Giselle

 

In Paris, at that time

we knew of Giselle, the world's most

talented and also hideous torch singer.

Muddy complected,

with white eyes like egg shells,

and skin chock-a-block with blue veins,

the woman was hard on the vision, sweet to the ears.

Have you ever heard

a buzzard that could break your heart?

Giselle could wring your soul with Gloomy Sunday,

make you miss someone

you never met with Lover Man

(Oh Where Can You Be?) She was serious!

Willow Weep For Me used to make 'em bawl like babies.

So one night this strange cat

showed up and started bringing her

trifles -- sugar candies, baubles, pretty shells and whatnot.

Oh, she sang, Just in time,

you found me just in time and she smiled

like a split shoe and ran her broken branch fingers through his hair.

We wondered, is he crazy? Blind? What?

Well, he weren't blind.

Cat could read a menu from five miles off

and he was no bug either, he was some kind of poet.

What we found out, after a long time,

was that this cat was stone deaf from bombs in the war.

He just loved Giselle like a bird loves the sky at dawn when it's

Beginning To See The Light. 

_________

for Word Garden Word List--My Dear I Wanted To Tell You. 

Music: Della Reese I'm Beginning To See the Light

Dear Katie

 

Dear Katie,

                  please pardon the confusion--

mine,

yours,

the weather's.

Today in group they wanted us to talk about

someone who really loves us.

I started to laugh

                            like slipping on ice

I couldn't wave myself fast enough

                            to save a fall

and the laughing became an ugly cry.

They like us to do things with our hands here

so I made

                a love potion for you.

Yeah, too late. like checking a smoking oven.

But,

       I can still portion by intuition

like how much to kiss you in the morning.

I used

a pinch of rust from a love lock

the memory of five black tulips

and 1 tsp essence of caramel fudge ice cream--

       Jeff Buckley ballads to taste

        baked at 350 until the moon turns silver like your poetry.

Gosh Katie,

                   they took away my books,

said I needed to engage with others.

I went back to group today and said, whoa, back up--

let's do that thing

                              from yesterday.

I pulled my shit together this time, not like before,

and I said,

                Katie mon amour

                 Katie je t'aime je t'aime, je t'aime.

This one bitch goes, you're not French,

you're not even Canadian you fucking freak

But she never stumbled drunk up the stairs with you,

poetry ringing in our ears and the summer night on our skin.

More to be pitied than scorned,

                                                    I can hear you say.

Anyway,

              love ya girl

Katie mon amour,

              Our Lady of Tulips and the Silver Moon.

________________

for Dverse Poetics, "From Your Valentine" hosted by Sanaa.

Music: Chantel Chamberland-- Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

River Under a Stone Bridge

 

The river runs under a stone bridge

down where no one ever goes

a place for old men where the trees bend

and ask, "Pourquoi chercher autre chose?"

Its source is hidden as is its end

this river that barely flows

where the trees bend, a place for old men

who ask, "Pourquoi chercher autre chose?"

Where the stone bridge breaks, it cannot mend

what deep January froze

a place for old men where the trees bend

and ask, "Pourquoi chercher autre chose?"

______________

pourquoi chercher autre chose?  =  why look for anything else?

A ZaniLa Rhyme for What's Going On? "In Your Deepest January"  The instructions require that phrase or "In my deepest January" but there were two problems which I hope that our wonderful host Sherry will let me slide by with. One was, that phrase just doesn't sound like me, to me. The other is that a ZaniLa Rhyme has a syllable requirement of 9-7-9-9 and a rhyme scheme and inverted third line that would have made it almost impossible. The prompt phrase is 8 syllables all by itself, so I almost had to shorten it, and so I did. If Sherry sends the Prompt Police to collect me, I will understand.

Music: Simon & Garfunkel Old Friends

Word Garden Word List--Inspector Pancakes

Good afternoon, mes amis, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! I have a special treat in store for you, so unroll your rugs and take out your cushions, sit Indian-style in a half circle and we will start reading Inspector Pancakes Helps the President of France!

It seems that some scoundrel has stolen the President's croissants! Mon Dieu! He asks our intrepid hero, Inspector Pancakes, to help him find them. Being a dog, he will "sniff them out" most likely. What a wonderful children's story.

