Love Poem

Somebody say--
How old are you anyway?
I'm thinkin' I'm
A hunnert and five, my last birthday.

Well well, they say--
With they fingers together, steepled up;
You ain't exactly young.
You ain't no fresh pup.

Some things are ridiculous on their face--
Old women in love,
Poodle dogs who dance in place.

Listen mister, I said--
Have you ever kissed a bullet?
Or left yourself for dead?
Because I have.

And when you kiss what kills you,
It's some kind of
Deep blue voodoo--
I dare you to tell me that I lie.

Tucked under a crow's wing,
I left that place.
It was ridiculous on its face,
And now the branch burns under me when I sing.


I kiss another woman if I want to,
And I stand where I need to be.
I wear a gris-gris made from wolf's hearts--
They don't live long,
But fearlessly.

_______


Thank you to Hedgewitch for letting me use her gris-gris. Thank you to Coal Black for spiritual assistance.

Photograph: Sharon Stone in The Quick And The Dead

Nantucket Sleigh Ride

In a room where I had already been,
I used a dictionary of words I already knew,
To help me write poems backwards.

When my hair broke the scissors,
I set fire to my shoes.
The smoke spoke only Spanish and wore a red shawl--
Why I was surprised by this is a riddle for a lunatic.

In the stream, down the hill,
The rocks are black and slippery, like whales' backs.
I am dancing across them barefoot when my heart starts again like a Nantucket sleigh ride--
I laugh, a thawing bell, in the moment that I realize
How careless real love is,
And that I might fall.

______

A Nantucket sleigh ride was when New England sailors and their boat were pulled along by a harpooned whale.

This is a poem about the end of my marriage, a decade ago.

For One Shot Wednesday. Happy one year!

Intelligence Test

What is the same or different between

good clean sheets,

cotton in a box a gift of jewelry comes in,

and snow when there's no way home?



Two are no good going back to when the shine is gone.

All of them can be thrown, but not far enough to satisfy real anger.

All of them can seem pretty at first, until you see how things really are.




Dearie baby, come out from behind that glass and set your clipboard down.


Shove that pencil up your ass,


And talk to me when your heart stops, frozen, in a drift of things the same or different, a million miles from home. 


_________

 for One Shot Wednesday

 

For You

The voice I found
In the rich black ground--
That is not for you.

The uncertain bees
That may sting, or please--
They are not for you.

The little box where I rest my eyes,
The sarcophagus full of bottle flies--
Neither is for you.

The restoration of my better nature,
The eternal enhancement of every feature--
None of that is for you.

My spit, my sex,
Whatever comes next--
Not, and never, for you.

Your boon is what Love only claims to be--
Intact and intense never-endingly;
Receive my Hatred--
That is for you...
My gift, eternal and true.

______

for One Shot Wednesday

If I Were A Fox

 

If I were a fox,
I would crave clean sheets--
Ones you slept on.
Ones like these.

I know that you
Steal out to kiss the night,
Like a somnambulist,
Hardly knowing that you do, or why.

If I were a fox,
I would trick the morning,
Shake the vole,
Hide my kits all over your rolling lawns.

When you come to yourself,
Don't disbelieve in red things, just because.
Don't dismiss the lingering feel of fur,
Of tail, of paws.

If I were a fox,
I would lie hidden in your other life--
Beyond naming,
Beyond saving,
And especially beyond laws.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday 49

My Tiger

"Sociopaths do not feel empathy, and they do not fear risk. They are charismatic, but essentially empty. Do not fall into them."  --Delaur, 2006


Killing the fearless tiger is a cheap thing to do.
Silly men in pith helmets, 
Common as voles,
Do it in the early morning, then go home for kippers and tea.



Extinguished tigers balance on stools in the circus ring.
Petty parolees and ex-bartenders put on boots, then go cow them with frayed whips,
And commands in dialect.

It is the fearless tiger who fights. 
With Vijay's leg still in her belly, she swipes and lunges,
Showing the unmatchable constellation of her magnificent teeth.
She will be hung by her paws from a stick and carried upside-down into the village as reward for her boldness.


