Good-Girl Dandy

It gave her pain

to part with anything

as if piss were wine

and pennies perfect

tears from Jesus' eyes;

as if fun were debit and deduction

from the piggy bank of Good-Girl Dandy.

It gave her pain

not to ledger the world

and if nails were dear

and the wood too fine

she would purse her lips

at the Sufferer on the tower, and

serve Him vinegar and year-old candy.

_______

for dverse poetics "Halloweeny Humans."

Younger Woman

I want to be a younger woman in a former time,
working in a clock shop,
living upstairs with my nine-lived cat.

As a baby, I was dusted with shine from the moon,
refracted through my window at a different angle for every dream.
Mama said, dreams are nonsense
and life is mostly duty and a difficult business.

I want slender wrists and a silver watch;
hips as round as the bend in a river stream,
and my hat piled high with blooms and feathers.

Mama's half dead now, not remembering what she said five minutes ago.
I say, "Mama, look at the moon, changeless, ever the cool Mistress
of outward sky and inward seas."
At last, mama doesn't contradict me. She has forgotten how.

I want to be a younger woman in a former time,
wearing deep blue dresses flared at the shoulder and cinched at the waist,
with white lace at every edge.

"Pussycat," I will ask, in the night quiet above the clock shop,
"What do you suppose we were, when we were older?"
Her attention will stay on the skylight, and the moon beyond, 

as if there were no answer there;
or as if there were, and what foolish girl could fail to see it?
______

for Kerry's challenge at Real Toads: "Youth & Age"

Suit Case / Stair Case / Head Case

Lisa Gordon Photography

These days, I want everything made of wool and fire.
I count fireball sheep, but never get to sleep.

Mama said, I'm at my wit's end
with you, girl.
Mama said, you got the devil in you,
and that I can't abide.

Doctor Willoughby asks, why did you set the fire?
Do you remember setting the fire?
His eyes swim in turpentine.
I dream of painting him; painting him on fire.

At home, I went out of my bedroom at night,
down the double rut path that cuts through the woods.
Mama found out.
Mama whipped me good.

I brought a suitcase here, and inside it are postcards
of famous pretty people who cannot sleep.
(I know because I watch them.
Their eyes never close, so I scratch them out.)

Dr. Willoughby speaks to my mother in private.
I don't know what he says, but she never comes back.
That is the end of the good news.
The bad news is that he is worse.

He tells me that I am full of sexual waywardness,
and moral decay.
He asks about boyfriends, again and again.
I tell him Mama kept the rooster, cut the head off the hen.

If I had wool and fire, I could keep it quiet inside my head.
They fill it with fireball sheep, and afterwards,
I can't remember things,
and sleep for most of a week.

Dr. Willoughby asks why I set the fire.
Do I remember setting the fire?
I tell him that ever since I was born
I've only wanted to be warm.

Somewhere in an attic several floors above my head
(my poor head),
is my suitcase.
It's up the staircase.

I'm not a rare case, says Dr. Willoughby;
but when he forgets and sets his pen down near my hand,
I can think of nothing but his eyes--fire and eyes-- 
when he sighs and shakes his head.
________

for Margaret's super superb challenge at Real Toads. She asks for a first person account inspired by Willard Asylum.

 

Test For Freshness

There had never been so many cops in Sam's Thrifty Saver before,
And certainly not all clustered in the produce section.

Everyone had always found Norma to be pleasant enough,
If a little stiff.
She had a great respect for men in uniform,
Presidents,
Priests,
Policemen,
And the members of our armed forces.

All her energies went into her family,
Though there was just one left at home these days.

Her Ed had moved out after twenty five years together,
Heading for sunny Cali-for-nigh-yay
And the blonde former classmate who had looked him up
After he'd appeared on a game show
As a lark.

Norma's two sons were out on their own,
And doing relentlessly well;
Both of them married,
One to a good Christian angel
And the other to a little hussy that Norma didn't approve of.

So how did she end up splay-legged and dead as a Thursday afternoon
on the checkered linoleum beside the bananas
@ 79 cents a pound?

All Norma had ever done
Was to love her family
Within an inch of their lives,
Because there are neighbors, you know,
And standards to be kept,
And everything
Everything
Reflects back on her in the end.

"Who are these bunch you've been running around with?
Who are their parents?"
She'd inquired of Asha--
Asha The Quiet, Our Lady Of The Easy Startle.
"They're my friends," she'd said to her mother,
But she may as well have said "They're orangutans"
Because Norma would have snorted just the same.

"I should teach you how to cook,"
Norma had offered, off on a new tack.
"Lord knows you're not pretty enough to get by on your looks."
Asha had pointed out that Norma always kicked her out of the kitchen
As if she were carrying The Scourge.
"Well honey, you always seem to make mistakes
And I haven't got time to do everything twice.
Do you see?"

One of the cops picks up an orange
And even begins peeling it,
Before the sergeant barks at him and he jumps.

"Have you applied for any more summer jobs?"
Norma was not about to have Asha knocking around the house all summer.
"And have you gotten that dog of yours his shots yet?
He could get rabies and bite someone and what could I say then,
If that happened?"

Indian had been a stray,
And he curled his life around Asha's
Like two castaways in a boat.
Each of them brought a gift of joy to the other,
And they would have cheerfully died for each other,
Had it ever come to that.

As they passed the lettuce heads, 
Asha whispered, for the kajillionth time,
That she couldn't afford the vet.

Outside, glinting in the sun, was Norma's brand new full size sedan,
For which she had paid cash.
Now,
Who would attend to the scheduled maintenance?

