Beauty

 I stole beauty from another girl--

Ripped it right out of her hands
In a hail of cosmetics and hairspray,
Then ghosted away with it to my underground lair.
But when I tried to bash it open,
The lock wouldn't budge
And anyway, it wasn't my size.


I took it to my mother's house and dropped it dead center on her holiday table--
Shrieking, I raked my broken fingernails right down to the bone of love and hatred that props us together, and she
Embraced
The locked
Foreign
Beauty that I ripped off from some bitch on the bus,
And said, "Daughter,
At last!
Welcome home."

___________

for What's Going On? "Beauty"

Travel Stories For Girls

 

Someone messed with my story when I was still young,

trying to bend it like a bonsai tree

and so I wrapped it in paper and hid it away

in the throat of a bird, clandestinely. 

I was obliged to call my assaulter "mother"

and expected to pretend devotion.

Her mask was on her face so long

that her true face had become the illusion.

Grown, I went where the robins gathered

and found the cardinal who carried my loss.

It was in a grave, wrapped with quilts, 

but had marked its place with two twigs crossed.

I put it back in my body and felt its ice,

then its beat and its fine red heat.

There is nothing I love more than the thing

I smuggled past the killer-- the best of me.

That is not to say that all survived--

those who say they love are heard as fakes,

assassins or fools; give this hungry woman jewels

and see what a pretty figure my turned back makes.

______________

for Word Garden Word List--Sula 

Music: Damien Jurado Orphans in the Key of E

Para la Madre Diabólica

 She said that my hair

had turned the moon to ash

as if it were hers, a pet cat

mute in the silent sky.

What she meant was

that I had the wrong face

and the wrong voice, always

wandering from its glass case.

I slipped the crescent moon

through my hair like a garland,

then grew it long and wild,

my name at the root and the far ends.

________

for What's Going On? --"Hair"

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

The Vivid Dead

 

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead

winding wire around every bud in the garden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Making olive of jade and maroon of red

mixing invitation with heirloom toxin

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Staking a world with only frayed gray thread

hoarding every sweet fruit left to harden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Mixing sugar and rot into every word said

a borer warden of self without pardon

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Silence the dust-tongue kept in your head

and lie with your twin the idiot watchman

fearing poison in every innocent bed

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

______

A villanelle. 

Music:  Michael Kiwanuka Cold Little Heart

The Goblin Girl (A Child's Fairy Story)

 

image by Gustaf Teggren

The Goblin Girl is cursed and wanders

over stubbled fields and passes under

the riven bridge that ice has split

and counts herself the cause of it.

Should the Goblin Girl admire the arc

of a lofty bird it misses its mark--

falters and falls like an iron omen

to fall at her feet in evening gloaming.

On thorny brambles she lays her head

with moon for pillow and stone for bed

to dream of peacocks and peahens crying

for the bride whose lily is cut and dying.

Who laid the wicked curse upon her?

Perhaps some coward behind a mask?

Or was it the smug and well-dressed hunter

who cradles his gun and ready flask?

Who burned her image and let the milk curdle

as done to them by an earlier other?

Why, the very one who rocked the cradle--

the Goblin Girl's Janus-faced mother.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Christina Rossetti. The poem is, in style, an homage.

For more about the two-faced god Janus, look HERE. 

Music: Sarah McLachlan "In The Arms Of An Angel"

Oriole

 

Lizzie Borden was alive in you,

in a dreary wooden way,

holding her breath for the next thing,

turning blue then gray.

You considered the wooden cradle

and me, of imperfect flesh

deciding you'd hate me not so much

were I made of ash.

Lay the axe at fireside,

move the cradle closer, too.

Your suicidal substitute

me in place of you.

The handle of the axe is made

from that which it destroys

in little bits and other shit

like broken burned-up toys.

But I, so like you in some ways

had asbestos in my soul

and rose away in sparks and smoke

like an orange oriole.

_______

for Sunday Muse #197. 