What I loved most about you, what I needed,
Was your certainty.
It hardly matters if you were right or not, moral or not, kind or not.
You were orange and so black.
I hid in your stripes like a dream.


Of course you lied.
Of course you deceived me.
Of course you fucked everything that held still long enough, including that half-grown swamp rat bitch you knew I hated.
I heard you call her by my secret name, and that,
That was the thing I could not forgive.


It was the others, the brown sparrows, who finally swarmed you and drove you south,
But it was me,
Your little cloud, the kitten on your shoulder,
Who called you out,
Who stopped you short, 
Who saw the disbelief in your fantastic green eyes
When I stood up to you with no weapon but my pride.


After that,
Both of us broken in different ways,
We separately disappeared to bleed ourselves weak and sick on the shadows of thick summer leaves.


That is the way to do it, I think.
I even still love you, a little, 
But I hate sparrows
And tea-weak cowards.
I would still help you kill them
Just for the hell of it,
And just to stop their silly righteous chatter.
_________


for One Shot Wednesday

Lioness In The Grass

I have searched for my skin,

And for my face,

Every place the sun reaches or does not.



I have heard myself in the scrape of boots on stairs, leading up;

I have called myself from the shadows of corners,

Found traces in the pages of old books,

And seen myself in the round faces of raindrops on a nine-paned window.



I have refused faces handed me,

And have slipped out of skin that did not fit.

I have kissed women on the mouth and known they felt the ghost inside;

I have kissed different women, in the later afternoon, and known it to be exactly right,

Fitting like a cup and saucer,

Lovely,

Warm,

Full.



We begin wherever we find ourselves,

Like closed-eye cubs born to the lioness in the grass.

We are like the iris, purple and blue,

Recurring, beautiful, temporary.



I am not who I was.

I am a blue-eyed huntress balanced between bounty and starvation.

I bloom, though I know the sun will sink

And the unstoppable winter crouches just beyond the boundary of my heart beat.

_________

for One Shot Wednesday

the photograph of the irises is taken by and property of Hedgewitch

__________

The Sun Shines Out Of Her Smile

Such a winsome lass

So fine, so fair

That the sun shines out of her smile



And for a while I hoped that she might not hate me

For a while I wished that she might tolerate me

But, no.



Her tiny flaws mean nothing to me

Anyone can fall into a felony

Or three



Just forget about the past because

The sun shines out of her smile.



For a while I hoped that she might not hate me

I dared to dream that she might tolerate me

But, no.



She said she'd rather die,

And not only that,

But she said that I

Make her want to be so very ill

But still...



She's got what no other in the world has,

And if you ask me,

The sun shines out of her smile.

______

for One Shot Wednesday

For Annie

Zebra are seen mainly in dreams,

With licorice stripes--

And bodies of cream--



Their jewelry box hooves

Are made from the moon--

And their manes were lately

Bristles on brooms.



You can take off their heads

And fill them with clouds--

If you fill them with coins, they weigh five thousand pounds.



Lions like stars--

So they hunt in the sky--

But the zebra are hiding

Behind your closed eyes.



Zebra are seen mainly in dreams--

In the morning, they follow the sun--

When its warmth is felt, their cream bodies melt,

Then, my dear, away they run.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday

A Russian Love Story

I brought you a garden where Winter had hidden--

It came drawn by two draft horses, strong and dumb,

Like the Cossack hearts I had made them from.



The Siberian ice pleased you, breaking beneath your sable boots--

Little frozen birds from the afterworld

Arrived to adorn your fingers like feathered burls.



If I had just one wish,

It would be to lie beside you like moving water--

I want to tear myself continuously on the edges of your ice.

Sick of loving dull round stones,

I want your sharpness--

Over millennia, I want to be dissolved entirely

By your face,

Your eyes,

Your voice.



I brought a garden where winter had hidden,

To your frost-sheathed doors, shut against the Spring--

Concealed within was the canny vixen,

As silent as snow, as soft as linen.

________

for One Shot Wednesday 

Michigan Love Story

You are cold, I said,

But so beautiful that the darkness hovers near you with all of her stars--

Returning always, helpless with desire.