There's just one thing. The large print is, indeed, a charming tale for kids. However, the small print is a hard-boiled detective yarn, wildly unsuitable for young readers! Taken as a whole, Inspector Pancakes Helps the President of France is both charming and utterly wrong on so many levels. Myself, I much prefer the "G" rated version. Not to play favorites, though, I have taken all tastes into consideration with this week's List. The first 10 words are taken from the all-ages story. The second 10 are taken from the dark alleys of the small print.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided to write an original poem of our own. Then just link, visit others, and sit back at your favorite Parisian cafe with half a croissant for you and half for the dog!

Your List:

cookies

croissants

dog

France

hero

important

Louvre

milk

Mona Lisa

pancakes

abandoned

brains

dangled

Gauloise

rabid

repercussions

revolver

slammed

switchblade

unloaded

 

Word Garden Word List--13 Rue Therese

 

Hello friends! I was swept away, torn asunder and generally treated very rudely by a major ice storm some two weeks ago. One tree fell on my house and another snapped the line providing my internet and tv. Oh, and then there was a brown-out. Whee. The offshoot of all this is that I was forced off line and into a primitive lifestyle reminiscent of some garret-dwelling  artiste from 17th century Paris or something. Mon Dieu! I do apologize for the lack of a Word List last week and the week before while I was living on crusts of bread and hope, but now I am back.

In keeping with this Frenchy theme, our source today is one of my very favorite novels ever, called 13 Rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro. I'll paraphrase from the back cover: Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of letters from WWI as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters and objects (actually shown on the pages of the novel) relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a feisty, charming French-woman who lived through both world wars. Trevor delves into the story of Louise's life--with the help of his alluring clerk Josianne, who in fact planted the box in his office in the first place. And so the novel moves along on two levels, in the present and in the past. I love the thing. It appeals to both my love of history, all things French, and also to my romantic side. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided, and to write a new original poem of our own. Then just link, visit others, and bask in the feeling of La Vie En Rose. 

And now, your list!

ambulance

chocolate

funny

Germans

handkerchief

hilarious

intense

jewelry

kiss

lucky

marvelous

melody

peculiar

photo

pregnant

pretty

shiver

summer

tang

uniform

A Brief Instruction On Style

 Many hands make light work

and many hats make the Hydra happy,

thus, the night shift at the haberdashers.

Dig the butterscotch factory windows,

the glittery silver mercury pulse of industry!

Have you ever felt the urge to relocate to France,

reinvent yourself as a nun in a nation where faith is an artifact?

You and Saint Joan and a renegade postman

delivering visions, swordplay, and cafe au lait around the clock?

I have spoken to the Hydra with its ruby eye and hissing susurrations

hidden in a yellow profusion of forsythia.

It keeps a Wurlitzer and baseball cards and the Cretan Bull in there with it

and the beauty of their hats makes statues weep and flagstones dance.

Whether fez or porkpie, bowler or kepi,

one cannot think without a lure for angels atop one's golden dome.

Whether wide-brimmed or ostrich-feathered,

loveliness must begin nearest the seat of the Divine

And the Hydra with a set of nine, waves like sea grass

by the coastal shores of Nice

with the haberdashery humming behind it, all lit at night

like a cause,

a very banner 

or a blue streamer above the brim of the shining world.

____________ 

for Word Garden Word List #17 (Joni Mitchell).

and

Dverse Poetics: Leave Your Hat On.

 

 

 

 

 

Lorca-Hemingway

 

Lorca-Hemingway is a fixture at the cafe.

His blood consists of La Marseillaise and dove-moons.

It pounds through his body like a glorious parade.

When I see him, I walk with back bent backwards,

slinking like a cartoon cat,

short of breath, tail-talking, stupid, exalted, way obvious.

Hand him your copy, he'll sign it in terse bluebirds.

He is his own hotel room, there's always

some blowsy blonde on the bed, quietly detonating.

Young men line up near his table, as if there were a war

or a desperate national need for Gypsy violins.

A waiter serves orange suns from embossed tin trays.

I paint Lorca-Hemingway's skin with brandy cologne,

so that all bullets turn away and take trains to Barcelona.

I send myself as a telegram into his latest masterpiece:

I am a peony petal inside a bud stop

you are a man and a girl and a secretary bird stop

angels inside you carry death and glory in little satchels stop

Now I conceal Lorca-Hemingway inside me like a trick lighter.

No one in the cafe can find him, but in the nick of time

Brett Ashley smiles with a cigarette in her lips and 

I flame!