Wounded Deer

Quincy Washington "Emperor of Dawn"

I carry the dead with me and they are never silent.
When I whisper in your ear, listen for the echo of the dead,
those riders screaming.

Every moment spent forgetting
has been a revelation of peace.
But still, the dead, on the end of a chain, grin and wait.

You admire me, all the things I have done,
all the dragons in ditches by the roadside.
The dead take the teeth and stuff their yapping mouths,

Slurring that I'll never make it,
never be worth their spit,
never take another step,

But I do, and they are shamed with every movement,
my life a pulsing illustration
that the wounded deer runs fastest after all.
_________ 

for Real Toads Art Flash. I chose symbolic.

About Athena

She's a headache, father. 
You know it better than any.
And what about that bird she insists upon having?
It swoops down from the top of the chiffarobe
whenever I walk in carrying laundry. 

Oh, I talk to her.
She just gets out those everlasting scales and stands there
without saying a word.
The owl twists its neck and gapes too.
It's unnerving.

I went through her closet
--looking for drugs!--
and there, at the bottom of a tube of tennis balls,
I found a lightning bolt.
What do you suppose she's doing with that? 

Finally, I went through her dresser.
The owl started pacing on the chiff like a constable.
Athena walked in just as I found them--
"Will you be snooping...er, staying for lunch, Mother?"
--six dead rats laid all in a row
like a diamond necklace.
_________

for Poets United Midweek Motif--Owls

Kill All Monsters

Mirror, mirror on the wall--

be honest with me one more time

before you go blind;

before I disappear and you start to lie. 

I am ugly,

so they say and have said

for as far back as my memory reaches.

The unkind ask straight-out,

"Were you in an accident?"

The kind remark on my beautiful eyes

and let the rest hang in the air like lost birds.

It's a great day for my mother,

hiding in her space suit of conventionality. 

The doctor in whom she has such faith--

who treats me like a block of wood

and speaks as if I weren't sitting right there--

thrills her when he holds my nose up with his thumb

and she gushes 

that now I look like her darling, my sib.

Mirror, mirror

tell it to me straight, as a sweet sixteen gift

before you lose the truth forever

and I vanish into this involuntary shift.

I know that others find me ugly

and that my mother finds me ugly

because she comes right out and says so.

But I am not ugly to myself--

I am simply me.

After tomorrow,

after blood and blades and anesthetic,

someone will heal and go back to school and marry and grow old,

but she won't be me.

I'll be riding inside, in my island prison, unseen.

Someone will say, "You look so pretty,"

and it will mean nothing to me,

it having been said about someone else,

this mask-face I can never take off even for a second.  

Mirror, mirror,

tell me the truth before you deceitfully bend--

before I submit to the will of others

and am never seen again.

_______

Dedicated to the disfigured, the different, the intersexed, and all children whose bodies are altered without their consent.

And in memory of Lucy Grealy, author of "Autobiography Of A Face." In the arms of the angels, Beautiful.

For Fireblossom Friday "This Is (Almost) The End" at Toads.

Image at top: Adele Exarchopolous from the movie "Blue is The Warmest Color" 

Internal Injuries

I hear dead people.
1965 continues endlessly,
elms rustling in summer breeze,
baseball and Beatles cards spread on the sidewalk still,
screen doors and monarch butterflies fragile but immortal.
You can stop now
(don't stop)
you can stop
(don't)
you
(don't)
stop.

Don't listen. 
Drop the sound out.
Roll with it if you can.
This house has been on fire for decades, why panic now? 
I hear dead people,
jumped up from eternal rest or damnation
telling me what they always told me:
child, you're fucked, and it's your own damn fault.
Can I stop hearing it now?
Can I stop living
(don't stop)
or start?
(don't start with me)
or
(you)
me
(us)
stop.
STOP.

1965 continues endlessly,
elms rustling in the summer breeze. 
________

for Poem As One-Sided Conversation at Toads.