I am a rocky shore, you said.

Receive me, moon-drawn and rhythmic like a pulse--

I will turn your certainties to sand.



If I am a rocky shore, I said,

Then I offer you surrender smooth as an angel's thigh--

Marbled with devotion and hopelessness.



Come, you said, kiss me for the high,

A little less each time--

Until, finally, I close over you and take you into my blue, barely-beating depths

To be un-born,

Forever,

As my lover.

__________

for One Shot Wednesday

Warm Fingers

Dough loves the girl with warm fingers--

It turns as brown as a kangaroo,

Baking just by being held in her hands.



The girl with warm fingers

Can steam the pool just by catching crawdads.

She can warm you, too, Miss Lonely,

Just by...

Just by...

By and by, just see if she can't.



Her coffee is the happiest coffee--

It never goes cold,

And the girl with warm fingers

Turns seeds into vines

All the time.



I want to live in the outback

With Miss Remarkable, Miss Sweeter Heater.

I want to live inside a coffee bean.

I want to forget I ever knew what winter was.

I want...

I want...

I want her to come down by the green-leaf waterside and snap me

Out of my shell like the first day of summer.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday

photo by Metin Demiralay (thanks, Hedgewitch!)
____________

Request

I filled a wedding dress with bones--

My bones.

My...



Well all right, so I stole the dress.



I wanted to be a sweet confection,

So that you would want to wrap me in fluted paper

And place me in the perfect box of delicate pale cardboard

As if I had been born into the palm of your hand

To stand there and be

Witheringly beautiful.



But, darling, my whiteness is that of punishing northers, cracked ice and frostbite--

Not sugar frosting...

Not purity...

Unless, naturally, you mean the purity of my disappointment at your revealed ordinariness.



Sir,

I have fleshed myself with everything sharp I could find.

Don't look so pale, as if you'd seen a ghost!

Invite me to dance, and if your hair falls out from the roots, or your heart stops, then it does.

Come, risk something.

I'm just a girl,

What could happen?

It's the least you could do for your bride.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday #36

Dark Angels

The Queen Of The Vampires, in black panther form,

Sits on the damp sidewalk outside Danny's Coffee Shop.

She turns her golden eyes up to the night sky, as deep and as black as she is.



High above,

Snowflakes form and fall,

Like dark angels

With frozen skins.

She bats at them for a while, then lets them cover her,

One

By one,

By three,

By hundreds,

Until she is her own Van Gogh Starry Night

Lit by headlights

And the glow from Danny's behind her.



In time,

Because she is a cat,

She will go inside--

Clearly,

Regally,

Offended.

Tonight, she will lie down in the front window,

Showing her tail to the warm lit room,

And her sorrow to the stop light

And the passing hours.



Sleep, that tender killer, covers her,

And she finds the one forbidden her

In a made-up dream even vampires need

When the shadows have called

And hidden her.

_______

for One Shot Wednesday #34

Vikings

Vikings arrive by sea.

They do not want mystery meat.

They do not want mcnuggets.

They find you in your loft with your

Flat screen

And your baseball cards;

By the time they are done, if they wanted it

Then they have tuckit.

On a pike, your silly head.

Held high in bloody hands, your heart.



Boudica arrives by land.

Her back is striped and her face is hard.

She shan't be leaving a calling card.

She will find you in your tudor

Selling amway

Making goose clothes;

By the time she is done, no manolo blahniks in the closet,

No koi pond in the yard.

Your neck a broken stem.

Your head a fallen rose.



The Chase banker sits

With his bald fringe like a Roman--

Meeting Vikings at the close of day

And Boudica in the gloaming.

_________

dedicated to my favorite Viking Grrl

for One Shot Wednesday

Baby

The snow has made my eyes hurt--

I long for darkness as if it were a thirst.

I long to bury my face in your hair, like waking at night in a familiar room,

Nothing needing to be done but breathe

And hours still left, for doing that.



I want you for your beauty and your flaws as well--

I want to feel you melting against the palm of my hand.

