My Delicate Sensibilities

i yam a girl
of deli-cat sensibilities.
not just enny trash can
can make my bed--
not just enny edition
can pillow my hed.

in another life,
i wuz cleopatra.
and that, sir or madam as the case may be,
means you should have deli-cat manners
around such as me.

if you wave some pastrami,
it's possible you may charm me,
but if you're cagey
you will fish up for me
something dumb and scaly from the sea.

I yam a girl
of deli-cat sensibilities
and a fine poetic naychur,
so you probly want to make sure
to bring sardines and starfish--
one to eat and one to make a wish
if you want to win me.

i was an egyptian queen,
and you need to remember that.
now, thank you for your kind attenshun,
but it is noon,
and time for my royal nap!
_________

Mehitabel the cat created by Don Marquis. The artwork is his.

 
 

Tyger

Tiger doesn't care about your little tea parties,
book clubs,
ladies' lunches.

Tiger doesn't wear stylish hats,
sexy thongs,
or fuck-me heels.

Though she weighs in excess of three hundred pounds,
Tiger doesn't say no to seconds.
You have two arms,
two legs,
two of certain organs;
give them up.

Tiger is hungry and has no time to shit around with you.
Whatever it is you meant to do with your life,
what were you waiting for?

Tiger isn't like the men you know.
She doesn't fall for it if you turn on the waterworks.
To her, you are a protein shake and nothing more.

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
'neath your motion-sensor light,
waiting til you need the Saab
to get you to the country club.

At least, in the end, don't whine like always.
Tiger's teeth are white as angels.
Die magnificently! Don't sulk. Don't film it with your phone.

Your husband will sic the insurance adjuster on the Tiger,
all to no avail. Tiger returns no calls
from her cooler-than-you Queendom

deep in the forests of the night.
________

photograph by the swoon-inducingly cool Mama Zen!

linked to Real Toads Open Link Monday.

And, with a wink to Ms. Gruye....

My Life & The Study Of Birds

I have devoted my life to the study of birds,
though they study me but little--
they are not sentimental that way.

Heavy as a field stone, I have sat and watched them circle
until I feel lifted, myself.
I catalog, I question, I make sketches,
but just lately and often,
my pen drops from my dangling hand, and I wake up hours later with the sun going down
and my work never finished.

I concern myself with genus, markings, and range.
They concern themselves with the ripeness of plums barely hanging on to branches
or already on the ground.
They concern themselves with hollowed-out trees or woven nests;
I concern myself with questions I can never truly understand the answers to,
even should I blunder across them.

There is a whirling, in the lateness of my days--
an oversharpening of the air, particularly in the early morning.
It was this time of year when you last came to see me,
and removed the sterling silver cuff I had given you,
with its delicate black flock flying from wrist bone to pulse point,
and set it upon my bed.
You told me that I was your heart,
but that you could never come back to me again.

I have devoted my life to the study of birds,
but anymore, my mind wanders.
There is only one thing I notice now, and that is the way that the autumn birds have
of relinquishing a deficient, unsustainable world
without a thought.
Instinct drives them, they simply lift, as one, and wheel,
spinning for a moment above my foolish head,
and then departing,
growing smaller until they are indistinguishable
soundless
phantoms,
as ephemeral as my breath in the chilly air.

_______

for Flipside's word list # 14 and Real Toads open link Monday.

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.
 


 

Relativity

St. Creola is Our Lady of the Shoreline.
Drowning sailors call to her,
but beautifully, like carolers.

St. Creola is unperturbed by them.
They are leaves gently falling
from those trees--their wooden ships.

The beach has so many grains of sand,
changing color with every passing wave;
and the waves arrive ceaselessly, like babies.

St. Creola advises to accept peace where and when you can.
Rushing water makes as poor a floor as roof,
so bless the dry interlude, and the fruit section offered at noon.

The sun has warmed St. Creola,
and when the moon arrives, later,
she will still be here--
a pretty Constant
under the imprimatur of the clouds and stars.
_______

Keeping Tigers

My tigers become restless, locked up in the house all day.
I have a service, which comes by and feeds them,
leaving carcasses 
and the long bones of domestic cattle.

These meals are cold from the refrigerated truck,
and they do not struggle,
and so are not satisfying to my tigers.

I can feel their rage vibrating against the chambers of my heart as I work,
like a murmur,
or an embolism.

My tigers dream of high grasses,
dizzy with unending heat.
The sun teases them from the high windows,
until they are crazy with frustration.

The houses on my street are new, and identical.
Differentiation only arrives with occupancy--
the houses are like virgin lungs, and the buyers, air.

