Love Letter From Cassie

Your pound-of-flesh-an-hour Methodist lawyer
argued inevitable discovery
while you sat looking poleaxed and lopsided--
not at all the old Pooky Bear I used to know.

Even without the medium,
(he argued)
my tawdry lesbian affair with some chick on the next street
would have been found out.

I was hoping you wouldn't notice
when I signed the pre-nup "Eleanor Roosevelt,"
and you didn't.
Why start noticing shit now?

In the old days, I could have burned the house down;
could have run a marijuana farm in the barn,
under those lights, I forget what they call them.
Now, one little kiss and it's see you in court.

Look, if you want to fight dirty,
if you want to hurt each other, listen to this:
my girlfriend got me pregnant,
and it isn't yours.

I think this judge is rude,
having me removed like that.
At least I get to watch tv,
though it only seems to get this one retarded courtroom show.

On our wedding night,
when you texted your undying love,
you forgot to Mirandize me
before I said all that other stuff.

It's all fruit of the poison tree,
you and me.
Sorry if I ruined your life,
but we're done here,

and they're releasing me on my own recalcitrance.
Try to move on, Poopsie Pie,
though really,
after me, it's gonna be all downhill from here.
______ 

 

lo tech

you smirked and whipped out the sun,
dangling from a chain like the celestial watchdog.

go ahead, try to hypnotize me with it.
try to blind me.
i will blink at the last possible moment.

your vision for us thus confounded,
and my own barely saved,
here we are--

two sundials telling time by shadows.
________

for G Man's Friday 55!

Ruination

My love complained
that, within my brain,
my heart,
my soft little breast,

behind my deflections,
my affectations,
and all the rest,

she found me unknowable,
impenetrable,
mad, melancholy and inexplicable.

Is it (I asked)
the lazy way I've dressed?
or the time I've spent lounging as a lady may do
of an afternoon in my machine gun nest?

Why now, why this way?
Why when my hair is not looking its best?
Are there any other serpents caught in the lace
that you'd like to get off my chest?

To me, this seems unfair,
this demand of me to share
my moon
my stars
my air.

She said, you are a broken bird
whose beak is too silent and dark
to say the words that speak my mind
or ever hold my heart.
_______

Harpies

Night is a shell we were half out of--
its edge an obstacle at eye level.

We only saw each other's soft side
in those days when the jagged break seemed benign,
like a string of crescent moons made of party paper.

We didn't know we were already growing flight feathers
and talons as large as grizzly claws.

Honey, we were sheathed in the things that killers are made from,
seasoned with the urge to fly or fall,
and of course,
an instinct to claim and use them.
_______

two for souffle

You think I am broken,
moon-damaged,
pepper on the pudding you've melted the world into,
thrust into little glass cups,
ruined by the seasoning of my inventive curses.

Won't you soften, just a bit,
and step out onto the precipice with me?
We can march to our own drumbeat, here,
high above the street.

I am tall enough that you could kiss or climb me;
bite the bullet, chew the notion.
Pretend that we have taken the water-carriage all the way to Trinidad
and that you actually like calypso music,
new things,
and my ways.

As we rapidly take on water,
I'll say something cryptic, yet suggestive,
and you will believe again.
Fancy the healing our colliding idiocies can fashion!
Can we just close our eyes,
forget about leverage and vengeance
long enough to be in the moment,
teetering,
one foot each in mid-air,
the other cramping
and the dumb greedy ground yawning below.

You can never master me, you know,
but we can affect a certain edgy hipness.
We shall wear exoskeletons like crickets,
and when night falls, we shall touch our index fingers together
in the divine joke that is us, and say,
"BANG," darling.
It is the only way we will ever fall.
______

for Get Listed at Real Toads, where Timoteo has given us a list of 20 words, and I have used every one because I am a good and obedient girl.

 

 

The House Amid The Lupines

Two wolves with but three eyes between them
set each half its teeth in my heart;
having given such rare food to feed them,
it killed me to tear them apart.

The shepherd with spectacles woolen,
was convinced he certainly dreamed them;
while his damned bloody blindness emboldened
two wolves with but three eyes between them.

As Mistress, I sanctioned the pasture
for concealing the Moon and the Stars;
but the Sun, in league with the Master,
set each half its teeth in my heart.

