Happier Blue

When the seasons change
When the summer ends
In shades of soft pink and pale blue on white,
I think of the peasant blouse you wore
That made you look like a gypsy flag
Or a table cloth
Or a warm roll folded in a napkin.


What I remember most
When August leaves me stupid with daylight,
Is how easily it slipped off
Like a soul in an upward breeze.
Burberry Ice was your fragrance,
Motorcycle grease your marker,
And oh how alike
Can be a small snarl or a knowing laugh.


Summer got old a long time ago,
And these things that used to thrill, I've done a million times.
If it isn't forbidden,
If it isn't dying,
Then as the autumn comes on, I have my books and my Coke with lime.
Still, I look for you by the roadside,
Covered with dust,
Offended,
On your way some place,
Happier Blue, patroness of the disappearing morning.

_______


Forgive me, Rita, for borrowing your moniker. I think it suits any gypsy, don't you?

 

Questions And Answers, Once Upon A Time

Carrying my heart between my lungs in a bag of broken glass

So I wear a thousand overcoats

And can't feel it when they ask



What are you going to do about...?

Why do you...?

What makes you think that we...?

You always...

You never...



The best thing about a bottle is it has a mouth but never talks

So I take it off alone some place

And we kiss til I can't walk



Do you care about ____ at all?

Is anything more important to you than...?

How long do you think you can...?

You'll only wind up dead...



Please shut up and let me pass out here

On the shards so pretty and red.

_______

Blue September

September has always had it in for me.

It lays for me.

When I was young,

The other girls came back to school more beautiful than the year before,

Wearing whatever was the newest style.

Me,

I disappeared down paths nobody knew,

Alone,

Unable to explain myself to anybody,

Unable to explain myself to myself.



September is a bastard,

Neither summer nor yet autumn.

My last drink was in September,

And I want one every year.

The usual dull ache of loneliness

Grows teeth in September

And I can't bear it.



When I have found love,

It has nearly always been in October or November, in the crisp, good heart of fall;

Sometimes in the spring,

But never in high summer.

Never in September.

The ninth month would kill me if it could--

Nine the number of endings.

Nine the number I never want to see again.



My favorite aunt died in September.

9 / 29 / 85

The last time I took a drink.

I go down by the graveyard

The way I did the day they laid her there,

When I was still young,

When I still couldn't shake the gorilla on my back.

I go down there, and I think,

If a devil came out of the ground at my feet,

And I knew she would hurt my heart bad, but make me feel better today,

Would I fall into her arms,

Kiss her on the mouth,

Let her take me down in the dry grass?

Damn right I would.

In a heartbeat I would.



But then,

A crow flies above my head,

The breeze stirs,

And I hear my aunt's big laugh--

The one I loved.

I feel her protection

From September

From emptiness

From my own despair

And I think, devils be damned,

I'll make it through to another October somehow,

Just the way I always have

For twenty-five years and counting.

______

A Lover's Apology

Tell me, Darling,

Despite the pain,

Before you

Leave with what's-her-name,

How did we

Come to this?

How did we

Come to this?



Last night--

So bittersweet;

Champagne

Between your feet...

I loved you,

Yes I loved you still

As you were so gracefully

Being ill...



Our three weeks together

Will live forever

Inside my heart.



Tell me, Darling,

Despite the tears,

And the ruin

Of both of our careers,

How did we

Come to this?

How did we

Come to this?



Tell me, Sweetheart,

Before you go

Honey, please

I've got to know

Did you love me?

Do you love me still?

Or would you rather

Cut me dead where I stand?



Our three weeks together

Will live forever

Inside my heart

Like a sado-masochistic Disneyland;

I'm sorry

I'm so truly sorry

It's come to this.
_________

Child Of The Whispering Stars

At the edge of extinction,

The stars said to me,

"Little girl, step into us and you will drop like a stone.

Straight down is not flying.



The one we have entrusted you to has painted you thickly with the tar of self-loathing and fear,

Then wrung her hands to white bone, imploring,

'Why do you not fly,

Lazy wicked child?'



Here, sleep a while in the palm of our hands.

Wrap yourself in your own dreams;

Every soul has its own markings

And its own distinct and natural ways.



Your very bones will lighten as you rest.

Cut loose what isn't yours.

Spread what is from east to west.



Now, woman, step into us and be called sister.

