Vespers For A Rainy Night

Raindrops thick as fever fill my window pane--
Between each, the barest space;
Outside, the dampened night streets shine
Like your skin, My Love, and face.

I close my eyes like folded wings--
I search for you and say these things:

Touch me
deeper
Warm me
deeper
Know me
deeper
Take me
deeper

These are my devotions, true and spare--
Like water on glass, I offer my
Profane and perfect prayer.

I know that in the light of day,
Cherished does not mean blessed--
But tonight you are my holiest joy--
Devil take the rest.

I close my eyes like folded wings--
I fill with you and say these things:

Touch me
deeper
Warm me
deeper
Know me
deeper
Take me
deeper

These are my devotions, true and spare--
Like water on glass, I offer my
Profane and perfect prayer.

_____

for One Shot Wednesday #20

Cathleen of The Peat Bog

Cathleen of the Peat Bog gets up,

Heaving herself out of the muck and onto the shoulder of the highway.

300 years she has lain there--

300 years she has slept, not wanting to deal.

Now she's on the move.

Now she faces the SUVs and hybrids and sticks out her thumb,

Praying that it doesn't fall off.



A woman hitching a ride will always get one,

From some married guy named Rick,

Still listening to Boston

And knowing all the words.

Oh well,

It's all new to Cathleen of the Peat Bog.

She asks to be dropped at a chain pharmacy.

The woman at cosmetics recommends Aveeno,

Olay,

Tresemme,

And Colgate whitening.



Cathleen of the Peat Bog leaves with her purchases,

And goes down by the creek behind the strip mall

To clean herself up.

She feels better,

Then realizes she has been wearing the same dress for 300 years,

Not to mention the same panties and bra.

Horrified,

She pitches them into the chain pharmacy's dipsy dumpster

And crosses the highway boldly naked.



Into Lane Bryant she goes,

Pale skin glistening,

Red hair

Trailing lustrous down her back and shining unabashedly elsewhere,

Stunning the outclassed saleswomen into worshipful silence.

"I want this," says Cathleen of the Peat Bog,

Holding up a green dress with lace all along its plunging neckline.

"Take it," say the saleswomen,

As if speaking to the Queen of Killarney.



Down the street she goes,

Around a bend

And up some steps to a door.

She rings the bell.

She looks so good, so lushly curved and dangerously wise,

That doves land on her shoulders as she waits;

Doves,

And a falcon on each arm.

A man answers the door and she fixes him with her fabulous green eyes.

He is the son of the son of the son of the--

Well, he is a direct descendant of the son of a gun who broke her heart and left her in the peat bog,

300 long years ago.

His name is Pat.

(isn't it always?)

He is married.

He still listens to Foghat,

And knows all the words to "Slow Ride."

She slaps him a good smart smack,

Though whether for his musical taste

Or for his lineage, is not clear.



Cathleen of the Peat Bog is not finished.

She goes past him,

Birds fluttering as she strides inside;

Half an hour later,

She has stolen his wife.

"May the wind forever be at your back," she says to him on the way out,

Then mutters something else,

And both women laugh.



This has been the story of the cruel and beautiful Cathleen of the Peat Bog,

Who,

300 years ago,

Told a man, "It's all right, honey. I understand",

And he believed her.

My Favorite Devil

I don't like real evil.

It sends a frost across my bones

And slows my heart to a labored ache.

I run

Like a cat that's been called

I hide

Like Christians' kindness.



But when I was a little girl,

And my mother was making things so clean that they yelped,

I liked to sit at the splintery picnic table

Playing with poisons.



Mama say,

"Did you drink these?"

She shake me good, like a dirty rag rug, beat me like one, too.

"Did you?"

I'm ugly, not stupid.

I know how to keep my soul and bones together,

And that's why I nap in the middle of the wild dog pack

When you come callin' my name

With that sharp look in your eye.



I like devils.

Daddy taught me good English and good eatin'.

He taught me you laugh when you can and leave when you must.

He's wrong, so wrong,

And dead and gone

But I still love him--

The only man I ever will.



Mama came from the country,

But Daddy was the one who loved it.

Like everything else that warmed his blood,

He made me love it, too.

I run through the cornstalks like a haint,

Slip through the morning fog like a river spirit,

And just before you found me,

I was hiding in a silver maple.

When the anvil cloud came,

Its leaves turned over--

And when the pressure dropped,

So did I.



You, my favorite devil, said,

"Who are you, little fireball?'

Ain't nobody.

Never was.

As the funnel came across the farm land behind you,

You told me,

"Let me scoop you up,"

And I became your debris.

You were the first to make me shout out the savior's name,

But from my back,

Not my knees.

You were the first to say,

"Beautiful

Beautiful

Beautiful girl,"

And I broke apart in the storm of you, amazed and believing at last,

Crying for joy

In the swirl and devastation we lay in.



Well I don't care.