There is a woman inside the walls of the house across from me and over one.
The sun-hot bricks contain her, and her soft skin.
Whatever bounty she possesses
is closed off from me, as by a hard cupboard door.

I long to deliver myself into her life.
She sometimes comes out, Queen of the Green Lawn,
and when she does,
my tigers and I tear each other bloody for a place at the window.

Not everyone can keep tigers.
The daughter of the couple next door kept a bird,
a beautiful tropical specimen, which flitted from sill to ceiling fixture
to the trees outside, in summer.

When the bird disappeared, the girl reached her china-fine hand into the empty cage,
and slammed the metal door on herself
until she was bleeding so badly that paramedics had to be called.

"Were you trying to hurt yourself?" inquired the doctor.
"What made you do this?"
The girl replied, "Lack of music."

I know this because I transcribe the doctor's session recordings.
I know this because it was my tigers who murdered her bird.
I know that my silence is vile,
and that Beauty should never lower its guard around Appetite.

I grow restless in my cubicle, doing my work.
I dream of my across-the-street neighbor, and in these dreams
I run my fingertips down the backs of her thighs--
I kiss her hip, and turn her over
like a page of religious text, and I the ecstatic ecclesiastic.

In the evenings, I go home alone.
My tigers are waiting, ravenous and angry.
At my front door, I kiss the key,
and make the sign of the cross over the lock.

All night,
my tigers scratch to get into the room where I sleep.
The door quivers and splits, but holds, barely.

My neighbor is inside her house, mixing calm with catkins,
like batter with a finger.
I start across the street, though it is past midnight.

I wear only my black kimono.
My tigers trail after me, lit like candles with excitement at being out of doors.
I knock, haloed in the porch light.
She answers, and I stand there like a little innocent bird,
offering her my heart like an Aztec.

_______

for Real Toads OLM

Gypsies

There must always be Gypsies.
There must always be
Stones rounded by the river,
And the Sun
Must always lift her skirts and run.

This is the fiat of the window glass
In the morning.
This is the parable of the rising biscuit,
And the sweet icing stolen
At the tip of a finger.

There must always be your glasses
At the edge of the blonde wood table.
There must always be your book,
And your lips against
White linen.

There must always be silver cuffs
And hoop earrings to balance the universe.
There must always be a yellow moth
On the dry side of the rain-leaf,
And barefoot children
Wandering.

I feel certain that God would like
For Romany to survive and be spoken;
And if God does not,
Then God is wrong.

There must always be Gypsies.
There must always be your face,
Because without the yearn of this spoked wheel within me turning,
Life would be too terrible
And still
To endure.
_______

Thank you to Hedgewitch, who introduced me to the poetry of Gabriel Garcia Lorca, which always inspires me.

Linked to Real Toads Open Link Monday.
_________
 

The House of No

Here is the House of No.
Has your trip been long?
Please remain standing.

Examine our literature,
Our list of the one hundred most beautiful words.
Wear this mask. Keep silent.

We've seen your type before, a thousand times;
We know how your arms ache for her smooth skin.
Hold them up--
We will teach them tolerance, wrapped in heavy casts.

We're wise to the way she falls from your mind in sections...
Sweet, as if her ribs had called your fingers from a dream,
To lay tender stripes from their tips to her heart.
No more of that.

We give no sympathy, even in extremity,
For the memory of her breath, warm and close on your face,
Or the turning up of her shoulders when she kissed you the way she did.
Empty your bag.
Give us those.

In time, you will no longer feel riven in two with impossible desire.
One day, her name will cease to seem holy, or even noteworthy.
Until then,

Come to breakfast,
Accept the cup of dust we offer;
Trust our healing methods.
Stop moaning.
Eat your rind.
______

for Real Toads Open Link Monday and Shawna's Monday Melting.

The Sunflower Road

There is a wound deep in the helix--
a hard grief down in the dark family blood--
and I can't turn monkshood to maple sugar by denying it.

Still,
There is the Sunflower Road
and this warm-going afternoon--
the bug on his back doesn't talk rot or doubt my hollow-stalked soul
when I flip him in my palm
and watch his simple ascent.

Yes, baby,
one day I'll line the lily casket with my wicked bones
sweet as cane in the marrow;
black-dress ladies'll allow as to how I had my uses,
and later they'll slice peach pie and fan themselves with prayer cards
like pretty caged birds.

All of this is why--
plain-root simple-face bloom that I am--
I tell you honest,
same as you have always been with me,
that I could not have found my way
without you.
______
photo by Shanyn Silinski

posted for Real Toads Open Link Monday #19 and Monday Melting #9  

Descanso

The road weaved off ahead like the 
messed-up
more adventurous friend
who says, come on, let's pick the lock,
snap the chain,
and goose the gods who brought the rain.

