Wolf Pack

Where is my child?
Out there, in clockthick air, the icy air.
Where is my mind?
Unspooled to find him, find him in the icy air.

Who forgot the door, the open door?
How soon the night thorn, blood scent, pack with golden eyes?
I forgot the door, the night door;
forgot to call my child, my child with golden eyes.

Where is my body, my body like a bell?
Calling mouths of night thorn, offered as a trade.
I ring under the open door,
To bring the pack my way.

Where is my child?
What fog made me forget?
He runs alone, just flesh and bone,
warm-blooded testament.

Here they are, the thorn sharp pack
to watch me fail and fall;
Why don't they strike, why don't they kill?
Why don't they move at all?

Where is my child? His devil sire
assures me he is dead.
But starlings in his tongue take flight
and leave him mute instead. 

Who forgot the door, the open door?
Who sees what clockthick time becomes?
Where is my child? Out there with them--
in icy air he runs.
_______

for Brendan's "A Little Night Music" at Toads.  

Notes: Recently I had a dream that I had left a door open at night which I should have closed. I realized my boy was outside somewhere and that a pack of wolves and wild dogs which had been waiting and watching, would now have their way. I cast my mind out to find him, but couldn't. So I went to try to shut the door but the pack was already inside. I backpedaled and fell, expecting to be torn to shreds, but the pack just watched me. My ex smiled in a mocking way and told me my boy was already dead, but I didn't believe it. And then I knew--far from being dead, he was out there, vibrantly alive and running with the pack.

Eduardo

At my husband's funeral, I was the ghost, not him.
I couldn't find the grave;
it was a crowded place, with the living and the dead
and I was alone, except for
one friend
but he
was not my friend, he was a rooster who didn't mind a mad hen.
 
Sometimes, high in the mountains,
a freeze comes,
or low under the vineyards
the Earth rolls with a nightmare--
either way, the birds leave.
Either way, something shears off inside itself, and this I
could understand.

At my husband's funeral, I howled my throat raw,
as unthinkingly as if I had been born shrieking grief.
A heart moves blood stupidly,
like an ox pulling a cart over a cliff;
gee and haw until you're cross-eyed, the sky opens and turns dark
for the heaviest bird the same as the lightest.

When it was over, I kissed my non-friend the rooster
on the cheek. 
I thanked him for not letting me be there alone.
Maybe being kissed by a screeching ghost scared him
into genuine gallantry,
or having missed his dinner weakened him,
but he only squeezed my hand and said, "Senora..." as softly as
a rose petal descending on 
the lid of a coffin.
______

This poem is taken from a dream that woke me up.

 

The Coffee Within The Cream. ( Or Something. )

The Succubus sits at her favorite booth in the corner,
smoking and reading her horoscope.

"Hey. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." It's Chloe, the serial killer and resident sweetheart of Danny's Coffee Shop. "What's it say? 'Do your fucking roots already'?"

Behind Chloe, there are tally marks on the wall. 15 cheerleaders, 27 golfers, 11 assorted shitheads. 1 pop star. 1 criminal court judge. 2 morning people.

The Succubus reads her horoscope aloud. "Follow your dreams." Chloe snorts. Everyone knows that the Succubus follows other people's dreams and enters them. That she has incredible sex with them. That she steals their souls. Yadda yadda.

"I was in HER dream last night."

"HER?"

"You know. HER."

"Well Jesus H. Christ in a strapless gown," says Chloe. "Did you steal her soul???"

The Succubus looks over her dark glasses at Chloe as if the girl were simple-minded. "Uh, noOOOooo. Think about it."

Chloe has white dust from a sugar donut on her lips. She stops chewing. "Oh. Right. So, what was she dreaming about?"

"She dreamed she was on a bus, but it was more like a train. She had on boots and an expensive coat and a big hat, but no top, and the coat was open."

Chloe laughs. "That chick is coo coo. What else?"

"Well, she wanted to get off the bus at the National Shrine of the Little Flower, but the driver said the bus was a Limited and she couldn't."

God the waitress looks over. She's been eavesdropping. It isn't easy, staying omniscient. "Good for her. I hope she kicked him in the shins."

Two heads swivel over to stare at God. "Or somewhere!" chirps Chloe.

