Wheels

The woman who broke her heart had red hair
And blue eyes--
A sunset over deep water.
With her head tilted back, she believed,
As the bloom believes in the bee--
She did not, could not, see it coming.

Feeling herself destroyed,
She became a woman of the earth, as the quiet ones
In graveyards are--
A bus station bohemian,
Far down the road ahead of any memory,
Alone, disappearing.

That is where she met the man,
Who counted out his life in silver blades--
She thought she could stand to be with him,
Since she wouldn't really care,
And so,
Then and there she poured herself into his emptiness
Like a jar of smoke.

Each night he sent the knives at her--
They seemed to come out of his bright white cuff, like bones,
As she turned on the target wheel.
Each night in front of a popcorn crowd,
He built a skeleton around her from fifty paces
And she became its face and heart beat.

"Do you love me?" he demanded sourly
In the small hours after a show,
And when she said "no", the next night he missed,
Twice, and cut her.
She knew that to stay meant being carved,
A bar of soap vanishing to satisfy his anger.

The buses are comforting in their way,
But now, back on the Greyhound highway,
She finds her vision empty;
Blank as tomorrow, without the flying knives,
Without anyone's body to be heart for,
Without her red-haired love with the deep water eyes.
___

picture by Metin Demiralay

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

3 poems in the style of Emily Dickinson (but with leaven of Fireblossom!)

HONESTY

Honesty and Tactlessness
are siblings, but not twins--
One lives in solitary pride,
the other stays with friends.
_____

RESPONSE

Up the narrow stair behind
the empty choir loft--
I carried your sweet letters, dear,
in ribbons pink and soft.

Your letters could not sweeter be,
if angels held the pen--
What jaded Heaven sends today,
the next calls back again.

We used the empty choir loft
to have what angels lack;
These letters full of high fine light--
one match will show them black.
_____

FOR MOTHER NARCISSUS

Are you surprised when I am cruel,
and be what I must be?
You taught me well, now go to hell--
Full reciprocity.
_____

for Real Toads Sunday mini-challenge HERE. The first poem is from 2008, the other two are new.

Checked Out

Little black dress,
new bag,
bee-stung lips.

Perfect French nails,
blow out,
Fuck Me heels.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

I saw her kiss another girl--
total dyke.
Lookit that Barbie girl--
not dyke enough.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

I saw her kiss a guy--
makes my skin crawl.
Maybe she not a wise enough girl--
maybe she not a girl at all.

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.

Torn black dress,
empty bag,
split-open lip.

Broken off nails,
she bleed out,
how's that feel?

To die for--
she got that look
to die for, girl.
_____
written for my new feature "Fireblossom Fridays" at The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
______

"I Sing The Body For Breakfast" by Stripey Rufftongue

8 nodda villaga...
leff sum bonez.
leff sum hair.

villaga nebba no where i wait...
may b here.
may b there.

nom nom me haff sum fun.
nom nom da villaga gone.

8 nodda villaga...
if u pass thru,
i eat u 2.
______

Lit On Fire...My Favorite Poet, Emily

Ella, at Real Toads, has asked us to write or tell about that poet and poem which first sparked a love of poetry in us. For me, that would be "I Cannot Live With You", by Emily Dickinson. I have it featured on a stand-alone page here at Word Garden.

It was in high school English that we studied this poem, and it took my breath away then and still does today. At the time that I first read it, there were things that I wanted really badly in my life, and I saw others having those things without even trying. I wondered, "Why is the deck stacked? Why am I denied what I want so much?" It came as a revelation to teenage me, that someone else had felt the same way, and written it down so passionately. It was one of those moments when a life turns, and I have loved poetry ever since.

As for Emily, she remains my favorite poet. No pale fraidycat, she. First, she was a redhead. 

redhead!






She had the guts to say, at college, in a time and place where belief was a given, that she was not sure she believed in God, though her subsequent poetry is full of spiritual questioning. She wrote in a style that defied poetic conventions of the time, in both form and content. And she loved another woman...her brother's wife, Susan Huntington Dickinson, who lived next door at The Evergreens. What exquisite torment that must have been! Her heart's desire so close, and yet as removed as the moon. That pain is all through "I Cannot Live With You." (To read Emily's letters to Susan--often passed by hand or through servants--read the excellent book "Open Me Carefully".)

I had the good fortune to visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, in August of 2007. I stood in the very room she composed in, and saw where she kept all her poems. I felt her there, in a personal way that floored me. I sat outside in the garden for a long time after. I felt that she knew I was there, and welcomed me. I felt her encouragement of my work. It was no subtle thing...she was there and she spoke to me. I'll never forget it.

I wrote a poem about it, a little while after returning home. Here it is:

"August"

Emily,
Were you waiting for me?
Did you find me in your garden,
And speak my secret name?
We are wicks
Twinly lit;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you press an oak leaf to your lips?
Wishing for her lips
That never softly came?
We are women
Who burn for women;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you see me?
Another bound in books
That fair divinity contain?
We ache for night
And fever bright;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

________
 

Progressive Symptomology / La Guerre

Kerry, at Real Toads, has issued me a personal challenge to write to the art of Eugenio Recuenco. I have accepted her challenge. Twice.

PROGRESSIVE SYMPTOMOLOGY

The disease began in the heart,
As all diseases do.
There were no doctors, then; no medicine,
But the nurses could smell it.
The nurses knew.

A normal heart fills
Like a drunkard's wine cup, again and again.
It floats, a hovering, invisible host,
Passing it around;
Spreading it thin.

The disease began in his heart,
Which, up until then,
Had been as anonymous within as a
Quiet neighbor, unseen and unknown,
A diamond in a fen.

A normal nurse waits
All in white like a bride, knowing her place,
Waiting at the station, or in the wings,
Like a sluggish pulse
Burning to race.

His disease began in the heart,
Then spread apace,
Involving his eyes as he declared his feckless love
Laid out in labored sighs, all over a nurse,
All over his face.
_______

LA GUERRE

I kissed a German woman,
And it brought the bombers,
That night
And every night since.
Heads have rolled,
And in my bones, I can feel
Little black eagles making their nests.

You'll say, the pilots are dead.
But, no.
They may be dust, dry as stones,
But they bomb the streets
In little neat rows
All because I kissed a woman;
All because I couldn't say no.

She warned me.
She told me, you are poor little Belgium,
Trotting out your schoolgirl French,
Fragile as a croissant in the cross hairs;
But I kissed her anyway
Like a camp-following fifteen minute wench,
And now, every night,
My little black eagles fly up through the bombs,
As quaint and fine as Kaisers;
My one-winged strutting prayers.
_______

art by Eugenio Recuenco, poetry by Shay Caroline