forever dressed in black who goes

along the branch that holds the knot

and every cherished thing he's got

This is the tree where my true love fell

as gracefully as Pachelbel

a dancer to adagio

as far as woven strands dare go.

Dawn comes dim and damp in hours

just light enough for owl's eyes

that see the hidden bower nest,

where silent birds don't sermonize.

This is the hour when my true love comes

in melancholy misted dawn

to call me on and call me down

demanding his sine qua non. 

_______

For the Mercy of Forgetting

 

If it were time for me to die

I would ring my rue with scarlet red

and wear it as a binding scarf

sewn from every word I said.

If it were time for me to sleep

like a stone the river runs above

I would count the clouds from underneath

an accountant in the house of love.

If it were time for me to speak

with roses growing from my teeth

I'd talk of roots and bark and limbs

and dress my skin in paraffins. 

If it were time for me to pay

Charon for my journey home

I'd fill my purse with copper coins

and jelly made from angel bones.

If it were time for me to die

I would ring my rue with climbing vines

and lay my head where heads can rest

with hyacinths and columbines.

__________

image: black barlow columbine

Word List --Sorry!

 

Hi gang. No word List today due to your Listy being under the weather. I will try to post it tomorrow. If not, it will be next week, but the List will be back!

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

A Strange Place To Die

 

The Polo Grounds was a strange place for a man to die. 

Across the way at 515 Edgecombe Avenue,

14-year-old Robert Mario Peebles' enthusiasm

for the 4th of July hit just above Barney Doyle's eye,

killing him instantly as he watched infield practice.

He never got to see the game. 

Thirty years earlier, a fellow everyone considered to be

a mean bastard delivered a fatal pitch submarine-style.

Back on the farm, his daddy had taught Carl Mays never to back down.

Ray Chapman never got up.

No, wait, after being hit with a dirty, hard-to-see ball

with an impact so loud that Mays thought it was a hit,

Ray Chapman got up, fell, rose, and fell again on the baseline.

"Tell Mays I'm all right," were his last words.

Ray Chapman was a man with the world on a string.

Good-looking, friendly Ray, playing out one last season

at the sport he loved, was newly married and set up in a good job.

He even got on well with quarrelsome Ty Cobb

who was said to have killed a man in Detroit.

The world was his oyster.

In a New York hospital, Ray Chapman got better, then worse,

then was gone forever. His widow lived just eight more years herself.

Carl Mays never felt he had done anything wrong

on a dusty diamond July 4th, 1920 in Manhattan, New York City.

The Polo Grounds was a strange place for a man to die. 

_________

for What's Going On? An Historical Moment.  

Music: Jeff Buckley I Know It's Over

Santa Anita

 

When I think of you 

                                     Daddy,

still to this day I see you in

                                               overcoat and fedora,

newspaper under your arm,

                                                  breath visible in the cold,

coming down the sidewalk from the

                                                                 train station--

I would run to meet you, overjoyed.

Years later,

                    post-divorce, me a

21-year-old 

                     home from overseas.

I stayed with you

                              and your new wife

that stranger, and you Daddy, 

                                                    you a stranger too

in the unfamiliar sprawl of L.A.

You took me with you to

                                           Santa Anita racetrack

with the beautiful thoroughbreds

                                                            ambling

in their easy gait, the jockeys

                                                    leaning forward

as if already running the next race.

                                                              I was looking

at the odds board and then you were gone.

I waited as the horses with their

                                                         strange wonderful names

finished race after race,

                                           feeling lost, and sad, then angry.

I still regret how I spoke to you

                                                       when you finally appeared

but you took it all with a funny smile. 

                                                                  Years later I realized

that you had gone to call the new wife.

                                                                      You just

couldn't be away from her, for me. 

Daddy, I don't know who you turned into.

My adored father

                               became someone who lived

with plastic over the furniture

                                                     and the Lakers on tv.

Oh for a ballgame with you

                                                 at Tiger Stadium

or another trip to the DIA

                                             to see Diego Rivera's mural.

I would run to you, overjoyed,

                                                     but you are gone,

just a sad California memory.

__________________________

for Dverse Poetics "Left In The Lurch" hosted by my friend Dora. 

Music: The Pretenders Back on the Chain Gang

My Bear

 

My bear

has to be awoken gently.

(We've been through any number

of jarring alarm clocks, smashed to bits on the floor.)

My bear

needs to get up by April

or he's groggy all summer.

