Printer's Devil

 

A printer's devil told me

(gesturing with his blackened fingers)

that the sound of your voice had been published

by moonlight on a dead crow's face.

Little starfish, I said, touching his beardless cheek,

return now to your watery home, that shell

full of mermaid-song out by the reef.

Poor Inky, no jagged cure can ever get him clean.

I returned to my clay and kiln, thinking that I might bake

some sort of Vodou plaything to give your tongue a palsy.

The waves down by the dunes offered their salt

and told me that the whole sea could be my circle. 

Of course you spoke anyway, like glue-sap in a broken bucket

from a storm-split tree tapped with a sharpened crucifix..

I'm leaving this damp-match town bursting with illiterate poets,

your half-dead friends, parroting smoke from the foundry of your good intentions.

_________

for Word Garden Word List--B Is For Bad Poetry. 

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

Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun Rides Again

 

Halloween is fun but it's over and the 

candy-scamming spooks

are back in class.

Turkeys wearing pilgrim hats are taped

on the windows and the President

pardons some tom

who has no idea what these talky apes are laughing about.

He'd rather be out in the woods,

eating fruits and nuts

and taking a run at your car on a dirt road when you blow by

for cider and a donut.

From what I read, pilgrims

were a pretty constipated bunch.

When I was outed, the family holiday invitations

dried right up. Poof!

After Halloween, the faux dead rest, but when real people die,

sometimes it takes some time.

Some make nice

some get high

some find a new family

some suicide.

Me, I survived, hanging out with the fruits and nuts,

and my blood and kin?  

Dead to me as if they'd fallen on some foreign shore.

_________

for Dverse Poetics: Epiphany In The Time of Holiday

The Old Woman & The Sea (Of Mail)

A bit belatedly, here are 3 pix of some old bat leaving to deliver her mail route for the last time, 3 weeks ago. ;-)

Bye! Bye! (Won't she EVER leave?)

Yeah. Byyyyyeee. 31 years to get rid of that chick, jeez!

Bell The Cat

Bell the cat, bolt the door, burn the welcome mat.
Shade the sun, don't tell anyone, and when you're done with that,
 
 
Tongue the bell as magpies coin the language she'd have licked
the honey from, til day is done and drowsed and silly and sick;

 
Promise her you love her more than Terpsichore and then
her fading scent will pay the rent when she has gone again.
______

 

 

 

It's My Last Day !

It's my last day schlepping the mail after 31 years of "through sleet, snow, avalanche, alien invasion" etc. Yay!

A little music to exit the building by.

 

Lady Poet Of A Certain Age

Inside a door,
behind a glass,
spread out on a table top,

I have that white jacket with the snap pockets back,
with silver jewelry and a red bandana
tied around my wrist.

It's summer again
and we like Bananarama and Bryan Ferry.

Here is what I love about poetry--
I can kiss your shoulder,
each freckle in turn,
and feel the light soft hairs against my lips.

I can write it that you stayed--
that we both did.
As long as I have coffee, and a pen, 
we are each other's one more time,

inside a door,
behind a glass,
spread out on a table top

at Zhedo's.
_________

 

Black Bird In A Blooming Tree

I am a black bird in a blooming tree.
I am a spell bag suspended on a bright string cord.
I am a confession left incomplete,
spoken in a voice as soft as the turning stars.
_____

PS--under the heading of boring minutia, March marks my 7 year blogoversary.

Strawberry

I ate a strawberry.
You wouldn't believe
how fresh,
how delicious,
how cool and sweet it really was.

The thing is,
it was the last of a particularly fine batch.
I could have offered it to you, I suppose,
but i didn't--
in fact, 
the thought never crossed my mind.