Just then, the Queen of the Vampires comes strutting in, in black panther form, with the Speaker of the House dangling from her jaws. 

"Ohmugaw, " says the Succubus. She looks at Chloe and adds, "Do you remember when our little kitty started out with birds and mice? All grown up now. " The Succubus sighs. "What's a demoness from the underworld to do?"

The Queen of the Vampires leaps up into a booth, dropping John Boehner so that she can rip the bejabbers out of the seat with her fearsome claws, to make herself comfy. "What are you two simps discussing? Oh, wait a minute. WHO are you discussing?"

(*cricket cricket*)

The QOTV is just about to sink her fangs into the Representative from Ohio, when she looks up. "Spill!"

"Um, we were discussing you, darling, but...not."

"Huh?"

The Succubus goes back to her Life section. "One day all of these mysteries will make sense to you. For now, child, eat your snack." 

Chloe snorts again. "She's so cute when she's confused." 

"Girls." It is the warning voice of God. 

"We're just fucking with her," complains Chloe. Instantly, she is surrounded by a hundred perky cheerleaders, waving pom poms. "Okay! I'll stop!" The cheerleaders vanish as quickly as they came. God smirks and goes back to working on her chalk menu board.

"One day you'll know your destiny, padewan," says the Succubus. "Your true identity." Then, lowering her voice as deep as she can, she adds, "Kitty...I am your faaaatherrrr." When she laughs it is surprisingly light and girlish. For a demoness. 

Just then, the little bell above the door jingles, and someone walks in. She's wearing jeans and boots and is complaining under her breath about having to drive a clown car. She is met with a loud chorus of whoops and wolf whistles from the Danny's girls. She pretends not to notice. Walking up to the to-go counter, she asks, "Who does a girl have to fuck around here to get some coffee?"

 * * *

Her eyes open, and she groans. Morning. For some reason, she wants coffee even more than usual. She has a weird urge to go to the National Shrine of the Little Flower today. She wonders what the bus schedule is like. Then, for no reason she can name, she puts her hand to her chest and feels the usual tee shirt. "Weird," she mumbles, getting out of bed. Let's see...coffee, chocolate chip oatmeal.....let Bosco out...then write something for the blog. Maybe a Danny's Coffee Shop thing. Or maybe some soppy love poem. "O Dark-Haired Chick," she begins, in her head. Um...what rhymes? schtick, trick, dick...no, that's not working out. Go with Dannys. Okay, um....

The Succubus sits at her favorite booth in the corner,
smoking and reading her horoscope....

______

for Real Toads "Find Your Creative Space".

I really did have the dream described above, about the bus, and Shrine, and my distinctive and stylish mode of costume, last night. I'm ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMille.

Learn about the fascinating history of the Shrine of the Little Flower, HERE.

“First sign of madness, talking to your own head.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

   

IT'S HERE ! OUR NEW BOOK !

Hello, readers! What do you suppose three cultured, educated, lovely ladies might get up to of an afternoon?

Three beautiful, sunny lasses, with a will to work a wonder, what might they do???

Well, if they are Mama Zen, queen of the short form and a natural born storyteller; Hedgewitch, noted form maven and mistress of the mythological; and Fireblossom....um....celebrated doorstopper, they might combine to write a book. And we did!

Our book is called Gemini/Scorpio/Capricorn, and it contains three sections, one with my poems, one with Kelli's, and one with Joy's, plus a little surprise featuring each of us, at the end of the book.

I speak for all of us, I'm sure, in thanking Marian at ALL CAPS PUBLISHING for helping us make this book a reality!

Even Catblossom can't contain herself: "It will do, if there's nothing on cable. Besides, Simpson is good looking."

I have wanted to do this since forever; putting this book together with such talented friends only makes it even nicer.

Now go buy it. We need the money!
________

"carpe diem" sign created by Dani, my Sista Poet!

___________

Whoa, hold the phone! My collection of short stories, Night Blooms, is also available! 

Buy it, too! I still need the money!  

Tiger On A Chain

There were two of you--
you,
another woman,
and your brother the defective, mumbling and beloved by you.

There were two of you--
a Nordic blonde and you, strawberry cherry curling red around my dreams.
All the while, your brother wandered,
bashing his head against walls and counting the ceiling tiles.