Be known by your wings and singularity--

Butterfly,

Phoenix,

Dreamer,

Back from the edge of extinction, alive and beautiful.
_____________

Thanks, Mojo, for the inspiration this morning.

Cupid

Cupid, drunk and stumbling,

Comes out of a bowling alley bar.

He drops his bow

~twice~

But finally gets a few arrows and curse words off.

His arrows hit some people in the foot, resulting in troublesome fetishes,

But, because he is Cupid, fucked up beyond all recognition or not,

A few times he hits people's hearts.

"There!" he crows, waving a bottle. "Fall in love, you dopes!"

Except it sounds like, "There!

Fawin la, y'doe," because Cupid is fried to a crackly crunch.

They do, you know.

Fawin love.

For a while, life is paradise, happiness, a candy-coated love song world.

But,

By the time Cupid has spent the next morning talking to Ralph on the big white phone, and shoveling down aspirin;

By the time he has sheepishly turned in his report to God, and completed his community service,

These unions have only led to

Disaster,

Divorce,

Dementia.

Cupid gives up bowling and starts hanging out in church basements, drinking bad coffee,

But he still can't resist firing off a few arrows before and after the meetings.

His sponsor, a former boxer, tells him to "cut that shit out,"

But at least, sober,

His aim is a little better,

Though far from perfect.

If you fawin love,

Don't believe it is fate, kismet, "meant to be."

(you thought that last time, remember?)

It's just that little fucker Cupid

Screwing around.

_________

Advice

Unless you are one of my sisters

So close that

When one is cold in the midnight

You can see the other's breath;

Unless you are one whose presence I carry like juju

And keep close against my heart,

Do not say

"What you should have done is this"

Or

"I used to be like you are now, and did the things that you are doing;

But I have conquered all that and live like the ocean, inside my conch shell of serenity."

If you say

"I eat starlight

And crap sunshine,"

I will not dispute you.

I will not debate.

But beware of magick.

Beware of long memories.

Beware of silence and the one who waits.

________

12th Street

Have you ever kissed a cat?

They don't like kissing back.

Nine of hearts, Ace of spades,

Never buy what can be made.

Little Sally fair of face

Carries cockle shells and mace

Tic toc

Dickory dock

Thieves will always lack.

In the empty cemetery

See the old apothecary

He likes Jane, he likes Mary,

They think he's the Sugar Fairy.

Pretty girls and crocodiles

Always have a ready smile

Ding dong

Bang the gong

Bless the sleeping child.

________

Constancy

Between the darkness and the light,

Where the poppy, juniper berry and grapevine grow--

Lives mother Medea, full of patient persuasion,

Softly calling a name she knows.

_________

Strippers

A pole dancer and a minister move in together.

They don't love each other, but,

They agree that everyone else is an asshole.

They are both sick of the needy looking to them for what they cannot find at home.

They hand out titillation, or cans from the food bank, with the same smile, and the same withering scorn.

Their friends are all horrified.

"How can you move in with someone like that?" they ask, eyes wide.

But in the night, she asks him to recite scripture to her. His chest is hairy, it's like passing out on someone's front porch with her face on the bristly doormat.

The words he says are loony gibberish, but his voice is like newspaper trucks rumbling by in the pre-dawn; his arms are a porch light and she the moth.

In the night, he touches his fingertips to her skin, and finds that she is smoother than a surplice. It is like being handed the bowl, for the sweet batter within.

He knows her history, the cafeteria line of her past lovers hovering like moondogs, but in her arms he feels that she is braille, and he the blind man.

People begin to notice changes.

She quits the club and takes up dancing at her kitchen sink.

He quits the ministry and finds himself suddenly mute, but his hearing improves.

Their friends are horrified.

"You've changed. I knew this would happen!" they say, eyes wide.

The pole dancer and the minister move away.

They live in a dinky place, but

They love each other.

Their neighbors smile, but regard them with withering scorn.

They think the couple are bohemians, and if there's a cat left in the local shelter, it must be because those two missed it.

She likes the cats for their physical grace.

He likes them for their silence.

Neither of them goes to clubs, or to church.

They make new friends.

The friends say, "One day at a time, keep coming back," and other loony gibberish.

The sun comes up, the sun goes down.

If they keep living on the Mobius Strip,

They may just find themselves yet.

__________