Bad Eye

 It's the harsh angle of the sun in August, I think, that tricks my bad eye. In the stillborn space where the walnut tree smothered its  lessers with shade, a cape of weedy green masquerades as grass, as lawn, a trickster for my blind spot. 

In the magnified bright reflecting off the house's siding in afternoon, the mulberry stump sends up a fresh forest of suckers, higher by the day. This is fool's summer, when what was is gone and what remains puts on a play, wearing a harlequin mask, and kindly saves a part for me, I tell myself "There is plenty of time, to repair, heal, do more than was done today." 

This is my bad eye telling tales and the iridescent image swims through a mirror that flows  in and out of vision, in and out of me, like life itself. 

______

for my friend Dora who is hosting at Dverse Prosery today. Her theme is "Luminous Accountings" and requires the use of the italicized section from "King of the River" by Stanley Kunitz. 

Process notes : I seem to be losing the vision in my left eye due to a mysterious spot that showed up on my eye exam in February. Some days it is just blurry, other days all I can see with it is shapes. Fortunately, my right eye remains just garden variety nearsighted. As if to make a joke as I wrote this, my  eye decided that an ocular migraine was in order. I get them sometimes. Not to be deterred, i counted the words up four times and they came to 144 each time. 

Last year my neighbor complained, quite reasonably, about my big mulberry tree that was scraping his roof and dropping berries pell mell on his porch, so I had it cut down, Then last month my beloved black walnut tree split in a storm and had to be removed. In the bare place where its shade prevented much from growing, there is now a carpet of some sort of creeping weed. Things come, things go--including me sooner or later--and are replaced by something else. Any passing dinosaur can tell you it's true. 

Death

 

Death--the capitalized one--

in his cosplay hoodie

holding his skateboard

is as dull as junk mail.

It's lying there dying that's terrifying.

That's when the real demons throw down their smokes

and get to work,

their feet up to the ankles in mud.

It's being left behind that's gutting.

It's the empty mug on the other side of the table

white as any skull,

that sends an earthquake along the bones.

Death--you know the one I mean--

is just a messenger

an ambulatory text

an intern dispatched to do the grunt work.

Save your fear for the stupidly almighty hours

killing that kiss, that poem, that dream

you had on the tip of your life

that's never going to come to you now. 

The Days Left Behind

I asked the mourning dove

where to find the days left behind. 

"In the dew," she replied.

"In the wild grass

 on the slope beside the river.

Hurry," she warned. "Winter already whispers."

I asked the vulture

where to find the days left behind.

"In the fire pit," he replied.

"In the ashes 

full of hands and faces.

Go slowly," he warned. "They will wait."

I asked the falcon

where to find the days left behind.

"In my nest," she replied.

"I used them

for my children, bald and bottomless.

Go now," she warned. "My talons are teachers."

I asked the gentle mourning dove.

I asked the grim vulture,

but the lesson lay

at the feet of the falcon

in a slurry of time, need, and blood.

Green House, Black Trim

 My house is lime green

with black trim

like a garden

for grave diggers.

Surrounding it on rainy afternoons

are rings of brilliant jade leaves

on shiny black trunks

swaying like boxers.

One of the spindles

has come out from the porch rail.

It holds steady, but

I don't trust it like I used to

when the noisy morning starlings

and the raucous ones in evening

sounded and numbered

the same. 

Yellow Mums

 yellow mums

little dark green shadow

to june's

boastful, favored roses--

they have all

turned to twisted thorns

married to

the clippers' blades

but you

love the autumn

and are

humbly lovely now

aren't you,

yellow mums?

Third Marriage, Seaside.

 

Go down to the greenhouse and gather the blooms,

then scatter them all in separate rooms--

the rose on the grate of the fireplace cold

to lie there and die there as we grow old.

The arrangements are odd and enigmatic,

the occupants frail and most asthmatic

afflicted with allergies, fear and despair

made worse by the stale and fetid air.

Though we gasp our devotion like fish in a boat

and confess our passion by rite and rote,

we're as blinkered as babes, as clear as bells

as we rise from the drink on our half-assed shells.

_________

for Word Garden Word List--First Love

Weebles

 

Remembering my dollhouse,

full of thalidomide Weebles, armless, legless

and sleepless as well--always upright,

awake all night wandering the rooms.

No use locking the doors or pulling the shades--

the entire back of the house open to flood and tornado.

The whole place an ossuary--urn your keep, Weebs.

And me, Queen of the whole shebang, a six-year-old Persephone.

No surprise, then, to find me in new adulthood,

still covered with the vernix of near-innocence,

living on tuna fish and rainwater, perched

in the henhouse on my hope chest, waiting.