There were two of you--
and two is one too many.
I knew I loved you best, as close as my next breath,
but I didn't say it in time, and you were gone;
leaving only your brother with his tiger on a chain.

There was only one of you--
back to the snows went the interloper,
carrying a reindeer rack for a trophy.
The longer since you left,
the more I suffered, orbiting your batshit crazy brother
begging him to tell me how I could find you.

I never missed anyone so much,
never regretted anything so sharply, like nails through the heart.
Your brother was my only hope,
busy making math out of heaps of junked cars,
his tiger forgotten and loose, threatening.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up.
Imagine my incredulity when I realized that I never even knew you,
That my penance and my passion were nothing more than vapor.

Imagine the numbering and secret sense in loony delusion.
Imagine me awake now, rocking and twisting my hair,
Staring hard into the golden eyes of a killer, and wondering where you've gone.
______

For Marian's music prompt at Real Toads. The song "You'll Lose A Good Thing" was in my head all day yesterday, and last night I had this dream.

Survivor of The Night

I dreamt of my ex,
and my ex laughing.

I dreamt of horrors, each stacked upon the others,
like mating monsters.

I dreamt I was trying to deliver misshapen parcels
to tiny mailboxes
in a dark room,

And all the names were wrong, and of dead people,
interred inside the walls, throats filled with dust and plaster.

I dreamt of enormous violent insects
which ate each other's faces.

I dreamt they had zebra stripes and fish mouths, gaping.
I hit them in the eyes with a hammer
again
and again
and again.

I dreamt that they wrought horrors too sickening to tell;
I dreamt that I failed to save my children.

I dreamt of my ex
and my ex laughing;
of exoskeletons and murder and shame.

I dreamt of these things over and over,
all in one night, like an exorcism.

I awoke, ill and afraid,
in a still, dark room that was orderly and quiet and untouched by these things,

Ten years removed from you, wrapped in my own life,
still breathing.

_____

In The Land Of The Blue Wolf

In The Land Of The Blue Wolf,
We were together.
It was supper time,
The street lights were on,
And the buses were lit from within like candles in glass.

Two moths, we found the store window you were looking for;
We spread our wings against the cold panes.
We spread our love around each other.
The stars wheeled slowly above our heads.

In The Land Of The Blue Wolf,
We tilted our chins up and sang as only girls can.
I loved your olive-skinned throat,
And knew that I would stay with you, then,
Even though the road is long
And the night would never fall so sweetly for us again.
_____

A Fable Of The Western Plains

Even in the beginning,
When Goddess laid Her fingers across the land and brought forth the prairie grass,
The West has had two-lane highways
And little diners by the road side.

In those times,
Horses had the power of speech,
And they said,
"The Man Who Knows Everything doesn't need a menu
Or a map.
He is usually divorced;
When he opens his mouth, it makes a muffled, dusty foomp,
Like blackboard erasers being knocked together."

"There is also the Woman Who Knows Everything;
Her children's feet are on fire for the sunset,
And they leave her alone, like a cricket inside a geode."

Still, there are things that even horses don't know.
For these, one must find a waitress, and ask her for the Secret Meaning Of Eggs.
Don't be shy--
She is the Queen of Honey & Jam,
The Voice of the Goddess in the everyday world.

"Eggs," (she will tell you,)
"Contain the dreams you had last night, but can't remember;
The obstacles you fought with.
The woman you've longed to kiss, and did, until your lips were deliciously sore."

"There is a way," (she will further reveal,)
"To retrieve these dreams,
But there is a special method for it."
Watch, as she yanks the checkered table cloth out in one quick motion,
Leaving your coffee cup and plate of pancakes
Undisturbed and serene
As a Western morning.

"So it is with dreams.
You can charm them out, like barn cats,
But you must do so without breaking the shell of the egg."
If you can do this,
You can find the Horizon,
Keep the knowing of the Dream Time,
And cross the border into
The Anasazi village
Of your own absent Joy.

______

for dverse poetics--borders.

Three

(Note: This is probably a crap poem, and I expect it won't convey all that I felt when I was having the dream that it describes. I think that three is probably always a crowd, in waking life. What I do know is that for a few minutes, while I was asleep, I was happy from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes.)