This road is the place
where the one I was
met the lead-foot driver of who I would be;
and you know what they say--
women drivers
no survivors.

Oh, little tornado-heart,
shed that leaden skin.
Let the poison out, let the Jesus in.
Honey, a red car is the only car--
no you anymore, but only us...
I'll carry the best of you fast over asphalt and tar,
and leave the husk with these crosses
in the roadside dust.

_____

for Real Toads OLM

 

I Was Not The One

I was not the one who poured the night and all its stars
Into the cold curve of evening's cup.
I was not the stupid virgin
Working up her nerve.
I was not the one who fetched or served.

I was not the one who brought the bile or the blade
And not the one who baked a loaf of death.
I was not the cook
Who wrung the rooster's neck.
I was not the portion nor the plate.

In my gaze find the small gloved hand;
In my words sleeps the fox.
In my veins find the sweetness that killed
The bantam in the laying hen's box.

I was not the one who sent the master down the mad-path
Or the one who set him swinging from a tree--
But the one who slipped her son
Past the sere red eye of dawn,
In the silent early morning, that was me.
________

for Real Toads OLM

The Amish Hit Girl

The Amish hit girl hits a snag--
Running you over with a buggy turned out to be
Harder than it looked;
See,
She wanted to dispatch you
Expeditiously,
But nooOooo...
She had to start the horses
One time, two times, three.

What, nothing to say?
Have you finally gone to the devil?
No more bonnets, no more scrapple?
The Amish hit girl
Can catch and grill you;
Take off her long black dress
And fucking thrill you.
She can quilt like a stone Dutch ho,
She can ring you without a phone,
Or just kill you.
The Amish hit girl...
Nice.
_____

linked to Real Toads open link monday

The Constancy Of The Moon

Christmas bells rang my head--
to,
fro,
or maybe it was just the Colt 45.

The moon used to cradle me in her curve while I slept--
she always whispered,
"Little girl,
take this silver dollar
and buy a ticket home to me."

Texas Jim rang my head--
to,
fro,
or maybe it was just the December wind.

I would leave here, head south,
if only I could stand up.

The moon used to cradle me in her curve while I slept--
she always whispered,
"Little girl,
take this silver dollar
and buy a ticket home to me."

Christmas bells ring my head--
to,
fro,
echoing in the alley between the churches--
I would come to Jesus
sure enough,
if only I could stand up.
_____

for Real Toads OLM

Salon

At Lady Mott-Bayfield's regular salon in March of 1872,
Certain Arctic explorers were displayed
Like cakes on a tray.
Did I say "displayed"? I meant invited, welcomed, feted!
They held tea in china cups,
Answering questions from thick-bearded men and fine ladies
As the snow from their boots slowly melted
In a trail from the door to where they stood.

"What did you see?
"Who sponsored your expedition?"
"Terribly cold, I expect?" (this last sending a ripple of titters through the ladies nearby.)

Cold, yes.
We left fingers, toes, and twenty-seven immortal souls there,
On the endless pack ice.
We saw things...
Things that were there,
And things that were not;
We saw enormous, yellow-white bears circling our camp at all hours
In hunger and in curiosity.
(The guests now quiet and hanging on every word,
Making a ring around the explorers as if they were moons.)
We saw seals
Pulled up from their dens by the bears, who could smash through the ice with their great paws and tremendous weight;
Our friend Roberts had become disoriented,
Believing one of the seals to be a woman or a mermaid
Depending upon the degree of his fever.
When the bears caught his particular darling,
He dashed out on his frozen twig-legs, lurching,
Screaming,
Tears freezing on his cheeks before they could fall.
A bear shattered his skull with a single swat,
Letting the madness out,
And his spirit.

One of the salon attendees clears his throat.
A lady's hand flutters at her heart,
A practiced gesture,
Half sincere this time.

It was dark around the clock,
The sun an impossible memory
Like warmth, or a wife.
There was no respite from the cold,
The wind over the open ice,
Or each other.
We had long since killed all of our dogs and horses,
(Someone sets down a cake, making a small noise in her throat)
And we ourselves were dying by degrees,
Losing first our sense of mission
Then our equilibrium,
And, for the twenty-seven, life itself.

There is silence,
Then a hearty "I say!" from a railroad magnate.
The explorers are never invited back,
And a maid cleans up the messy slush by the door
The moment that the last explorer has left,
And it is shut, firmly, behind them.

_____
linked to Real Toads open link Monday