That was when you appeared, rising like a helium balloon,

floating in place beneath the crude umbraculum

with a censer in one hand and a lily in the other,

in full Papal costume, my real-life Weeble-God. 

We fed each other party crackers and absinthe,

le fee verte, "The Green Fairy," faux artists in our henhouse garret. 

Our flock all turned from Rhode island Reds to common crows.

We are a House that cannot be toppled, like Weebles ourselves,

though the giant half-grown bitch beyond the open back wall

keeps trying to poke us, smoke us out, or otherwise tamper

with our great love and legacy--hers if only she would pause,

consider, and accept us as deities. cast in plastic and immortal.

_______________

for Word Garden Word List--Four-Legged Girl

Music: Van Halen Little Dreamer

 

Talking Monkey

 

I am a talking monkey--

I know this,

wearing the heavy suit of the corporeal. 

Please,

sit on the rocks of the ruin with me.

The stones have a warmth

left by the sun

 like a garland

around a young girl's head. 

Speaking as a glorified simian,

I love the pretty yellow

of the banana,

the seeded red of the strawberry,

and the deep rich purple

 of the plum.

Ill health, blood, bruises--

these bear the hues of these fruits

but theirs is a bitter course.

I am a talking monkey--

talking all the more, and most tediously

now that my tire

 stays still.

I used to swing on it, wildly!

like a chimp in a capsule

NASA's baby

headed for the stars!

Ah well, little pitchers have big ears--

never tell them the rotten truth

 about the circus

or the old hero peddling for the gawking crowd.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--

Music: The Rolling Stones Monkey Man 

Despite, and Still (for J.)

 

I said to the trees

                                                --the birch, the pear, the maple--

"How can my heart be anything but an empty cup

Now that your leaves have all fallen

   like the handsome musician from Heaven

   or funeral cards from the hands of old women?"

"Look at you," replied the trees. 

                                                                                     "We have spun you

from the loom of our beauty and the cruelty of our silence.

Just as you did in summer, you stand looking

   as Jason did in the grove, when our fleece was 

   golden in autumn and stolen away in November."

I stayed for a long time,

                                                               so long that the snow 

became hands on my shoulders like a mother's or a healer's.

The sky is as gray as cold water, the trees' bones

  stand right to left like verses across a page,

   antique, dignified, turned to benevolent mentors.

_____________________________

for Dverse Poetics "Despite & Still" where Dora is hosting.

Music: Fleetwood Mac Bare Trees

And Judith Durham All My Trials

The Vivid Dead

 

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead

winding wire around every bud in the garden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Making olive of jade and maroon of red

mixing invitation with heirloom toxin

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Staking a world with only frayed gray thread

hoarding every sweet fruit left to harden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Mixing sugar and rot into every word said

a borer warden of self without pardon

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Silence the dust-tongue kept in your head

and lie with your twin the idiot watchman

fearing poison in every innocent bed

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

______

A villanelle. 

Music:  Michael Kiwanuka Cold Little Heart

Aubade II

 

All those songs about waking up in a lover's arms--

I don't know what they're talking about.

Oh, I've known the happy wedding night mattress on the floor

amid the stacks of packing boxes

and the delicious view when the world narrows

to a single cherished face.

The bee, though, doesn't live inside the bloom,

and goes still inside a jar.

Touched on every side by an adoring indigo night,

there is still just one Moon. 

Allow me morning alone in my garden

with just my mug and dog.

It doesn't mean I never loved you, or loved you less.

There is only one dawn--this one

and it only waits so long. 

_______

For What's Going On? "Aubade"

Don't forget, the WORD GARDEN WORD LIST is active through Sunday. 

Music: George Harrison All Things Must Pass

English Walnut

 every day

the black squirrels raid Heaven.

I find leaf clusters

like fallen angels

everywhere.

they want

the hard nuts growing high

in the tree I tend

with loving care

these twenty odd years.

each time

they find their desire,

the Icarus clusters fall.

my tree expands, produces,

then incrementally loses 

all summer long.

I learn

from watching all this

a new behavior

a new ache.

will you bury me as well one day, squirrels

or float me old green feathers

in kind aerial gesture?

_____

for Sherry's prompt at desperatepoets. 

image of leaf cluster and walnut my own

The Duenna

 The light now is a young man

at a long table

with a full plate,

holding forth as jeweled women lean

to catch his words and scent like hungry cats. 

I stay next to the duenna, summer's old widow,

her skin a dead garden under the high neck and long black sleeves.

She used to read him stories

when the silence scared him

and he grew there in the crook of her arm

like a plum added to a grocery sack.