The cook baked her devils some sheep's heads
from her oven she built in the deep den;
then she served herself with their sweetbreads,
having given such rare food to feed them.

My wolfish love with the Master
set hooks through the meat of our hearts;
when our opposite tempers tugged faster,
it killed me to tear them apart.
_______

For Hedgewitch's excellent mini-challenge at Real Toads!

Loving The Ghost

Before loving a ghost,
understand--
it will be a tricky business.

A ghost will not wear the dress you like.
She will ignore
the meal
the Merlot
and the Mozart.

A ghost does not believe in the future that you've planned.
To a ghost,
the future is feathers made of fog
on a bird that flies away before it is born.

A ghost will not wear your ring.
She will not bear your child, or even your touch.
She is an airy
indigo
butterfly
that can hurt you, and will.
_________

for Real Toads word list. I used "indigo" and "butterfly".

The Finger Knife

It's the fever place
and the fracture fall,
with a strip of lace wrapped around it all.

A dusk-gone door
and a small cool hand,
with the worst of it in a silk-knot band.

Coo coo
sings the cage bird
melancholy-sweet,
coo in the morning while the whole house sleeps;

Coo coo
sings the soft throat
coo brings the cat,
the silent little calico the sugar man keeps.

It's the bent porch rail
and the dahlia bloom,
with a candle and a snuffer set in every room.

It's the sugar man's house
with his child-bride wife,
claiming each one edge of the finger knife.
_____

image by SueAnn, in connection with dverse poetics.

Sevenling (Noble Steeds)

Time was, you loved my riding boots,
My jacket snug,
My crop;

Our busy lives have made that moot,
No time for bridle or bit--
Our noble steeds reduced in needs,

Just eat and quarrel and shit.
______

Photograph taken by the fiercely talented Mama Zen

for Real Toads mini-challenge: sevenlings. 

Ouija Circle South

He hadn't been there to see, and so didn't believe
in the empty, loss-scented envelopes
that arrived each day by post.

Each pastel,
each precious
as a past nursery rhyme.

He said, "you are excitable,
hysterical,
to believe we have a ghost."

and my mind saw my womb
wandering waste
in the night.
_____

for Real Toads Open Link Monday

This form is called a Shayzen poem. Combining the undisciplined, scattershot doubletalk of Fireblossom with the stingy taciturn snotty monosyllables of Mama Zen, this form has been hailed by the avant garde even as it has been panned by the literary establishment. The Shayzen can be used to get stains out of carpets, it can rid your dog of bothersome fleas and ticks, and can even be worn as a fragrance. Do not read Shayzens near an open flame. Talk to your doctor about Shayzens. It's our form. Eat your hearts out. You may now touch the hem of our garments.
 


 

A Primer For Young Lovers

Tarot Girl and Manx Man
sat upon the rocky ledge
of a craggy cliff
high above the eternal sea.

The Sea said,
"Those who touch my body
whether cruel or tenderly,
will lose their breath--
lose themselves--
and become a part of me."

Tarot Girl demanded of Manx Man,
to tell her his purpose
hidden behind his questions
set, like faith, before her deck of cards.

The Cards said,
"Those who see my faces
will need a thousand eyes,
a single mouth--
a single heart--
and many flames to make a fire."

Tarot Girl and Manx Man
sat upon the rocky ledge
of a craggy cliff
in the face of a howling wind.

The Wind said,
"Let he who has no tale
kiss her who tells them well;
then throw two birds
into my keeping,
and name one Heaven, the other, Hell."
_____
for dverse poetics--fairy tales

The Winter Witch

The Winter Witch takes in an injured phonograph record;
She could not bear to see a sister suffer.

All phonograph records are, of course, female.
Constellations, rain, roundabouts, all of these fall from the fingertips of the Goddess.

Men are as linear as the stories they like.
Trains, bullets, unwavering logic, all of these are spikes driven into a brick wall.

Women are round, and all begins inside their roundness.
Stars wheel in empathic dance with the Winter Witch's turntable.

But...I have said that her guest was wounded, and so she was.
A red polished nail in the groove brought sweetness, but also revealed broken blackness.

"Poor baby," soothed the Witch, and the world turned beneath them both;
It always does. All stories double back. Clocks obey the soft word, not the strident command.