Did you ever see that show
That corny episode
Where astronauts land somewhere and
It's almost like home
And they're not alone?

Last night I dreamed
That I was unironically seventeen
Not old, not fat
Imagine that
And had hair that fell
Right down to my happy ass.

My blonde friend
Could finish things I said
Just like she could read my mind
And when we slept together the one time
Because we were curious and close
We were each other's mirror in the night.

When she found a guy
I won't lie, I thought it was the end
Of the thing that kept us connected
But he was funny and sweet
Swept us both off our feet
And made us feel easy and protected.

First he turned to her
Then he turned to me
It never felt like a crowd, just us living out loud
We circled and burned
A little constellation of three.

I remember someone said
That every star we see is dead
It's just that light takes so long to travel through the darkness
I looked up and saw
Then woke up and it was gone.

Did you ever see that show
That corny episode
Where someone lands in luck from out of the blue?
It's just a made-up fake
Interrupted by commercial break
And only fools and children think it's true.

______



  

and...

Giuseppe Verdi At Large

Some dweeb holds open the door to Danny's Coffee Shop too long,
And the kitten Giuseppe Verdi is loosed upon the world.
Bounce
Bounce
Pounce
Pounce
Bounce
Pounce
Pounce.
"Come back here, you little shit!" shouts Chloe the cute blonde serial murderer,
And takes off after him as fast as her cross-trainers can carry her.

Meanwhile,
The Queen Of The Vampires, in panther form,
Has her great fearsome paws stuck up in the air
As if she were a Saturday morning cartoon character.
Her head is up against the Dark-Haired Chick
And they are both in a booth,
Joined at the hip as usual.

The Dark-Haired Chick says to the Succubus,
"Tell me what she's dreaming."
The Succubus squints,
Then tells her,
"She is dreaming that she is with you, in your kitchen.
She is dreaming that she is right side up, wearing red socks,
And that whenever she looks at you,
She feels as if she were riding in a gypsy wagon
Swaying in the wind."
Anything else?
"Yes. She wonders why the floor feels so light, like skating on chocolate."
With that, the QOTV's toes twitch;
The Dark-Haired Chick gives her dark-haired head a little shake
And her lips turn up at the corners.

Chloe comes breezing back in with the kitten Giuseppe Verdi in her arms.
"Bad boy. Baaaad boy!" she croons.
Danny's is just full of remarkable creatures
And the killer chicks who love them.

_________

Flawed

It turns out Heaven is not wheelchair accessible--
Got to keep the feebs out, and I'm
In a double bind for being queer.

Oh, if only I'd not stood high on the steps of the parking structure,
Arms spread,
Blathering about being the queen of the world;
No devil ever fell faster,
And I wasn't even sorry about fucking up that guy's Beemer.

My Love, My Love,
Where have you gone?
Are there ramps there,
And is your hair
Still the most glorious thing in the world?

In my ardor, I doze off,
And dream that I am perched in the window of the Barbie bedroom I coveted as a child--
I am so temporarily beautiful that the sun alters its arc to be closer to me,
And my legs are magnificent, whole and strong.

See?
In the window glass?
My face.
My real face.

I reach my hands around, every finger ringed and jewelled,
And tap on the far side of the pane--
Let me in, Heaven.
Let me in, My Love.
Oh, pretty girl with the perfect face, so remotely familiar--
Let me in,
I beg you.

_____

For the record, I am not disabled, but I did grow up with a facial disfigurement. They say that the facially disfigured are the only ones who look in the mirror and do not see themselves.

Homecoming

It was one of those dreams of short brown grass,
Like cheap carpet in an entryway to the waiting room of the Ruined Dentist Of Fremont Street.

A tin foil sun shone
Like a child's sheriff badge,
Arresting all
As if we had molasses in our veins, and ill-got trinkets stuffed in our cheeks.


It went on like that for weeks,
Until who we had been,
And what had replaced us,
Diverged so profoundly that as we skittered by, like old traffic tickets wearing preposterous brown shoes,
I looked at you,
Nodded at the shadows,
And said,
"To them, we are the ghosts."

No use in mirrors, then.
No sense in trying to start any more fires,
Though we had become, ourselves, rags,
Melted outlets,
Tinder.