"I wish it would rain," I say to her as I have every day

since summer arrived like a visiting bishop

waving from a sedan chair,

cheered by women wearing head scarves

because others do, and God is watching.

The duenna pats my hand.

I am sick of the brightness of white shirt and linen jacket,

arms gesticulating as children's do when feeding the swans,

and the swans dip their faces in mock modesty.

If only the wind would rise and the sky darken,

this tablecloth would show

how wings are meant to be used,

plates and wine glasses smashing on the stone floor.

"In time," whispers the duenna, as calm as a bread loaf.

These blowy tales will wear themselves out,

the cats and swans will begin to bicker,

and the nights will lengthen beneath our feet like shadows.

Then the duenna will shed her weeds

and wear the moon on her shoulders glittering.

_______

Musci: Bananarama Cruel Summer

Rán

 

I can't recall what this place was like

before the renovations.

There were difficulties--

bombings, whatnot,

and the removal to the madhouse of the construction foreman. 

Blueprints are lovely, don't you think?

Smooth and blue as calm seas. 

Birth, though, that's a bloody messy business

of screaming gobsmacked arrival

held up in the hands of the midwife who never cuts her nails.

It's not so much that I love this place as it is that I was presented with it.

I woke in these rooms

with the hammering already in progress. 

I long for waterfalls and love,

but have skin like bricks, and hair like shingles.

People say, make it beautiful, you can do it!

Be your own fetch, a siren of the flooded basement,

luring yourself with your own song.

Make it your home away from home as drowning sailors do,

find the bright side of blistering paint and warped floors like heavy seas.

All right then. I have tattooed the name Ran

on my arm, see it when I hold you.

We are limited only by burst plumbing, crumbling rebar,

and our own imaginations.

We are castaways keeping our heads above water

in our Rubik's Cube Winchester House 

of gorgeous possibility.

__________

for Sunday Muse and shared with desperatepoets open link. 

Waiting For April

 When I was seventeen, I set out oranges 

for turkey vultures on the glass top of a table 

with pastel yellow legs, in summer.

I said I did it because death is sweet.

Don't ever lie. Mutism is one way

to stay honest, but turning one's tongue

to a violin is another. Many early saints

were buskers, though they died stoic, silent.

What I'm trying to say is, it might snow in Falstaff

while it's 90 in Phoenix.  You might look for robins

and find peacocks, with their weird piercing call

that makes you feel suddenly faint and homesick.

I've grown slow and stiff, my hair is white

from a blizzard of mistakes and sorrows.

Surviving from March to May seems as sweet

to me as your kiss once did, but I'm cautious now,

Not like I was when you knew me, not such a fool.

I keep a .45 laid on the leather of my bible 

to test for truth, so think before you speak

because my ears are dull and dead, but I read lips.

_________

for Word Garden Word List #18 (Leonard Cohen).

Impossible Riddles

 " After last night's storm, the tulip petals are strewn across the patio where they mortally fluttered" --Church, Jim Harrison

I woke around 3am again this morning. 

Someone had been talking to me

pushing pebble words through cotton teeth, 

posing impossible riddles,

or,

I was in love with someone already vanishing,

or

something important was expected of me that I could not do.

At 7am I set out seed and peanuts

for the birds and whomever may appear,

maybe even myself, in a new body

not made of seed and feathers.

Everything hurts and I am always tired.

I am as soft and ridiculous as snow, 

holding winter's hand by instinct, leery of warmth, gray as January.

Here come the jays and starlings,

crows and cardinals,

like clockwork.

I watch them from the window and remember a day years ago.

I am both there and not,

here and not.

Dear eager raucous birds, 

will you be here again tomorrow?

Will I?

_______

for Dverse Poetics: "Songs of Unreason"

Violent Gingerbread Assassins Lead Singer Dead At 47.

 

The lead singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins reports for his autopsy.

Electric bone saw in hand, the medical examiner for Los Angeles County tips up his protective face shield and speaks:

"Mr. ..."

"Lo Bo To Me," says the rock star. The medical examiner seems confused, so he adds, "I used to be George Binker, but changed it to Lo Bo To Me back in '97. You can call me Lo."

They then spend several minutes discussing the fact that the rock star isn't yet dead, to which he points out that VGA's radio exposure is down to almost nil, and years of various drugs, questionable sexual practices and a love of In-N-Out Burger has him as good as, so why procrastinate?

They begin.

"How did you get this scar just here, on your shoulder?" The medical examiner touches it with his finger as if summoning an elevator from inside the rock star's body.