 

 

Cake

Here is a cake made from coneflowers and cut losses;
you have to eat it with the window open like a suicide.
My house is your house, and all that.
Anything wrong with the cake?
Something is funny with the lights, they keep flickering and exploding.
Why is your baggage still here in the kitchen
taking up space so unattractively?

I like samplers.
This one says things you'd rather it didn't. 
So. Tell mama.
Use all the usual Hollywood tricks.
Happy it up. 
Make everybody prettier, then have more cake.
It's from an old family recipe that calls for legal documents and collected dust.
Inside, you'll find a letter.
It's from the future and says the same thing as the sampler.

Don't come at me with the utensils. 
You called me, after the priest and the psychic threw you out.
Don't eat with your mouth full.
Now's the time to get it off your chest,
come clean, stop mumbling excuses, stop fidgeting and just say it.
Well?
Don't talk with your mouth open.
Don't waste my time.
Don't keep me from my daily rituals.
Of course I love you. 
I knew before you did that you'd come here,
with no preservatives, no animal flesh, no bread, no bone.
So, I baked at 375 for all these years.
Now eat your cake before it gets cold. 
_______

For Marian's "November Themes" challenge at Real Toads. I chose "cake."
 

Hi.

 "Magic Mirror, if we only could / see ourselves as others would." --Leon Russell


Hi.
I tried to call you last night.
I tried twice more but you never picked up.
Where were you?
Oh. Who did you go with? 
Yes, I know her parents. She smokes, doesn't she?
I'm just saying.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Don't get upset like you do, please.
Yes I know she's 21.
No, she can't be 37? 
Okay. I guess that's right, you kids are the same age. Time flies!
Well, you'll always be kids to me.
So...
Did you get the recipes I sent you?
Some coupons, too.
Did you go to that job fair I told you about?
I thought it would be good for--
Oh.
But you don't want to do that for the rest of your life, do you?
It's not really going to take you anywhere.
You could do--
Pardon? You did? That's wonderful. How much of a raise was it?
Well, excuse me. I'll never ask anything again.
So...
Any men in your life?
Hello?
Yes, but I thought that might have changed.
Oh yes, her.
Uh-huh.
But why were you so upset? It was only another woman. 
I just worry about you.
If you'd lose a little weight, and dress a little more--
What?
Well, I'm sorry you heard it like that.
You've always been too sensitive. 
Your brother isn't that way at all!
Always do what?
Don't be that way. I'm trying to help you.
Why take everything I say as criticism?
Don't raise your voice, please. 
I never said that.
I don't remember saying that.
I just want you to be happy.
Well I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I was saying.
You know how you confuse things sometimes, just like your father.
Well, your friends don't say these things to you because they don't love you like I do.
Have you thought any more about becoming a Lutheran?
I only thought--
Well, when we went to church with your brother and Debbie, you said--
Oh. 
I thought you did express an interest. 
He'd be glad to talk to you about--
All right! I just wish you had something solid in your life, that's all.
I worry.
So...
What have you been up to?
An award, how nice. Is there any payment for that, or...
Oh, I see. 
Well, that's a nice hobby I suppose. Nothing I would ever think to do, of course.
Yes. Yes, but...
I just think that if you spent that time in a more--
Well, because I'm your mother. I care about you. I worry.
At your door? Right now? It's rather late.
All right, I'll call you tomorrow then. 
You won't?
How about Wednesday? Any room in your schedule then? Ha ha.
Well, they'll wait, won't they?
You're just like your father, always running off someplace but never getting anywhere.
All right, yes, better go see who's at the door, my goodness.
Be careful.
Love you.
Bye.
_______

for Out Of Standard at Real Toads.

Image: The Broken Mirror Effect by croissance at deviant art.

Blogger won't let me add a video, so here is a link to Leon Russell's "Magic Mirror." 

The Lock

When you put the lock on my tongue,
that was some medieval dentistry;
performed before I knew
about informed consent, 
lawyers, 
mental disorders,
and all the usual childhood stuff.

