Mistral

 

In Spring the madding winds arrive

and leave the winter to its dreams

of fools such as my love and I.

In your eyes Provence does lie--

false Spring is never what it seems

when Mistral sings the lullaby. 

The ring is left to rust and die

by drowning pool or icy stream

while scudding clouds above it fly.

Your wind has temper come alive

to kill the bud or turn the cream

and howl unchecked to Italy.

So comes the Mistral, mad with spring

My love, destroying everything.

_______

for Dverse Meeting the Bar "Wild Wind."

The mistral is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. It produces sustained winds averaging 31 miles an hour.

It is said that madness occurs particularly often in the Spring. I believe it.

Slough O' Despond

 

Welcome to the Slough O' Despond Shopper!

Oh, the warmhearted clerk you liked won't be back--

we chained her to a stove and dumped the stove down the 

roiling 

          oilspill

                     of our ravenous bellies.

Don't be bitter, we still offer a wide selection

of watery logic and dubious ingredients.

Our highly satisfactory laundry products get everything

whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes

when we ride him into our slaughterdreams

which are

                 members-only

                                           and fully automatic. 

Check out today's special! BOGO on genders

of which there are two but only one matters.

Recite with us our shopper's guarantee! We

pledge allegiance to our public, but only

those who happened to be born in our parking lot. 

Come on,

                 crawl in, 

                                leap in, but don't look 

at the price tags cleverly hidden in plain sight and doubled every day.

_________________

for Word Garden Word List and WGO? open link. 

"Slough O' Despond Shopper" taken from a line in Grover Lewis's poem You Know Where. 

I am in a state of utter despair today about my country and the apparently innumerable people in it who just voted in a doddering Christo-fascist dictator.

Music: Celine Dion Think Twice. It's a break-up song. It reminds me of my country.

Gatwick

 

Gatwick's in league with the devil

'flight delayed", she'll see you grovel.

Things left in small rooms upstairs

she lets reanimate there

to suck your soul, sour your nerves

turn your heart as cold as hers.

Gatwick's in league with the devil

"flight delayed", she'll see you grovel.

_________

for Dverse Poetry Form: Octelle. 

artwork by Jacqueline Deleon

music: Nick Drake "Three Hours"

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."
 

Pearl Harbor

What you did before?
Can't do it anymore.
Shoulda done it when ya could've, say all the dark mothers,
whispering from the walls. 

Lookitcha.
Fat as a battle ship, slow as one, too.
Girrrrl.
Unh unh unh.

All that time, the Zeros were flying,
there you were,
lazy as an umbrella in last night's drink.

Now you're a mess, damn.
On fire and sinking,
feel like shit all the time, and might lose that breast. 

Steam for the mouth of the harbor,
and tell that stupid band to shut up.
Who the fuck are those guys in the planes, where'd they come from?

So many questions, you're so inquisitive! Let me try to answer.
No, this isn't a drill.
Yes, those are real bullets.
No, you never did anything to them; they don't even know you.
Yes, they're trying to kill you.

What's that last question you asked, dear?
On purpose? Bless your heart. They came out of the Sunday sky, that's all.
_______

POCHEMUCHKA

I have lots of questions
as the nukes come flying in.

Did you borrow my sweater? The neck is fucked up.
How long are you going to hog the computer?
Are you even listening to me?

I wonder if our shadows will be burned into the concrete?
There goes my to-do list.
Whoa! What was
______

a flash 55 for Kerry.

Recurring Dream Of My Childhood

Alone in a strange city at night--
everything dark, wet from recent rain,
lights too far away or just reflections in the damp pavement;
buildings empty hulks, yet somehow watching,

indifferent,
unfamiliar,
no sanctuary.

A car pulls up to the curb--
a late 40's or early 50s model,
black, maybe a Buick or a Hudson,
and though well out of date, shiny as a snake.

A woman in red dress steps out of the passenger side--
she's vaguely Hispanic,
wearing pearls and heels.
her cheekbones are high, she's almost pretty, but cold,
pretending to be helpful. A man sits in silent shadow behind the wheel.

"Are you lost?" she asks me. Yes. The curb feels like a cliff.
"Get in," she says, gesturing toward the car.
I don't want to.
It feels like a shark's mouth, a precipice, no good end in there,
and yet, I am lost and by myself,
in this strange city at night.

Sometimes I get in, and then it gets much worse--
they drive me to a doctor, a doctor who is not human,
whose treatments are misery, and who cures nothing.
Other times, I have some sense of a memory warning me
not to go with them, and I refuse.

My temporary escape is no joyful thing, but rather,
a stay of execution to be taken up on another night.
_____

Not really a poem, but an accurate description of a recurring nightmare I had as a child.

For Bjorn's "nightmare" mini-challenge at Real Toads. 

Good Woman

Baby, I'm a good loving woman;
I can make you feel like birds are flying all through you,
and singing their heads off, too.

Honey, I'm a good faithful woman;
Once I'm yours, I go deaf and blind to anybody else,
knowing only the braille of a singular devotion.

Sleep in, sweet thing--
I'll put on heels and get a job.

Anything you want in this big round world,
I'll find it,
fetch it,
bread it and fry it.

Sugar pea, did I ever tell you how my last love kissed and crossed me?
Never mind, I made your favorite dessert!
Just sit.
Just enjoy.
Just try it.
__________

Some culinary foolishness for LolaMouse. The image is "Always" by Jim Doran.

The Ghost of The Midway

The ghost of the midway
is weighted
like a milk bottle,
stacked
like a sucker's game,
but no one can see her
so it doesn't matter anyway.

One night in July,
she fell from the Ferris wheel--
jumped
or was pushed,
and might only have been sleeping--
dreaming--
except that her body,
like a corn dog wrapper,
blew away
while the rest of her stayed.

The ghost of the midway
cannot get a grip,
cannot tuck little useless gloves
in her sash as irony or accent.
You could trust her, 
you could tell her--
knock her over 
with a feather--
but she is gray and gone to embers,
a holiday no one remembers;

so if you reach for her hand, dreamy fool,
like last year's fair
it won't 
and can never
be there.
_____

for grapeling's word list. I used fall (fell), grip and glove(s).