' Blossom

Couldn't work at the saloon
cos I always kept a derringer in my garter
and anyways I wasn't that kind of girl.

Went and bought me a fine horse,
then built a bonfire and burnt up all my hoops and corsets
cos,
you guessed it,
I wasn't that kind of girl.

Stuck around town a while,
whilst I got provisioned.
When the corner boys laughed, I invited 'em to dance
to the music of my new friend Mr. Colt .45.

Coulda stuck around town,
raising chickens and fillin' a pew every Sunday,
but I wasn't that  kind of girl, neither.

So I lit out.
Made the moon my friend and bathed in the stream,
just adding a little scent that lasted until the current took it.

Days I didn't bother getting gussied up
for the prairie dogs and critters, cos they don't care.
Whistled a tune and nobody told me "Woman, hush!"

I'd-a plugged 'em if they did.

Pulled my hat down low over my eyes,
and listened to the eagle cry the same song that lived in my soul.
Nights, a good fire and a dime novel was all I need.

Got lonely, though.
Started to pine for that blacksmith's daughter,
the one that used to half smile as I went by,
makin' my heart ring like a hammer on an iron shoe.

Finally went back into town for biscuits and rose water,
payin' no mind to the weaker sex, with their scruffy beards,
until one of 'em shouted, "Hey mister!" and slap his knee laughin'.

I started to ride by--
didn't come for no trouble,
and I was dusty from the trail and not feelin' my very best,

but then I straightened my back
and brought my horse around as the afternoon sun went behind a cloud.
"Better step out in the street," I told that man.

I hadn't used the Colt in a month of Sundays,
but as my fingers flexed just touching the handle,
it all came back to me just like makin' a pie crust.

Sam Colt got a way of sobering up a loud man,
and he just looked down at his boots and mumbled,
"Sorry Ma'am."

I still had half a mind to put one between his eyes, just for the practice,
but then that blacksmith's daughter was at my side, saying,
"C'mon honey. Let's fetch some sweet tea."

She give me that half smile,
and said she knew a place where I could shake out my hair
and get fresh.

That's when I remembered what kind of girl I am,
and it put the dip back in my hip
and the glide back in my stride.

'Blossom's back in town,
and y'all had better 
show a lady a little respect.
________ 

Book review: "Husband And Wife"

Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


About six weeks ago, I reviewed "The Myth Of You & Me" by this same author. That book blew me away and became an instant short list all-time favorite. So, naturally, I was eager to read something else by Leah Stewart. That's always a dicey proposition. There have been times when I have gone years after reading a particularly beloved novel, before reading that author again, because of the feeling that they couldn't possibly delight me so very much again; it seems like tempting fate. Sometimes, an author has just gone right ahead and blown me away a second time, but sometimes my caution turns out to be well founded.

"Husband And Wife" is not a bad book. Leah Stewart is a keen observer of people and daily life, and tells a story from a woman's perspective extremely well, which I love. The story is simple: Sarah has two small children, a job, and a husband who has just confessed to her that he's not only had an affair, but that he's then written a novel about it entitled "Adultery", a thread that seems to be forgotten half way through. The whole of "Husband And Wife" is Sarah trying to sort out who she was, who she's become, and whether or not she wants to stay with Nathan, her straying husband. I would have liked the book better if I had liked Sarah better.

She spends an awfully lot of time obsessing about her arty grad school days, during which she met Nathan and a group of other friends. She became a poet, "not a high school or a blog-post poet, but a certified poet". Speaking as a blog-post poet who can write rings around this character, based on the two poems contained in the book, I wonder about this "certified" business. A few random publications in small press magazines? To me, Sarah and her grad school crew all sound like they spend more time and energy trying to be arty, and ironic, and strike a pose, than in actually creating art. A beret and a wry tone don't mean a thing. Besides, Sarah hasn't written a line in two years.

She's become a mother and a breadwinner and the time, heart, energy and patience that those things require are very well depicted in this book. If she had been fighting to save her family, or resolved to start a new life as a single mother, I would have connected with her and cared about her a whole lot more. Instead, she goes chasing the ghost of her grad school days, when she and her friends got stoned and had impassioned arguments about Gertrude Stein, and gave each other seven-volume sets of Proust for birthday gifts. People like that just give me a cramp. Indeed, I wondered as I read this, whether it was the demands of family life that killed her poetry, or if it wasn't more accurately her comfort zone of ironic distance and squeamish disdain for real sincerity that did the deed. Lots of people smoked dope and talked shit. It just isn't very interesting, except, apparently, to Sarah, for whom it is all a lost ideal.

The best sections of this book were the descriptions of Sarah's children. She got that absolutely right; the deep love, the maddening moments of tantrums and chaos, the way having children makes a woman's life, and even her body, not just her own anymore, and the price and rewards that brings. More of that, and a lot less of the nostalgic, snobby navel-gazing would have made this a better book.



View all my reviews

blood egg

It only hurts at first.
Look--
the stars still wheel,
and you are still here, miles beneath them, like before.

To be consumed, whether by rapture or dumb beasts,
is the opening of the blood egg.
Thank the tooth or the jagged shell edge
that teaches you this sudden language of ascent.
_______

shhh

Shhh.

be still.

Curl and breathe,

turn heart's blood rich,

never minding the

tiny mote in the flesh,

so small, but more powerful

than all, a shadow that will fill

and then destroy its fragile cocoon.

Shhh, be still, be perch for dark butterflies.

__________

an etheree poem for my Witchy BFF.

some facts about milk

Milk is made from stars;
Milk is liquefied stars.

Jars for milk are made from glass;
Glass is made when lightning touches sand.

Jarred milk is most similar to the Moon;
Jarred milk wants to be the Moon.

One becomes an astronaut by drinking milk from jars;
Inside each astronaut: stars.
______

a list poem for "Are You Listing?"

and 55 words counting the title for G Man.

 

santeria sixpence

One Fury,
One Fate,
One Muse smoking by the garden gate.

Black bird,
love bird,
one on a perch--
other in the sweet ground, buried in the earth.

Do you ever get the urge to boil up a root?
Brown on the surface--
inside, blue.

Do you ever take a mind to shake a purple gourd?
A kiss for the curious,
lies for the Lord.

One card, two cards, three cards, four--
Aunt Annie likes diamonds,
hearts turn whores.

Five cards, six cards, seven cards, eight--
gone bird and baby
by the garden gate.
_________

for grapeling's word list at Real Toads

Connie

Connie's dead
but her dream is still there,
in the air,
and cannot find its way home.

Connie's bed
is crowded with strangers,
and flashes red blue red
from the ambulance dome.

Connie's dead
but her dream is still there,
in the air,
and cannot find its way home.
_______