It was only when I found myself alone that grace came.
The path changed,
Became a sea shell road.
There were tree blossoms like cherub faces,
And the weather turned as easily as an old cat in a rocking chair,
From stifling to superb.


Just when I thought I belonged nowhere,
Just when I believed the lying dust I had been living my life upon,
I saw him--
Our uniformed chauffeur, washing the Stutz in the drive under the magnolias.
He tipped his cap,
Smiled,
Said, "Good morning, Miss Anna. It's been a long time."


Oh,
I'm telling you,
I felt my heart spread out like a rose bush in June--
As rooted,
As beautiful,
As loved, for all my blooms and thorns alike.

I fell down beneath my favorite old tree,
In the lush grass,
Not caring about my white dress.
I couldn't stop laughing, fountaining joy,
And I woke up like that,
In happy tears,
Remembering.


_____


photograph by Rob Hanson for One Shoot Sunday

Interlude

I dreamed I met a young trans dyke gypsy and her girlfriend

After a reading at Cat Tails.

Conventions fell away from them like dust from the wings of Romany-speaking red-tailed hawks

And as I stepped up into their wagon,

Years vanished from me

Like black beads from a broken rosary.



They renewed my faith

In twenty minutes.

The girlfriend's lips were like light to one nocturnally born--

A glorious surprise,

As the trans dyke soothed the smoke-stained walls

With the flow of her voice

Smooth as the springwork on a trap door into momentary solace.



I found two sisters,

But in the morning they moved on,

And I crawled the scrub weed barbed wire slopes

Back down to job,

Obligations,

And dreary February like a congregation of Baptist corpses singing.

_______

photo by Metin Demiralay

Questions, Answers, And Kitsch

Do lions dream?

Of course they do.

They dream of zebra--

Enormous, endless herds of zebra,

Nearly all of them young,

Or lame,

Or so stupefied by the afternoon sun

That they simply blink and lie down

Like mail on the little table

By the front door.



Do zebra dream?

Of course they do.

They dream of wings--

Enormous, glorious wings, so that they barely need hooves at all;

They dream of taking to the sky and making it appear as a black and white checkered tile floor

In a little diner

By the freeway.



These are things not spoken of;

Not generally known--

Like the way your eyes remain calm but the corner of your mouth turns up

When you have already pounced

In your mind.



Do Romans dream?

No, not ever.

Their mouths have filled with mud and they have rotted along with their laurel leaves.

Tourists fill their coliseum, fearing nothing.

Their gods and goddesses have been pitifully reduced,

Barely hanging on as the names of automobiles

Or household pets.

Rome is dead,

Like a blue bottle fly

Dried up on a window sill.



The Romans are gone,

And with them, their hubris and gory entertainments--

But there are still lions,

And there are still zebra,

And there is still my love for you,

Sitting lightly atop your head and in your hair

Like a pair of ginormous and kitschy

Sunglasses.

_______


for One Shoot Sunday. Photograph by jackAZ.

Lace

My room has lace curtains;

The neighbor's yard light creates an illusion on the opposite wall,

Making it look like a curtained window, too,

Though it is only wood and plaster and fleeting patterns of light.

I have been dreaming that I was in Paris, with you;

Your skin as smooth as cafe au lait,

And yours still the most perfect thighs my shadowed room has ever seen.

We went out, sometimes, in this dream, to the Eiffel Tower,

And "La Vie En Rose" played constantly;

All of that may be cliche,

But your French accent was still killer,

Just as it always really was.

In this dream, I still thought I was pretty,

And I was going to wear red for you;

I was holding something slight and silky when you let me know

That, for all that I am

And for all that I am not,

You were going to go.

I woke up to the faux lace on my wall,

And knew that those words weren't really yours,

Weren't really anything you would ever have said to me,

Because you're both too distant and too kind;

And yet, still,

Though I seemed to be looking at a dim curtained window,

I knew, just like I knew then,

That I couldn't pass through it,

To Paris,

Or to anyplace,

As long as I am wide awake and so many miles and years away from you;

The only place I can get to from here, is tomorrow,

And that has nothing whatever to do with you,

Except maybe some cafe au lait

In the mug I filled for you

When you were here and it sat forgotten

Through kisses that belonged to a different life.

___________