Anna

 

We had this woman at Dalldorf, claiming to be

the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia

plucked Deus ex machina from the bullets and blood of some cellar smack dab in the snowy far reaches of Nothing Good. 

We did  hydrotherapy there, but she'd gotten a head start,

either jumping or about to jump off of some bridge into the Landwehrkanal

as if she were Girl Rasputin, Queen of the Waves. 

She did this in springtime, holding a pink tulip and a volume of Pushkin.

Mornings, I'd bring her a bowl of oatmeal and my scorn,

setting it down hard on the tray, sounding like the crack of a rifle.

Anna Anderson, do try to eat some (I'd say), like the nonsense you spoon out

as ammunition for the Great Cannon of Bullshit for the credulous.

Dalldorf Asylum is gone now, and my job with it, dragging incontinents

to the toilet and fakers to the street outside when the administrators were 

otherwise occupied filing reports or fucking the mute up on seven. 

At night I used to tell her my suspicions about Anna, and cures, and treatments.

Now I am old, and Anna Anderson is gone, proven by modern techniques

to have simply been a loon and a manipulator. I go to her grave and

plunge a Russian Orthodox cross into the earth right where her heart should be,

but never was. Madness and murder were everywhere then. Anna used

crayons to draw those poor dead Romanovs, while there she sat, well fed,

celebrated, alive in the sun room, like a cat or a cockroach, immortal.

_________

for What's Going On? -- Character(s) In Action. 

Don't forget that this week's Word List is still "live" through Sunday. 

Music: Cafe Accordion Orchestra Ochi Chyornya

Shark Adventure

 

Some sharks move to suburbia.

They are mutant land sharks, able to breath and speak in their

strange, halting pidgin. 

Their spawn, er, kids sign up for Little League

and eat burgers at picnic tables after the games--

A lot of burgers.

Okay all the burgers.

At little Maria's birthday party, there is a pinata. 

One of the shark kids bursts up from the lawn,

opens its gaping maw,

and consumes it whole, along with much of a maple tree. 

Version 1) Maria runs inside, crying.

Version 2) Maria starts writing "Mrs, Maria Shark" over and over

in her school notebook.

Some customs elude the sharks.

Someone brings over a bundt cake as a welcome gesture.

Mrs. Shark tries for an air kiss on the cheek but sends the woman to the hospital. 

It is awkward for everyone and permanent for the neighbor.

The sharks notice that PTA mothers' and golfing dads' smiles

have turned to scowls. 

Country Club sponsorships dry up. 

The sharks make a holiday visit to the community pool and everyone runs away screaming. 

The sharks start wearing disguises in the grocery store and at the bank.

"I am a harmless minnow," says one shark

from a few rows of dagger-like teeth.

During a visit to a local gallery, all the sharks wear berets

and funny eyeglass masks.

No one is fooled.

Realizing that things have gone too far for remedy,

the sharks shrug, as sharks will, 

and solve everything by eating the school principal, 

the HOA president, and the local chief of police, 

all in a single afternoon.

They pack up all their stuff and return to the sea

where people are not so judgy and unforgiving.

They playfully sink a fishing boat and eat all the occupants, fish, tackle, and the mast. 

They are home. Their stomachs are full. All is well.

Brody and Hooper may kiss their fantastic finned butts.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Shakespeare Bats Cleanup 

Music: Baby Shark (You're welcome!)

City of Crows

 

In the city of crows

in the time of autumn,

over the rainy streets the trees

bend and hover like dying grandmothers.

I have been down these streets

on evenings when I did not want to keep living,

and they gave me their susurrations as a balm. 

In the city of crows,

a small village where

everyone in the world lives,

I met a woman who was two shadows,

one behind the other but it was a third who spoke.

I saw only one shadow, heard only the words I already knew.

Now there is no woman, and I know less than when I began.

In the city of crows,

by the canal where the

coins turn to fish of white, gold, and black,

my blood turned to cold water, stopping my heart.

An old acquaintance brought a loaf of bread to my side,

still warm from my own oven or so they said. They hit my heart

with the fist that had held the loaf, and I lived again but in their debt.

In the city of crows,

there is no newspaper, 

and the devices there die

each year when dusk paints the days.

If you want to see me, listen for weeping

in the forest of shadows, where night and leaves fall alike.

I am there, reciting this poem in a second language made of regret,

shame, love, hope, and death. My body is a wick, time the wax,

and the crows the scattering sly-eyed ash.

______

for Desperate Poets. 

Handsome Man

 

A very handsome man--

everyone remarked about it. 

Simply leaning back in a chair

with his coat open,

and that devil-may-care casual air--

it made me feel a little drunk, just watching him.

He wasn't gay

as some of us assumed. 

Vi said no, with a canary-cat smile

and she would know, better than us sparrows. 

She told the story

how the war shattered him.

Six weeks in hospital

and the art therapy that brought him back.

Looks and talent, despite a hand tremor that lasted a year.

He was elegant.

You'd feel like the only woman in the room

just because he offered you a cigarette.

With a wave of his hand he dismissed his work as trash

and said better to be

a bricklayer or a dentist.

The thing is, he seemed to mean it

and it felt like watching him vandalize his soul.

He was loved.

One look at Vi told us that.

She said there were nights when he believed he was dying,

and went to doctors in the morning.

They told him, you're fine, really, stop worrying.

He was on the phone one evening with his sister

when Vi said his face changed. 

When she asked him he said he'd mentioned his art 

and the sister had laughed

saying, oh, you're still doing that.

He loved to walk

at night when the air was cold and clear.

He told Vi he was going out for a smoke--

this war veteran,

this handsome, talented, loved man--

and he did.

Then he'd stepped off a bridge into the cold water far below.

At the funeral, Vi slapped the sister, caused a scene.

He wasn't there to smile and smooth it over, for any of us, anymore.

________

for desperatepoets "death by broken shoe laces." 

Music: Billy Joel Goodnight Saigon

Lilac One

 I saw the devil standing in front of Lilac One

with the dawn across his shoulders

and his shirt cuffs undone

He said, "Why are you waiting, and who waits for you?"

then the dawn turned to diamonds

of peculiar blue.

The devil is lonely though he prowls Lilac Two

and his heart is a magpie

in a mirror that flew

with itself to itself in a blur of time spent

in evening's cold courtyard

by feigned accident.

The devil said, "Nothing can mar Lilac Three

though tomorrow's black roses

are vased there for thee."

Then he shook his hair out like leaving a love

that he's carefully carved--

that's a lot to think of.

________

shared to Dverse OLN.