The injured phonograph record could not be saved, but she could speak, and did so.
The Winter Witch lay down inside her, and called that night. She dreamed with a double voice.

"I don't understand a word you say," complained the Warlock, after that.
"Bless your heart," said the Winter Witch, and when she did, she sounded like the wind.
______

Three poems for Kerry's magical realism prompt at Real Toads

DRAGONS

Oh honey, good for you--
For the bread you won and the dragons you slew.
It's enough to make a feminine heart flutter.

Who is she?
Who is she?
No matter.

All day I read the Tarot--
Some cards up, some cards down.
Some turn their back, some show their face,
But the cards themselves do not change.
Every morning:
The Hanged Man.
Every afternoon:
The Lightning-Struck Tower.
(And the dragon's tail
Of hours.)

Perhaps this is why
The dragons came to me,
Despite the ones we ate, and the ones you slew.
There are more--
more more more more more more more more.
They filled the yard, rang the bell.
What was I supposed to do?

One at a time, I took them in--
To my confidence.
To my bed.
They told me how they grieve, and dream.
And, oh,
The other things they said to me!

Honey, how I admire you--
For the bread you won, and the dragons you slew.
The deep scratches on my skin are from baking.
The smell of cordite in my hair is from
The salon,
Or from taking the kids to school.

How glad I am,
As I cool myself in the limpid pool of our evenings together,
That you find my nattering pleasant;
Like a woman standing on the next-closest planet,
Singing to you in a pretty foreign language.
_______

KITTY

You like Kitty when Kitty is nice.
I love Kitty all the time.

You like to toss Kitty up in the air.
I love to let Kitty sleep in my hair.

When you call Kitty, she hisses and spits.
When I call Kitty, she comes close and sits.

You like for Kitty not to rankle.
I love how Kitty twists 'round your ankle.

Upsy-daisy, down the stairs;
When we land, brand new pairs.
_________

BLACK CATS

Here is where you were wrong--
Black cats are not bad luck.

I am a nice girl, and you should not have set me on fire.
Is that how your mama taught you to do?

Here is a bowl of dove tears--
Wash in them.
It won't do any good, but at least you'll feel like you're doing something;
Not just sitting on the tracks
Looking like you just lost your best friend.

So many times, we missed the boat,
Stepping into thin air, like wobbling bowling pins.

This is my hand, cupping your face.
These are our beautiful memories, like butterflies on a board--
Is it my fault that they fly right into your head
Whenever you don't keep yourself occupied?

We quarreled, and you set me on fire.
It happens, and I bear you no grudge;
But witch that I am,
My ashes grew eyes, and landed on their feet.
Do you see, now, how wrong you were?
Black cats are not bad luck.
______  

top picture: Gregory Crewdson. middle picture:Michael Parkes. last picture unknown source.

for Kerry's Challenge at Real Toads.  

The Wedding

The bride loses interest half way through the ceremony.
She sits down on the altar steps, kicks off her shoes,
And yawns.

"You don't need me," she says without turning around.
"Marry my Boredom,
my Capitulation,
my Resentment.
Fan them, frame them, fuck them...
I don't care."

This is not very romantic.

He marries his desk instead.
Tiny airplanes launch themselves from its carrier-like surface,
And he snatches them as if he were King Kong.
The blades of their little propellers core his hands and give him stigmata--
He is the Christ of the plastic cockpit.

And the bored bride?
She departs,
Becomes the darling of the seance,
the Magic 8 Ball of the other side.
"Try again later," she says,
Hoping that someone will love her blank blackness,
That someone will shake her, hold her,
Join her in her soft remove
On the other side of the veil.
______

Candi McIntosh And The Tiger

Candi McIntosh is swallowed by a tiger.
Now, she can compose herself and think what to do
Without his snow and caramel face turning her to goo.

He is the same tiger
Who used to get in trouble for catching the birds off Mrs. Densmore's feeder,
Taking Tweety,
The feeder,
The branch it hung from,
And some of the siding off the house in the effort.


But his parents had hauled their childlessness behind them
For too long,
Like a house trailer filled with bowling balls.
How could they scold him?
In the end,
He received chocolates, not chastisement, for his crimes.

