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

Evening Out, Recalled

 

It was a delicious meal.

My heart pumped all through the time I was eating it

as it had before and has continued to do every moment since.

As it was in the beginning, 

It was snowing outside

but the restaurant had a fireplace and was softly lit.

You were there, and as I ate, I loved you and felt happy.

is now

On my plate, the gone moments

of a breeze and the scent of new grass; the rhythm 

of a place and season. The ability to move and exist.

and ever shall be

I remember that evening

even as it has vanished, as you have vanished,

as the meal and place and I myself have vanished

world without end

The gold of the brandy

in your glass, the smoothness of the skin of my hands,

all appears and vanishes in my memory as it, too, vanishes.

Amen, my love. Amen.

__________________

Music: Vivaldi Gloria

All The Little Flamingos

 

All the little flamingos

who used to hang around eating candies

turning themselves pinker by the hour,

where are they now? 

They used to carry Rod McKuen in boho bags

and spice their spring water with Tanqueray. 

All the infallible flamingos

confusing the Salton Sea with the Isle of Capri,

posing on one leg, demure and goddessy.

I miss the little flamingos

riding in paper gondolas, hating the pea hens,

in love with themselves, beatifically banal. 

I misremember the little flamingos

smiling behind Japanese fans, loving leopards

on screens for their mysterious silence.

So shallow and fresh, faces dipped

to the worst most brackish water, honking unmusically,

naked under their feathers, one more awkward than the next.

All the little flamingos.

Scornful, inscrutable, fragile flamingos.

I was there with them.

I was one of them. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Poetry Out Loud. 

First Love

 Hey, old girl,

I can't bear it, you know,

to go back.

You're gone anyway.

How can that be?

How could you hold my whole heart for years

and then be gone from the world?

I remember the green! 

The bright lawn in the sun, and the dark green

you wore, the color of forests, and later, Great Lakes blue.

I remember the cloud of rising cigarette smoke

in the warm evenings. 

There were fights sometimes,

even the odd drunk falling down.

It didn't matter.

What I remember best is the heartbeat excitement

of seeing you there.

I recall a rainy Sunday in autumn,

you wearing red, white and blue as if it were July.

Everyone we both knew was always there,

dressed in white like heroes. 

I loved you madly from the moment I met you.

No matter where I traveled,

I always came back to you, my comfort, my heart,

the one beloved constant 

in the uncertain confusion of my childhood, my youth, my middle age. 

Sometimes, still, I dream we are together.

Hey, old girl. 

The one word I can never say to you is "goodbye."

You were my sanctuary and so I ring the bells for you,

shout once more for the home team,

recall the steep aisles, the vendors, the big scoreboard

of Tiger Stadium, the love of my young life,

________

for Dverse poetry of place and space, hosted by Ingrid. 

Music: Frank Sinatra There Used To Be A Ballpark 

There Is Snow

 

There is snow

on the steps of a church where nuns' lives turn to dust.

a mute sun sleeps dazed in the low sky

and starlings let their wings fall, giving up all memory of flight.

The street is empty,

the silent intersection a cross

held in the still hands of an old priest

turned to stone forever.

Women in their black shawls move quickly

but the low sky has stopped and falls

bit by bit

on the steps of a church where an old priest has died.

The nuns are silent.

The women wear their black shawls,

and always,

there is snow. 

_________

I guess this is sort of a sketch. It interrupted what I was doing this morning and demanded to be written. There are a lot of abandoned churches in Detroit, and while editing this, I had them in mind. The congregations, often ethnic,  grew smaller and older until the parishes were no longer viable. 

On The Thin Edge Of November

 On the thin edge of November

smoky air flirts with freezing and the stunned birds

seem to lean forward on the precipice of a warning cry.

Last night I dreamed of you,

my chest a redding leaf poised at a point of immobility.

A wind came up.

Windows grayed.

I rose, denying ghosts.

(Even yours.)

----------

for my BFF's Flash 55 bash.

Pas De Deux

The cat's always got your tongue,
but mine is loose by nature.
I had things I needed to say to you, and so I have included them
in private prayers by moonlight,
in court documents,
and mixed invisibly with sugar inside of envelopes sent via post.

I see you there,
on your front step, handing out the same bulimic claptrap to reporters
that's offered to your lovers in intimate moments.
You talk and talk, but say nothing--
the reporters starve, weaken, expire on the lawn, wondering how they failed.

I told a few lies, I admit.
Otherwise, the police photographer would never have followed you,
and the polygraph examiner would stand idle, tempted by devils.
The credits are rolling--
this is the time to confess or taunt or break down. You know the drill,
and yet you keep spare judges in drawers in every room,
to issue gag orders across the board at a moment's notice.

For the sake of all that was good, and soft, and funny
between us, say something, please.
Write a tell-all, despite the prohibited proceeds.
Bargain a statement in trade for a change of venue.
Let Old Sparky spur us
to get it all out at last.
We can circle it, like dizzy ballerinas,

Me imploring you to talk,
to open your everlastingly miserly fucking mouth at last,
and you
begging me to shut up,
for once, 
for novelty,
for the love of God,
shut up. 
______

for Skyflower Friday--"goodbye"

 

 

Athena

Athena--Mama said
not to go out in the
garden
barefoot
after it rains.

Ignore her. Do 
it anyway.
You are a Goddess--

the Earth moves at
your whim,
between
your toes.

Athena--every foot-
print you ever make
will be
erased
eventually.

Never mind that.
Never mind Mama.
Go change
the world

by walking barefoot
in the mud, by
picking a 
flower, by
being you, right now, in the world as it is.
_____

for Hannah's "footprints" challenge. I hope it's adequate; I don't feel much like writing.