Oh yes,

I flame.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #191, where I am hosting one last time.

My Milieu

I found myself in a milieu.
Was this some kind of French gag?

All my stuff in a dumbshow around me.
Paraphernalia patting at invisible walls--
quelle stupide!

A standard poodle carrying a canoe on its back
became part of my milieu.
I fed it aphorisms as we set off downstream.

Eventually, after long exhausting effort,
the poodle and I arrived back at my milieu.
The poodle up and spake:

"Life is circular. The end is the beginning."
I brained it with a paddle to make it shut up,
then composed a letter of complaint.

So. Here is my milieu, with me in it,
holding my letter, 
openly weeping, 
hoping to impress you.
Have I failed? 
Or, is your heart a stone, part of its own milieu
where love languishes, calling out, dying,

Like an actress on stage 
with the plum role in Camille?
Elle est morte, and yet she lives on, superfluous.
________

for Day 2 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

Do What You Can

After a storm knocked over the circus, Tom Thumb watched Boris the Strong Man set his Royal Carriage right side up again and said,

"Fuck you anyway. I can't even handle cutlery if it is too heavy. House cats bump against me and I'm on the damn floor. When the storm came, I had to climb inside a steamer trunk and pull it closed over my head so I wouldn't be carried on the wind to Cleveland or Des Moines like a damn leaf. So to hell with you, Boris. You could take Yankee Stadium and toss it in the Atlantic if you felt like it."

"Zees upsets you," said Boris, who was not really Boris but rather a Frenchman named Marcel L'Amoreaux. "I tell you some-sing mon ami. When I see zee tight rope walker smile and she scoop you up, zat make me so jealous! She not do that ever avec moi. So, Le fuck to you aussi."

Then they were both sad. 

After a minute, Boris clapped a huge paw across Tom Thumb's little fairy-ass shoulders, but with care. "Leesun, my fren. In life, we all do what we can do." Raising a finger importantly, he added (from beneath his impressive mustache), "What we don' do ees do what we can't do. Dat shit make you fou. Crazy. So fug dat. Like, I never gonna be tightrope walker, eh? So why I worry bout dat? I don'. And you should not be the worrying about lifting heavy sheet. So don'." 

Tom Thumb started laughing so hard that he fell over on the ground and rolled there in merriment like a drunken pill bug. "You! A tightrope walker!" And then the real tightrope walker came by and, smiling her gorgeous smile, scooped Tom up and love-mugged him with noisy kisses.

Boris watched them as they moved toward the breakfast tent. He shrugged, then looked up at the sky, wondering if he could lift it if he really tried.
_______

Written for Words To Live By at Real Toads but my link was deleted for not being poetry.

I don't now recall who the wise soul was who said it to me, but they said, "Do what you can, not what you can't." I must say this to myself twice a week, and it lets me feel good about the cans and not fret about the can'ts. 

C'est Ca

It's you 

with the glass eye,

blue bottle marsh-mud skin,

ivory dog and bus ticket.

It's your child down the moon grass shore, calling.

When he's home, it rains; salt won't pour.

My Ouija child, c'est ca,

the face I love--

it's you. 

______

"C'est ca" (say-sah)  French  = "That's it"

A circle of salt is sometimes used as a barrier of protection against negative spirits.

Rictameter on day 14. Thanks to Hedgewitch for suggesting some forms for me to try.

for Marian's "Eres Tu" (It's You) prompt at Toads.

 

Untitled (Now, Voyager!)

Untitled (Perfect Lovers) by Felix Gonzales-Torrez

At 10:37 a.m.,
I fell in love with you.

This may seem abrupt, 
but I'm an early riser--
four hours was enough
to percolate folie d'amour.

At 11:42 a.m.,
you will fall in love with me.
Until 12:02, I will toy with you
because I can.

At precisely 3 p.m.,
we will be married
in a 58-minute ceremony at L'eglise de Notre Dame.

Later, I will give you exactly two minutes
(until 11:23 p.m.)
to get this dress off me.

Bon chance, voyageur du temps!
______

for Skyflower Friday at Real Toads.

folie d'amour = madness of love
L'eglise de Notre Dame = Church of Our Lady
Bon chance, voyageur du temps! = good luck, time traveller!

 


 

Just Because

Just because
I wear work boots--
the brown ones, with nails stuck in them, and wood splinters--
does not mean that you mayn't kiss my hand,
call me 'Ma'am",
and worship me like I just dropped out of Heaven like a vended miracle.