Wakey, baby,

I whisper in his cute furry ear.

My bear

is the super in our building.

His keys jingle like

Christmas bells.

He is jolly and waddles to the rescue.

My bear

gets dissed by some of the 

harpies on the top floor.

Then they go kiss

the apes and hyenas they married

who keep Cameros under tarps in the parking garage.

My bear

solves problems by waving

at them with his massive paws.

He groans offendedly

when this does not solve the problem.

Then he tries chewing on it or tipping it over.

My bear

makes the residents' kids

get out of the storeroom in the basement.

He gets up on two legs

and shakes his head no.

Some of them need to change trousers afterward.

My bear

is my bruin castle keep.*

We talk in bed and decide

that if we have a girl we'll name her Ursala,

and if we have boy he'll go to Boston

to play ice hockey.

My bear

knows that I will buy

his favorite fruit preserves

and real honey in jars, not the fake stuff.

We have twelve different

honey dippers

and each wear one ring.

My bear

sits back on his butt like a Buddha.

I wear a bucket hat and a thousand

cuffs and necklaces.

He huffs the air with his big fat black nose.

I sigh and smile.

It's a good life.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!

*this line is adapted from a previous poem of mine, "Our Bear."

Music: The Bare Necessities

Word Garden Word List--Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!

 

Good morning class! (bored nasal response) "Good morning Ms. Fireblossom." It's time for this week's Word List poetry prompt! Our source this week is a rather insane and howlingly funny novella by Mykle Hansen entitled Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!  

From the back cover:

JERK WARNING!

Marv Pushkin is pinned under his SUV somewhere in Alaska. He hates Alaska, nature, people, and especially his wife. He loves his SUV, his clothes, his money, his drugs, and himself. Marv Pushkin is such an asshole.

When I read this book, I was in stitches. It's hilarious. Marv Pushkin is a character you'll love to hate. Yes, he's being eaten by a bear from the first line to the last, and what he mostly does is complain and be as disagreeable as possible. You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll root for the bear!

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Subject, mood, and style are up to you; there need be no bears or Marv Pushkins at all, unless you want for there to be. But ask yourselves this: if you were alone in the woods, would you rather be confronted by a bear, or by someone wanting you to read their unpublished five-volume set of topical haiku? Either way, just write, link up, visit others and then leave a picnic basket unattended in Jellystone Park. This prompt stays active through Sunday. 

And now, your List:

bear

blubbery

Camero

children

costing

cute

dumpy-looking

evolved

freeway

furry

Godzilla

hospital

luxuriously

meds

Mexico

mints

pills

puddle

retarded

starry-eyed

Only Every Bloody Thing

 

Only every bloody thing

volunteered for offering

against their will, against the grain

against their soul and flesh and name.

Our Mother of the Not Enough

whose kiss is made of chaff and stuff

to starve the cow whose bell is broke

and tell the flame it's only smoke.

Only every bloody thing

whose throat was cut but still could sing

will curse your words and curse your hand

in every tongue and every land.

Our Mother of the Frozen Pond

the awful ice where darkness spawned

a lonely child who had one too

whose scorn is mixed with pity, too.

________

For those, like me, for whom Mother's Day is hard. We are sisters, we are fierce, and we are worthy.

Two roads diverged in a wood...

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

Music: Sly & the Family Stone Stand

Mi Loca Amada

 

The full moon scares me,

and always has.

I become a dropped plate 

shattering along its reflected lines. 

Bless the rainy night,

the wet leaf drip of solace.

Thick clouds hide me

burrow-minded from the mad moon.

My fear of what it might do,

or cause me to do, leaves me w(e)ary.

For tonight I am safe,

there is no moon, but mi  loca amada, no stars either. 

______________

for What's Going On? "The Night Sky"

Music: Snow Get You To The Moon

 

The Water Dove

 

I kissed the dove

who made her nest

in the lonely pool at the bottom of my heart.

Little water-dove

sweet creature, feathered mother,

when I breathe, you flutter, shift, and sigh.

I kissed the foxes

whose meal was lately

in the henhouse where all rain is born.

Little hidden ones

with your silent black feet,

when I cry, you peer out from moonlit memory.

I kissed the gamesman

in the old pink cottage

because he was there, and silent, like God.

I was the little nanny

in the graveyard singing

to the doves, and foxes, and gamesman

peering back at me from the lonely pool 

of moonlit memory.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Life After Life. 

Music: Rodrigo Adagio