"Well, if you can't afford that dog of yours,
Then maybe you shouldn't have him!"
Power feels good.
Mrs. McKendall, who'd been choosing tomatoes nearby,
Told the officers that that was the moment
When Asha the Quiet had picked up a pineapple by the leaves,
And swung it hell for Sunday smack into Norma's skull.

The business end had whipped around hard,
And whatever loving advice Norma may have been formulating next,
Never got from her brain to her lips.

There had never been so many cops in Sam's Thrifty Saver before,
And Mrs. McKendall fluttered her hands and told them
How awful it was,
What a sad and shocking world it had become,
When a girl can murder her own mother like that,
And with such an expensive piece of fruit.
______

for Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads
 
 
 

Wasted Words

You were hiding this from us. I think that means you're not very proud of it. 

You're the last to know. What does that tell you?

If Bethany hadn't told us, we still wouldn't know.

I asked her to keep my confidence. Clearly she didn't.

You should never have asked her to! She was crying. Jan made her tell us.

And you're all reacting just the way I thought you would.

Why do you spend so much time with those friends of yours? Did they talk you into this? Or was it someone on line?

No one "talks you into" this.

It all happened after you stopped going to church.

I stopped going to church because I no longer felt welcome.

Because it's wrong! No one in our family has ever been...like that.

Don't be so sure. Anyway, now someone is.

People will wonder what I did wrong as a mother.

Is that all you care about? What people will think?

Yes, partly! I care what people think!

You never had a clue, all the time I was growing up?

No. Never. I wish I had not lived long enough to see this day. 

I'm sorry you had to hear it through the grapevine. But you asked me to come talk to you today, and I'm here.

I didn't think you would have the courage to face me. I think you know what you're doing is wrong.

I have more courage than you think I do, and I'm not doing anything but trying to save my own life. 

I never want to see you again.

Oh mama... you never really have.

_______  

for Mary's Mixed Bag at Real Toads

I was well beyond my teens when this conversation took place. Nevertheless, I want to include this picture...

.            

        

Song Of A Red-Haired Girl

by Fireblossom, writing as Coal Black

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see." --Arthur Schopenhauer

Mama Gator stand up on those little back legs.
She dab on lipstick.
She marry a man what's goin somewhere.

Mama Gator clean the house til it beg her stop.
She pretend her tail a train.
She crank out two nassy little boy gators.

Oh what was I thinkin
Steppin into that hell?
What was I in for
Still drippin shell?

Mama Gator scared tea ladies smell swamp on her.
She say don't touch me.
She sweep up her dropped scales in a right rush.

All the while
She smile.

Mama Gator say
Girl, you ugly.
Girl, you nassy.
Just keep goin like you are,
And you find out how that be.

What the neighbor's think?
What will people say?
Girl, come to Mama,
So she can tell you go away.

Got a little soft beatin heart,
Let Mama tear that shit apart.
You as shiny as a twice-washed dish.
You not my daughter.
You not worth spit.
You're like your father,
You little bitch.

Mama see and Mama know
Just how deep the deep can go.
Mama grab and Mama roll
But now she do it all alone.

And all the while
She smile.

_________
for dverse poetics with Charles Miller.

Snake Mama

Snake Mama gave me the gift of a thousand knives.
"They are beautiful!" she preened, alight.
Over rusty, infecting edges, she crooned,
"They are perfect, pretty, and mine."

Striped with red, I dared to scream.
"So over-sensitive! What are you thinking of?"
Each invasion deeper, further obscene.
"Come, child, be constricted in my love."

Snake Mama can't be wrong,
And brooks no blame, she's smooth--
No harbor, no boundary, no private place
From the trenches undersea to the mountains of the moon.

Cut off one head, seven more will grow,
Each one of them speaking the same;
Snake Mama poisons her babies' bones,
Hard done by to find they're insane.
_______


Find information for daughters of narcissistic mothers HERE.

_______

Family Snapshot

"Speak your mime," they said,
so I did,
only to find myself both mute and vilified.

"Open wide," they said,
and sent the carts,
rattling along the darkened tracks like spastics.

At the bottom,
is everything I ever choked back;
milky-eyed, fat-lipped horrors, with folded, featherless wings,
and a knack for surviving on each others' blood.

"Shine your light!" they said,
as burning moths fell from my eyes like splintered bones;
"Fire in the hole!" they cried,
bright with glowing logs inside their own.
_______

for The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

A Mother's Day Poem

My face would never launch a thousand ships.

I will never win at Wimbledon,

Or own a chain of hotels.



But, my baby,

When I see that you are happy, my heart fills.

At those times when you are sad, I ache to make it better.

When life is kind to you, I think, "no one deserves it more." Always, I am so proud of you.

When life is cruel to you, I bleed. How dare anything harm you!



Yes, for you I would throw myself in front of the proverbial train,

Or wrassle a grizzly bear--

But trains generally keep to their tracks, and if there were a bear,

He would likely be your Mr. Fuzzy.



So, in every ordinary moment,

I try to show you how much I love you,

And how precious you are to me.

Sometimes I fail,

But I do know how to say,

"I love you"

And

"I'm sorry"

And even

"Yep, I'm the meanest mom in the whole wide world, but you still can't have/do that!"



I am here to keep you safe.

But, do you know what?

When I have been heartbroken--

When I have felt that I wasn't worth very much, and like giving up--

When life has been too hard for too long--

I see your face, and again, I know

That it is you who have saved me

Time and time again.

  ~ ~ ~

dedicated to my one human kid and the several furry ones: Joe, Sundance, Alex, Daisy, Molly and Bosco. I hope you will forgive me my mistakes and know how dearly I love you.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers who visit the Word Garden! You rock the cradle, and the whole world.

for One Shoot Sunday