Solstice

Sky and bells gray as rock doves' wings--

Solstice at twilight.

The heavy bronze and iron heads swing slowly in the cold

And what issues is not sound, but only snow and silence

Ever deepening.

Meet me at the Old Church--

Wear your hair down.

God will not mind.

I wait on the steps in my navy pea coat and white hat and gloves--

As if I were already nothing more than shadow and vapor.

I look for you, a dark red rose against the monochrome--

Mistress of all beauty, to me.

I have always loved you best

In the moment when the air turns freezing.

Can you see my breath?

My heart beats, and as it beats, I collect words from the air as if I were a morphined patient;

What issues is not even quite love anymore, but only loss and darkness

Ever deepening.

_______

Galileo's Daughter

Galileo's daughter looks through a telescope at the stars.

To her, they seem very feminine--

She feels that she would like to dance with them

And make men weak-kneed with desire.

Galileo's daughter pauses next to a fountain and sees the stars reflected in the water.

To her, they seem like white horses drawing a carriage--

The carriage is night and she is riding in it,

Only to stop at a fountain so that she can look in.

Her father's friends call her "child" though she is twenty-two.

They set out their hearts like charts,

And like a latitudinal line,

She splits them.

Galileo's daughter lays on her back like a boy, determined to count the stars.

To her, they are like salt spilled across a cloth which then overturns into the oceans.

She steals a sextant and takes up life at sea, the shores of which are her skin.

All through the dog days, she plays Sirius to a series of lovers;

The boys won't last the summer,

But the girls sing rondeaux

And dance in the most beautiful arrangements

Beyond the ken of stunned scientists

At their instruments.

________

Art by Dante Rossetti

Excelsior!

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your recent submission to Jaded Daffodils, the literary publication of East Central Minnesota State Normal School. Our publication receives thousands of submissions for each issue. Choosing the ideal poem to place underneath the current month's International Harvester ad is a task we take very seriously. Unfortunately, we only have space for a single poem. Not all these. Not any of these. No.

Please purchase as many back issues of our magazine as you can, in order to familiarize yourself with work that has been accepted. Also, it would make the Fire Marshall happy if we got rid of some of them.

In future, we urge you not to use red marker to call attention to sections of your work you are especially proud of. Circled exclamations ("Whoa!") are not necessary. In future, please do not submit so very many poems about your cat. While references are useful to prospective landlords or employers, our editors must decline your invitation to call your Aunt Minnie, who is certain of your genius.

We know you did not write "She Walks In Beauty." We know you did not write "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic." Thank you for letting us see them, but we accept only original unpublished work.

Enclosed find personal order of protection prohibiting you from visiting our offices should you find yourself in the ECMSNS area. Thank you for the photograph of you wearing a "Go, Ground Squirrels!" tee shirt. But still.

We wish you every success in your writing career. We wish we had a million dollars. We wish it would rain diamonds and snow cocaine.

East Central Minnesota State Normal School's literary publication Jaded Daffodils is available by post. Send $65 for four quarterly issues to Mrs. Maureen Nordsberg, 22 Black Ice Circle, Sauk Center, MN. You'll receive, as a free bonus, our annual Compendium of Agricultural Verse and this attractive tote.

Sincerely,

James "Jiggy" Jorgensen, editor, Jaded Daffodils

Passage

"Hold on...

Hold on to your self,

This is gonna hurt like hell." --Sarah McLachlan

There's no short way.

Move through it

Like moving through a fever--

Move through it

Like waist deep water--

Dark below,

Dark above.

The night is full of tigers.

Oh yes,

They have broken hearts, too;

Tooth and claw no more use than

Vapor

Against these enemies

Whose names are

Pain

Loss

Fury

Hopelessness.

Lay down with them all.

Lay down with tigers.

In the morning, you'll rise up off their sleeping warmth

With stripes of ambivalence and experience

On your body, too.

Go stumbling back to the farm.

They'll know you are not the same.

You'll know it, too.

The night will stay with you

In every black stripe,

But when the fever breaks

And the tide goes out,

You can walk through the world as a woman again--

In the noon,

Tomorrow, or next week or next year,

Someone will see you and say,

"Oh,

You are so beautiful."

You will dip your head,

And once again it will be your choice

What you want to do.

__________

Thank you to the tigers, who continue to inspire me.

Birmingham Nursery Rhyme

I was brought up right--

I carry my mother in a little box

Wrapped in cotton

Under locks.

Weebles wobble

But they don't fall down--

Somehow I survived

A little angry, but alive.

It's just that, if you poke me.

I'll poke back.

Trust me, Pokey,

Gumby that.

I'm polite.

I say, fuck off please.

I wear no ink.

I believe in grace, poise, and a well-timed wink--

I carry a sap...

But it's pink.

__________

The Year That Began With Ravens

The year that began with ravens

Ends with sparrows.

I think my life

Is a candle in a paper boat;

Never meant to last.

The year that began with ravens

Has tested me

In ways I can't explain,

But nameless music

Can be as sweet as a split apple

Or as bitter

As an empty room.

The year that began with ravens

Spared a teasing taste of honey--

An aviary June.

The year that ends with sparrows

Leaves me humble

With just a jar of coins.

I think my life

Is a candle in a paper boat;

Never meant to last--

A sparrow in that twilit place

Where despair and peace are joined.

________

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Succubus, Chloe, God, The Queen Of The Vampires, Denise, Danny, Fireblossom, and everyone at Danny's Coffee Shop.

Free coffee all day!

_________

Picture: Emily the Strange