"A groupie with a hatchet freaked out and thought I was a ghost trying to suck out her soul through a twisty straw. She thought my strawberry shake was the essence of a previous victim, her stupid friend Pamela. So she tried to off me, but only cut me a little. I threw the shake in her face and then she thought she was an ice sculpture. She was catatonic for ten years after that, and when she woke up she screamed 'Where is that bastard?' and then fell over on the floor. A roadie told me all that. I guess he married her or something."

The medical examiner suggests that the autopsy be postponed. George Binker a.k.a. Lo Bo To Me responds with a non sequitur, asking the M.E. if he's ever heard VGA's song "Clogged Synapse Fantasia."  

"It changed my life," he admits sheepishly.

"A fan! I knew it! Hey doc, what's that thing?"

"Why, a twisty straw, of course. I use it in my work."

The singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins sings:

Bay-beh do me do you!

Like a reptile crawling inside my heart,

layin' eggs of love that 'splode apart

in crazy fractals like La Jolla ocean blue!

Bay-beh do me do you!"

Later that day, reports of the passing of Lo Bo To Me, lead singer for the Violent Gingerbread Assassins, dubbed "Lo, the Noble Savage" in an old Rolling Stone article, spread across social media. Fans hold candlelight vigils and sales of their songs on digital platforms exceed all previous markers. The medical examiner for Los Angeles County holds a press conference, expressing, between sips of a strawberry milkshake, the exact circumstances of the singer's death. "The main cause was tooth decay, exacerbated by poor posture."

Why would he lie?

______

A (sort of) Edson-ish prose poem for Word List #8 (Russell Edson).

Craxis

 

I keep seven calendars, six clocks,

and live in a brick house on a street with no wolves.

There is wind sometimes,

stars,

and I like to read when it rains.

I have been here twenty years and buried five dogs.

I was married before,

considered suicide,

kicked booze,

had a garden.

Every morning, I rise early.

Things must be begun immediately, worked on steadily.

I like muffins and coffee.

I think of my father tearing out his feeding tube,

eager to die if he couldn't have an omelette or a cigar.

The butter and blackberry jam are superb.

I will write another poem this morning,

do dishes,

take time for my projects,

watch some tv.

There is a new spot on my neck. It's nothing.

My dog watches me watch myself in the mirror.

I wonder if anyone will want my books when I die?

I shake it off, go and put on boots.

"Come on," I tell him, "We have jobs to do."

We spend the day outdoors,

come in happy and tired.

I give him part of my snack as a movie plays.

Then, time for bed. 

Brush teeth, 

consider what got done and what didn't,

go around and double check that the doors are locked.

Who would take care of my dog if I died?

We are both just heart beats

in a bed in a house in a sprawling world.

I kiss his head, turn off the light.

"I love you," I tell him,

as I used to tell my spouse, my child, my other dogs.

"See you in the morning."

I close my eyes and sleep easy, as if it were a given.

________

for Dverse Poetics The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, hosted by Linda Lyberg.

image: Woman With An Airdale Terrier by Edvard Munch

Why I Stopped Reading Robert Frost

As I reach the bottom
of the bag
of some shit I used to like,
I realize
I'm bored,
and don't want it anymore.

It's like
when I was mad for what's-her-name
or
mad to be what's-her-name
and the tide 
was mad to go
first to
then fro.
What a waste of time.

So here
are my
seventy-five million poems
that lifted,
shifted,
expressed the flesh around these bones.
But today
I may
get up and walk right through the wall
and the me I leave behind
is just a stupid staring doll.

At the bottom
of this bag
is some shit I used to like.
Can you dig
can you see
the fish there riding on its bike?
in a lather
in a circle
with miles to go before it sleeps?
_________

for Sunday Muse # 105.

art by Samy Charnine.

Remains

The first thing they noticed was an earthquake; then the shape that the earthquake revealed.

A once-living thing,
like a bank president or jilted lover,
it had turned to stone and worn the same expression for lo these many millenia.

An expert from the university was dispatched,
along with a few dozen anonymous local sherpas who would be doing all the work.

The expert knelt, pupils dilating, and forgot to breathe.
"Is he going to propose to it?" wondered the sherpas.

Once, the thing's gut was filled with enough sweet summer grasses
to fill all the holes left by the earthquake, and then some.
Its tremendous scat was as big as the expert.
It knew a tropical sun and carried bizarre shrieking birds on its back.

Sometimes, when you are just trying to run a business,
or staying in bed willing yourself to die,
some know-it-all bastard comes along and tells you that you have to evolve, 

or pull yourself together for the children.
This is when aftershocks come in handy,
and rubble suits become these officious fucks,

who, in a thousand or a million more years will find your visage unchanged
and earthquakes as impotent as priests or Pollyannas. 
_________

for Day 16. 

NOT the "official video" btw. But still.