When she spun out in her little car on the black ice that waited like The Cosmic Punchline, she thought no, I'm not done, I'm not ready, but then again no more work no more collection calls no more having to get up and fuck with it all. In the time it took to hit the rail time slowed down and her coffee in the little holder
spun with her-- full on one side and disappearing on the other as she thought,
I'm ready I'm not ready I'm ready I'm not ready I'm I am
Didn't I tell you, baby, I'd get you before a preacher one day?
Didn't I tell you, Lonesome, that I'd find the words to make you stay?
I saw it all, can't prove I lied--
in the case of those who've lately died.
A ring means an unbroken circle, a rope means a broken neck--
I knew one day I'd make you fall, and dance, and turn-- first east, then west. ________
Izy at Real Toads says take her to an exotic location where you'd never want to go. All right. I think a gallows is fairly exotic and I certainly never want to end up there.
The title is taken from a traditional song of the same name. It goes, in part:
I never will believe what one man says though his eyes be blue or brown-- unless he's swingin' from a scaffold high, sayin', darlin' I can't come down.
I was a chattering child living in the Sturm und Drang until a jealous dark star filled my mouth with snow and silence.
There I stayed, a drift with nothing to say for decades and donkey's years, feet nailed to the floor to prevent St. Vitus' Dance.
Though silent, I was not stupid-- I hid my heart in the hollow of a tree until such time as I could own the fever, like a yogi or a bush doctor.
Over ages, slow as a slat-leaked barrel, I incubated language inside my teeth; each word sharp as truth and long as lies.
I pulled the nails up inside my feet, until I had claws, and when I finally moved, it was under a sign-moon, quick as a curse.
I spat out the snow and my mouth learned new tricks-- there were the poems I garlanded from asters and barbed wire. There were the women who listened, and whom I kissed.
Long ago, I went back to claim my heart from the tree, and bargained with the guardian owl for a fair price and her share of a summer night.
I gave myself a name, and the name means "beloved". From that day until this, I have walked up and down upon the earth; the snakes know me and hush their hiss.
Still, for all that, here is what I have learned, and it is a woman's lesson, to be kept in a locket, in a trunk, in secret, against bad fortune when it comes in threes:
Remember, girl, that silence may still have its moment. Remember the bird who can hide your heart, and when the wind swings down and the moon goes dark, remember you can run. Remember you can run.
_______ top image "In The Woods 2" by onkami, both images found on weheartit.com
poem idea inspired by the Catie Curtis song "Run", which I can't find a video of, but the lyrics can be found HERE.
To kiss the winter is to kiss bone-lips--
to hold her is to make roots of one's fingers as one rolls in one's grave.
In my dreams, a succubus,
singing to me in crowsong;
an edge to open the blood borders behind my eyes.
Does all of this seem grim?
Let's do it on the hard wood pew,
and in the after-talk, soft and easy,
I will pull a bloom from the hymnal of my mouth, a song that has slept
and now stirs just to describe itself to you in octaves.
Once, dressed in scales of shell-pink and green,
I roamed the years like an exhaled breath,
searching for the dark-haired Queen of my dreams.
Summer found me gloomy, draped in leaf and binding,
and so she made a gift to me of her indifference;
In my hidey-hole I wove it into a flag, then burned it.
I kissed winter on her bone-lips then,
and breathed jet-colored smoke into her body--
from then on I saw her as Nubian, and beautiful as an animate jewel.
Cheshire Cat, she said,
behold now, nothing is left of you but your smile,
enchanted by me, the nothing of me, the waste.
Deep in my root-tangle, I imagined hanging gardens nodding with abundance.
Shocked with cold, I resolved to become a furnace, and fed my own flames.
As for winter, she knew a sucker when she saw one,
and laid down with me in our somnolent abatoir of illusion.
_______
On New Year's Eve, one should never choose to be solitary-- sitting, considering old lovers, particularly if you spoke French with her and she told you it reminded her of home.
I have worn red shoes until it's no longer becoming. I have swirled and spun continuously until my body told me it was done; until my heart riding inside my bones shouted in my ear, saying what should have been obvious to any idiot-- Stop. She's gone. They all are. I turned on tv, the nature channel, looking for distraction. Perhaps some brightly colored birds, up to their beady little eyeballs in gorgeous song. What I got was a dust storm of dumb beef on the hoof-- a dozen cape buffalo who had a lion trapped against an embankment. They were murdering him despite my cries despite my horrified tears.
Those of us who love lions are a different breed. In the cathedral, I spat the wafer on the floor, wanting steak, bloody, and an hour in the sun.
My German-born French-raised lover objected to the flies who constantly plague me. She didn't like the blusher I favored when she found out it came from the hearts of the herd; and yet, she climbed me as if the world were vanishing beneath her feet, and only fucking me could bring it back.
I have resolved never to love anyone again who works around cattle, as she did. I keep thinking of the lion-- though it was hopeless, he was magnificent and fierce. Though his body was being ruined, horn by horn, he seemed, more than anything, to be insulted.
Here I am, on the floor, my cheek against the carpet. It is New Year's Day, the sun is coming up, my knees ache and my right foot feels fucked in some indeterminate, but painful, way. All the same, you bullshit ballerinas better step aside.
Come sit by me, Ghost of the Offended Big Cat. I'll get to my feet and hide my own injuries if you'll do the same, and the big bright thing will have to rise across our turf and tremble if it wants to keep its date with the sky. ________ for Kerry's challenge at Real Toads
if anyone knows who should be credited with the image at top, please let me know.
