Love Poem

Here, put on this stone coat.

Walk with me.

Even if you were warm before, it will leave you shivering

And it is heavy

With plenty of pockets stuffed with regret, deception and train tickets.

Here, wrap it tight.

The seams are made of a sleety wind--

Let it whip your bones

And that paltry cup of brown leaves you call a heart.

Let's hold hands, like links in a good stout chain.

There is a starving bear on the other end,

Sick of tricks

And drooling over us twin dolls, presented like meat cookies

On a flat blind tray.

Or should we try to stay alive in naked embrace?

Clear the snow away and kiss me.

Rub ice on my blacking toes,

Shout to me through the pack ice,

I will toss flowers to you from my airless tomb beneath the floe.

I confess that I long for the warm hour in summer,

When I had coffee and my

Little ridiculous pennant

To mark the top of the world.

But it's no good, nothing will burn out here,

Not even your old love letters,

Which I should have eaten when I could--

Though they make fine cudgels now.

So come freeze with me.

Finger your old lovers' skulls like a rosary

And stuff candy promises into the open fractures;

Oh Love, it's wonderful,

We're together and I feel less and less,

They say in the end the letting go is easy--

We'll be like babies

Falling asleep under our mobile of silly debris

Airborne in the sharp stark indifference of our solitary deaths in the storm.

__________
linked for Poetry Jam, Nov. 2011 "Paradise Lost"

A Fable About Oysters

*June 30th, 1985, Michael Phelps born in Maryland, USA.

*2008 Summer Olympic Games, Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals in swimming. Many endorsements follow.

*A short time after the Olympic Games, Phelps appears on a video, smoking marijuana from a hookah pipe or similar apparatus. Some endorsement deals are cancelled.

*July, 2009. Michael Phelps is linked romantically with singer Amy Winehouse. A tumultuous tabloid affair ensues.

*August, 2009. Michael Phelps and Amy Winehouse split.

*August 2009. Michael Phelps regrets the tattoo he got last month.

*September, 2009. Michael Phelps appears on Celebrity Jeopardy!, loses.

*November, 2009, Michael Phelps releases a tell-all book. Sales are marginal, but the pages are waterproof.

*December, 2009. Michael Phelps receives another DUI, loses license.

*December 2009. Michael Phelps crashes his moped on Christmas eve, killing a squirrel. PETA stages a protest march and Phelps receives death threats.

*January 2010. In an attempt to revive his flagging celebrity, Phelps appears on a tv game show called "Fibbin' Amphibians!" Ratings are poor.

*March 2010. Swims upstream, spawns.

*November, 2010. Phelps attempts a movie career, accepting the lead in a film entitled "Creature From The Black Lagoon 2011." He wears a lumpy green costume and nearly drowns during filming when it is discovered that the suit is absorbent, causing the wearer to sink like a stone when submerged. Amy Winehouse also has a small part in CFTBL2011.

*Sued by PETA, Phelps finds himself in financial difficulty. He takes a job selling High Times door to door to make ends meet.

*2011-2012--Phelps drifts in and out of rehab and assorted affairs with series of troubled blond pop singers.

*October 15th, 2013. Phelps' body is discovered in a Motel Six in Paterson, New Jersey, having drowned in the bath tub. The maid is quoted as saying, "He looked kind of familiar."

*October 2nd, 2014. Moses Lang, a rookie for the New York Mets, becomes the first MLB player to hit .400 since Ted Williams in 1941, turning in a nifty .407 batting average. The world is his oyster.

_______

Artists

Great White sharks are naturally gentle as lambs.

They long to be painters, dancers, poets--

But, at the bottom of the sea, there are no art supply stores.

No academies.

No Barnes & Noble.

"Another fucking sunken galleon," they grumble, moods turning sour.

Their great fins are useless for holding brushes,

And watercolors?

Oh very funny.

Some Great Whites dream of being ballerinas,

And hate their ridiculous, colossal bodies.

"My beret keeps falling off," complains one shark.

"I would cut off my ear, but I can't find it!" laments another.

Naturally temperamental and sensitive to begin with,

All of this frustration leaves the sharks at less than their best.

Driven mad at her inability to shoulder her violin,

A musically-inclined White

Snaps

And eats it instead.

Swimmer, if you should blunder near,

Kicking stupidly and churning the waters below,

You will break the sharks' creative concentration,

And, perhaps,

Their hearts.

When they come to play,

Don't dismiss the single delicate fin.

Don't misread their mood.

Don't believe the simple spreading grin.

They are artists.

They are not your friend.

________

Bitter At All Winged Creatures

Bitter at all winged creatures,

I want to board up the sky;

Expunge the ones

Who dare to fly.

Then die.

________

Glass Girl

(written by request, for T.)

Beautiful glass girl, refracting the light from other sources

Admired, carefully cared for,

Protected and turned by other hands

To an angle and an attitude that pleases.

Glass Girl, full of grace

Who are you when there's no one there?

And why do you dance all night

Frozen in place

The image of whatever ornament is needed?

And despite all the pleasing and smiling,

There came a day when you were taken from your delicate case and hocked

Leaner times

And sticker shock

Made beauty an extravagance, a red-headed stepchild to necessity.

Practicality the killer of

Delicacy.

After all the sheltering hands that had known you,

Bless the gypsy who stole you

And discovered your body was not of glass but of ice.

Water has motion

And current can carry or conduct;

Steam obscures or warms

So when magic meets magician

It is the marks who gasp and refract

Like so many jewels on a rope.

There is a reason

The three fates are women.

They led you back home

To your admirers again.

But this time, when the music began,

When they smilingly reached to pose you

With their presumptuous hands,

They received the violent beauty of lightning instead.

No longer a glass girl

Posed on a stand

You call down the storm

With a diamond's command.

_________

Stone Angels

Blame Daryl for this one. ;-)

Stone angels

Fall out of Heaven,

Landing in church courtyards

And people's gardens.

Some come down in cemeteries,

But are quickly stolen.

Stone angels

May appear serene,

But their thoughts are jangled:

"My nose itches, but I can't scratch it!"

"Here comes that dog again!"

"I'm one step removed from garden gnome. Oy."

When they flutter their wings,

Gardeners and priests end up in casts

And flight is out of the question.

They cannot ride bicycles.

They are poor joggers.

They have trouble getting warm on cloudy days.

The stone angels

Don't get picked for badminton

But they have beautiful souls

And, like small children and honest lovers,

They can describe the Divine

In an easy and familiar way.

_________

Oh, Lambchop

Why did you let me get bored?

You know how I get

When the time just starts to drip drip drip

You know how I get

So why

Oh Lambchop, if you loved me, why did you blow it

End the world as we know it

Why did you let me get bored?

Your city in flame

Looks fine to me

It got so quiet when the sun set

Just knocking around the sub-let

And I got bored

You left the matches here

And they whispered in my ear

Oh Lambchop, forgive me, sometimes I just can't help myself

And you know how I get.

There is a reason law enforcement

Never gets my endorsement

So many rules

Who can remember them all?

Mother, teacher

Uncle, preacher

All told me, girl, you're headed for a fall

Oh please

Oh Lambchop, I really mean it this time

Please say

You'll stay

I never meant to do that stuff at all

But I got bored

And you know how I get

If I haven't done it

That just means I haven't done it yet

I don't like watching Dr. Phil

And housework makes me ill

I get bored

And then,

Oh Lambchop, I swear, I don't remember doing any of those things

But oh the sweet

Relief it brings

I would never leave you, not on a whim, not on a bet

But I get bored

And you know how I get.

________