You feel to me like the rest of the month, the winter, the year stretching out--

You are the reason I love the long hours,

To think of nothing but the sound of your breathing

With hours still left, for doing that.

______

for One Shot Wednesday

Bullshit

Nothing is ever as it seems.

The Chinese people downstairs are like big jolly panda babies--

When I come in in the evening,

Bones gone rubbery and my heart growling like a fighting dog inside my chest,

They smile, ladling benign ancient blessings over me like pork gravy.

I become a biscuit,

The white girl smiling back, calling them honey and darlin just as if they came from

Alabama and not Shanghai.

Then,

They go in, draw the curtains, and speak rapidly to each other in dialect while waving kitchen knives,

While I

Let myself in upstairs, take off my absurdly heavy parka,

And put the newly arrived bills under the chipped jade Buddha paperweight an old girlfriend gave me.

That was in ancient times when love seemed possible

And the old Polish couple still lived below,

Boiling their cabbage,

Never hearing the rude jokes we made at their expense

In between kisses

And lapping up

The ridiculous, absurd shit we told each other,

Like, "No matter what, I will always love you,"

And

"Wherever we live,

Wherever we are,

As long as we are,

I'm happy."

________

for One Shot Wednesday 31

Beautiful Mess

I drew poppies

With red O.P.I.

On the white window sill

And your messy hair

As you slept

Looked like crow's wings

Spread

Across impossible

Joyful

Fairy tales.

______

One Shot Wednesday

Le Printemps

I traveled across an icy place.

My shoes fit badly.

I reminded no one of Swan Lake.



I arrived, in a snow storm, in front of a coin laundry, under an overhang.

The pavement was wet.

An old black man was mumbling on a bench.

Cars crawled by like thoughts through a hangover.



There was a woman there,

With a baby on her hip,

And a cigarette in her hand.

There was no bible god in sight, and so I

Put my hand to the back of her month-old highlights and kissed her

Like a butterfly landing on a pastry.



When I leaned back to gaze into her eyes,

She squinted and said,

"Who the fuck are you?"

Standing there in my old parka and knit hat, I said,

"I am the Spirit of Spring, baby."

She was wearing boots, jeans, a brown ribbed turtleneck and a red flannel shirt.

She took a drag, blew it out, and then stood there in the smoke cloud

As if it were dry ice.

She seemed to decide something, tossed away her smoke and tilted her head.

I followed her.

The baby looked back at me as if I were some amazing talking toy.



She lived above the coin laundry.

There was crap all over the place;

A little portable stereo on the floor,

Books on the couch,

Off the kitchen a stuffed-full pantry with no door.

I said, "I came to the coin laundry to get clean."

She said, "I came to the coin laundry to get kissed."



In the morning, she kicked me out,

But with a smile.

The baby was fussing behind me as I went down the stairs.

All my clothes smelled like an ashtray.

I had trouble getting through the downstairs door to the street

Because of my glorious, white, soft-feathered wings,

And everywhere I looked,

The apple trees had blossomed overnight.

_______

amazing photograph by Daryl Edelstein

linked to magpie 48 and One Shot Wednesday 28

Disasters Elsewhere

What is more dull than other people's lovers?

And what is less compelling

Than disasters elsewhere

And the people who wring their hands over them?



What matters is

My coffee isn't right

And you have not kissed me

In more than ten hours.



I am a dry leaf.

Shall I shade you?

I need all the world's rain for myself--

Get out of here,

And take with you all the places I never go.



Once,

I was a messenger of divine kindness.

I taped together wounded butterflies,

And even watched your damn kids.

Now,

I have someone else do my dancing, though badly,

And I steal songs from the throats of yellow birds

To stuff into my stiff black shoes

Lest they lose their shape.



Someone else's lover came knocking at my door

With an earthquake in his hands.

People fell from him.

My steps shivered and cracked.



You know,

This coffee just isn't right

And you have not kissed me

In more than ten years,

But you hang all over that bastard at the door.

Did you get sick of women?

Or was it because my brown autumn eyes

Left you in famine,

So you sought out the flood?

_________

a little portrait of the butch from hell, for One Shot Wednesday