I knew you were a devil all along.

I am the daughter of two devils, after all,

And I can tell which shade of black is the one I love.

My friends all warned me, "That one is poison.

Did you drink it?

Did you?"

Not just yes, but hell yes,

And now I feel wicked beautiful.

If I have to live with lies, let them be your lies,

All down the rest of my life.

_______

Love In The Open Spaces

She made the revival preacher forget his bibles--

Then sold him to the devil for a dollar.

She loved a gypsy exactly one rainy year--

Then was sold herself

For a smoke and a half-warm bottle of beer.

You cannot find love in Commerce,

Nor swap back your soul.

You cannot stop the wind.
___________

This poem has nothing to do with either of them, but nonetheless, it is dedicated to my two heartland blogger friends, Mama Zen and Hedgewitch, as well as to the man from the mitten, G Man.

The Juju Cowgirl

The juju cowgirl

Came like Venus straight out of the water--

Her horse stepping high,

And her hat brim pulled low.



She swayed in the saddle like a prom queen's last dance,

Holding the reins loosely

As she passed the factories, row houses,

And on past a flock of taxis at their stand.



The juju cowgirl only knows one way to kiss--

Like it's high summer in the mountains.

Just before she left,

She painted a moon and stars mandala

On the soft skin of her best girl's back.

She kissed her hair and both shoulders,

Falling across her like yellow sunlight through lace curtains.

Now she wakes up sore

And still in the saddle.



Past the smokestacks and train tracks she rides;

Her horse tosses his head as they cross an endless dirty steel bridge

With the buses and pick-up trucks

High above the wide holy water.



The juju cowgirl loves the prairie grass

And the hot sun from an empty sky;

Leaving the city at night,

She stops beneath the orangey sodium lights by the freeway entrance.

After this,

There is only cool air and the miles ahead.



The juju cowgirl will find her way--

She will use magicks, leather, and horse sense.

She will navigate by the stars,

And no matter the distance or the passing days,

She carries the charm you gave her

And if she loves you

You will know.

_________

for magpie 40

In the time before Joan Jett....

In the time before I knew there was Joan Jett, I had a different musical crush. I still remember being in a record store (yes, a record store, where each album took up about five square yards of space, had the singer or band's entire biography on the back, a poster inside, and all of it shrouded in mystery by an artsy cardboard sleeve.)

Anyway, there I was in the record store, morose little thing that I was, poking around, looking for new Leonard Cohen or Laura Nyro or Tim Buckley, when I saw a new singer with just the cutest face and hair (turns out she was Miss Dust Flats Junction or something, at one time) and had to investigate.

Well, as you all know, I cannot be tempted by anything, and so I left that album right there in the record store. But after I had had time to think about what I had done, I went back to the record store and bought "Elite Hotel", and fell completely in love with Emmylou Harris.

I love her singing, I love her song selection, I love her looks...okay, especially that. I have always really liked long straight dark hair, long and straight being the style when I was a shrimp, and so it even to this day makes me feel young again, so that I can nearly summon the gumption to throw off my shawl and wheel my chair a few feet down the hallway of the home before falling asleep again drooling on my cardigan.

But wait! There's more! My girl went gray somewhere along the line. And....she looks fantabulous that way. The nerve of some gals. Plus, she appears to age only in reverse dog years. That is, one year for every seven the rest of us do. I mean, look at me, I look like I just climbed up out of the crypt most days, while Emmylou looks hotttttttttt. Life is completely unfair.

In recent years, I had managed to forget about Emmylou somehow. Too busy listening to Wall of Voodoo, I suppose. But now I have remembered her. Damned nice of me, I think. And now I am smitten all over again. She's even got the tragic love affair with the late Gram Parsons. The woman has it all. I hate her. But I don't. Sighhhhhhhhhhhh....

Famous Poets

There are famous poets
In hallways,
Stacked on trolleys
Like cases of beer.

What to do with famous poets?
You can't just throw them out--
They might be worth something
Someday.

Famous poets are nearly always men--
Even the women.
They say,
"See here,"
And then wander off.

I stacked famous poets in my fireplace--
Feet to foreheads,
Then lit them;
But they were damp and peevish,
Making more smoke than fire.

Christina Rossetti told me,
"Bury them deep,
So the dogs won't dig them up."

Emily Dickinson told me,
"Use them for compost,
Then bring your longing to my room."

I am as unknown as a laundress in the Famous Poets' House;
Even my pulse is a secret, known only to my cat,
And to each fresh-struck hour of the night.
I'm telling you,
I'm going to bring them all down.

No one will see me
Wheel the trolleys out to the fen--
Only one will hear me
Coming up the back stairs empty-handed
Again.
_________

For One Shot Wednesday week 19

For the record, I adore Christina and Emily. The "famous poets" of my poem are the ones who, though terribly well-known, basically made me want to shoot myself in the head rather than study them.

__________