So, I became a telepath,
screwing with the antenna tv, broadcasting my thoughts,
burning the toast,
giving the garage door St. Vitus Dance,
and dispatching police and fire to our house with my brother's scanner.

Our neighbor three doors down
was the Chief of Police,
and he took me aside with the customary rubber hose.
The lock on my tongue precluded objection or outcry
and besides, I thought it was all normal
how he grunted as he swung,
and then holstered his gun in his face and blew his brains out.
I'll never tell.

You have three choices, you said,
of what to be in life:
a nurse, a secretary, or a hotel maid.
That's when I panicked and started the electric mixer with my mind.
What about hooker, homicide, hag, harridan?
What about paramour, prostitute, pill-popper, parasite?
Who knew I could make the kabob skewers fly through the air like that? 

I stood mute during my trial. 
Let your lawyer do the talking, they told me, 
just as I learned to do at your knee.
Still, I couldn't restrain my nervous habit of jangling the lock on my tongue
during dull moments
like summation and sentencing.
Such a quiet girl, said the warden.
You don't see girls like her very often anymore,
especially doing a quarter at this facility.

It's been years, now.
The other women call me Metal Mouth
and ask if the cat's got my tongue.
They don't know that I learned how to pick the lock last week--
they only know that the guards are having trouble
with the system that seals the doors,
and that the toilets flush by themselves all night
without even anyone's head being shoved into them.

Wait til I can talk, mama.
You always wanted to know what I could have been thinking of--
well, that was it.
Now I'm gonna use my words,
my hour come round at last:
Look, ma! Top of the world, 
and all that silence packed behind one long gorgeous scream. 
______


 

Anna

Anna was the only one of my friends that my mother liked,
but mom is dead, and Anna has moved to L.A.

Most of my friends, though big-hearted and funny,
were smokers, or "heavy", or "not going anywhere."
I asked, "Where is it you think I'm going?" 
and scooped myself a big-ass sundae.
You know that weapons-grade disapproving look? Mom invented it,
but felt it played better without dialogue.

Mom used to come knockless into my room,
pushing aside ten notebooks jammed with jumblefuck poetry and lyrics,
to tell me get up, do something, stick with something for once.
I wander into the weeds, it's true--wasn't I telling you about Anna? 
Well, back to that. 

Anna is the kind of woman Anna the girl started out to be.
No stops, no bullshit, just straight on and damn the roadkill.
For convenience, here is a planner for you:
If you want to be broke, make Anna your accountant.
If you want to be childless, hire Anna as your nanny.
If you want to meet doctors, install Anna as your chef.
If you want to test your strength, marry Anna and hold on.

I lost touch with Anna, but mom always liked her.
Anna was venomous, but had a perfect smile.
Anna was heartless, but used blusher to pink her cheeks.
Anna was vile, but dressed well for church on Sunday.
Anna was filled with rot from her hair to her shoes,
but knew the best salons
and always wore good perfume.
______

for Bits of Imagination: "Perfume."

Mourning Dove

 "This is what it sounds like, when doves cry" --Prince Rogers Nelson


The Moon, secretive and flighty,
turned her dark side and within that cradle I was born--
a dove of dust fed glue-milk and told to sing.

The Sky was not crazy but loved Crazy's eyes.
His silent daughter collected sand timers and seahorses because
all girls love horses; all girls hear ship's bells 
and can feel those same ships foundering.

The Moon kept two faces in a sea shell--
one for the Sky and the other to use as a trowel
to create The Sea of Suicide and The Sea of Insanity.

Every mother takes her child to the beach;
every keeper takes her doves to the temple with a good sharp blade
wrapped in her skirts for utility, for God, and for the fucking hell of it.

The Moon is dead now, dead before, dead always with only death to hand down,
but Mama, I breathe and I sing just to spite you
The Sky we both loved is gone and my heart is full of sea water and stones.

I put my song where the Moon was,  
as beautiful as I can make it, that it might shame you,
and bring you back just to die again
from the music of my mourning, the lightness of my empty bones.
_____

for "Where Do I Come From" at Real Toads.