In high school,
He excelled at debate--
A remarkable thing for one who could not speak!
And yet,
Who would argue with him?
Who could mistake his meaning
When faced with his warm breath,
His rough tongue,
Or his basso profundo contented sighs?

Candi McIntosh never had a chance.
From the moment she saw him,
She wished to be the stars
So that when he moved silently across the sky at night,
His great soft paws
With all of their implied and restrained power,
Would touch her at every step.

Still,
The wedding was marred
By his insistence upon marking all the pews
And by his repeated lunging at the minister,
So that the vows were delayed
And disrupted
Again and again.

Now, after seven years together,
And so may beefsteaks and band-aids between them,
He has swallowed her.
Curled inside of him,
If her phone is ringing somewhere, she can't get to it;
If someone has rung the doorbell,
She can't come.
In the darkness of him,
She is eclipsed.

It is always true, however,
That a woman has her ways.
No matter what he may believe,
Or how sure and complacent he may have become,
She can stroke him
Or stagger him
As she chooses,
From within,
And there is nothing he can do about it now
But to tread softly
And--a little confused--
Sit center ring
To await his Mistress's command.


_____


for dverse OLN 7

Paris, Au Revoir

Oh, Honey,
I'm so tired of being angry.
That rosy flush
You loved so much,
It was just the outward radiance
Of the cauldron I carried,
Ruining my heart from within
Like bloody steak.

But never mind.
I can see that I'm
Upsetting you with my vulgar talk.
You have always loved me better
In a wicker chair on the veranda--
My Japanese fan,
The pillars of the little railing,
And my fingers
All the same harmless white.

Hush, Sweetheart.
I like this, just us two
So quiet, like monsters of the deep, slumbering.
Why did we scold and chatter so,
And why did we go so long never knowing
This opium peace in silence?
Let me hold your hand--
I will kiss it softly,
And I know you will never raise it to me again.

See my bags?
My favorite dancing slippers,
My books?
They have waited with the patience of saints.
But shhh,
Darling,
If seeing them set carefully near the door upsets you,
Just close your eyes,
Pretend it is our wedding night.
We're in love,
And the red stain on the bedding
Looks just like Jesus.

I'm sorry, My Heart,
I must go.
No, I won't be back this time
With my sad smile and sigh,
And my prescriptions
Like small officious doctors themselves.
In anticipation of this moment,
I have made our oak floors shine--
You will have your own image for company
As you always have.
I never want to think of you alone, when I have gone,
So I leave you the ring you gave me
Set carefully on your lapel
Like a butterfly that will stay forever
Where its perch is peaceful,
Sane
And still.

_______


for dverse poetics

Clyde

Clyde at the cafe, engulfed in flames,

Has an odd experience.

Smoke pours down into him,

And the flames draw together, shrinking, as if they were cold.

The tea bag leaps back into the cup,

Which rises to his hand.

The fire lifts away

Like startled red birds, departing.

A woman walks past him, in heels, backwards, smiling.

Clyde looks down,

Unreading a story about last night's Red Sox game.

His morning is repaired.

He understands now,

She was not the one for him.

______

A Wedding In Detroit

"I bring bricks together," her father liked to joke,

And indeed he did,

Baking them in an oven like bread--

But instead of loaves rising,

There were buildings instead--

And streets laid red and endless under boots, wheels and hooves.



He was a practical man and made a practical match for his only girl.

Everyone agreed he had a gift for picturing how things would fit together,

And he had built a world solid sturdy and strong--

She was never one who would say her father was ever mistaken or wrong,

And so she

Stole a moment to say her regrets to her real love,

A downstairs maid named Brigit--

Then got into the carriage

And smiled resolute and odd all through the jolting ride

Down the hard bricks

To the house of God.

_________

for magpie 51

Dig

I kept fire wrapped in folded paper
Inside a little brown envelope
Closed with a string clasp
Hidden in my skirts.

When I got a fever
It escaped
And I went red
Then yellow
Then black
From west to east across my skin
Like prairie in love with the lightning.

What's the matter?
Why don't you come to me anymore?
I can write more poems,
Hang the verses from my bones,
And you can find how I used to feel--
But you'll have to sully your
Sweet
White
Hands
Sifting with your fingers through my ashes.

_________

for Thursday Think Tank #33

photo by Metin Demiralay

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