I have found
that pink lace invites being taken lightly. Behold, I carry a copy
of Saison En Enfer, and I shall be happy to brain you with it
if you displease me
or in any way betray your true feelings, excepting blind devotion.

My work boots
Announce my arrival on the wood floor of the local pretentious coffee bar
even better than trumpet fanfare.
Subjects, knock me your lobes, here's my new poem,
laced up in leather
but made of feathers white and weightless as God's eyelash in a china dish.
_______

for the endlessly talented Susie Clevenger's challenge at Real Toads: "Shoes."

"Saison En Enfer" = "A Season In Hell" by Rimbaud. 

 

Sappho of The Pharmacy Counter

"All I ask of you is one thing that you'll never do"--Morrissey

I got rave reviews for 
cleaning under the couch.
Museums called. 
Anderson Cooper texted, saying "keep in touch."

Well fuck all you guys.
From out my ass, brilliance,
a fine new poem
and so how about that? and you haven't even seen the best ones.

Listen, sweet Sappho of the pharmacy counter,
here I am, the mermaid--you've sat waiting for my call.
Put down those pills, but keep the glasses and white coat--
You can be my Blind Ghost of Future Love, as on the bed we fall. 

In my yard, the trees sway
with birds who could talk but don't,
because if they did,
no one would ever leave them alone.

The sun comes up, doesn't it ever think of anything fresh?
And the sky, endlessly insistently blue.
Sappho honey, parlez black words that shine like ravens in the rain
and I'll kick out this beautiful shit for you,

beautiful, fantastic, fucking feathered perfection for you.  
____

for grapedude's list thingggggg         

 

Catholic Girl On The Loose

Sans shoes,
sans pants,
I am Joan
saving France.

Behold my pennant, my purpose, Saint Margaret and Saint Cat;
bold as bread made from molasses, unshorn hair as plain and black.

Bonjour English
A bientot--
teach you Francais
when I grow.
_____

Ten lines for Kerry's micro-challenge at Real Toads.

Image: "The Flag" by Thomas Cooper Gotch, 1910.

"A bientot" = "see you soon"

 

Novembre

Born with a Fleur-de-lis birthmark,
I said, "De la paix du ciel, 
je suis venu pour la guerre."

Lamb, lioness, God's own girl.

Now, in autumn,
I light candles for those I pray for,
and dance on the graves of the rest.

A strong heart waits for you,
My Love,
here in my body's dust.
_____

A 55 for Kerry.

"De la paix du ciel, je suis venu pour la guerre." = "From the peace of Heaven, I have come for the war."

 

Fall

If you're going to fall for me,
do it just as the sun is going down,
or not at all.

I've always needed someone to kick the chocks back in under my wheels,
and to reach up and stop the propeller.
Otherwise, the sky calls me with its own backassward gravity;

My hair stands straight up, 
all the blood rushes to my head,
and the next time you see me, there I am, crossing in front of the moon.

If you're going to fall for me,
feel me up, fill my ear with all the things you imagine that I am,
wait until the last leaf falls. 

Then, up to our haunches in October snow,
I will kiss you the same way I kissed the woman I really loved;
the one who wore red flannel, raised ravens, and was nothing like you.

If you're going to fall for me,
whoever you are, do it on Halloween.
Brain me with a shovel,

Or else I'll be running down the center of the airstrip at dawn,
a gas can in one hand, passport in the other,
taking off in Le Corbeau, my arms in the air,

Singing "Mon amour est folle comme la lune,"
and as red --oh! as soft-- as my hair.
______

For Karin's "Falling Into Lines" mini-challenge at Real Toads. 

"Le Courbeau" = The Raven

"Mon amour est folle comme la lune" = "My love is as crazy as the moon"

Confidential to Buddha Moskowitz: Is this more like it? *grin*

 

The Nun Clock

In the abbey,
over the arch
with the hooded fleur-de-lis at its apex,
is the Nun Clock.

The black arms,
the white tips which circle the numbers,
turn time French,
and the cat--whose favorite is quatre,
speaks the mother tongue both rough and sweet.

La chatte is at the heart of everything I care about,
and she is the darling of the abbey,
unconcerned and calm
as the Nun Clock chimes these poems--
Ma soeur, je t'aime, je t'aime toujours...
________

For Mama Zen. Words Count. 80 words on the button.