Reincarnated Grandmothers

Reincarnated grandmothers
have had it with knitting--
fuck that shit.
Now it's our turn to not visit you.
Check us out.
Send us money on our birthdays
cos we wanna drink it up and to hell with thank-you's.
Watch us steal your bae,
troll your page,
lie, cuss, catfish.
You want cookies? 
Buy a bakery. 
______

A 55 for my BFF.
 

Sonya's Tale Of Rasputin

My sister is older than me,
by over a hundred years;
Daddy a dynamo, prolific,
with new wives as often as new cars.

Sis's name is Sonya,
and she spoke to me, 
not a year after she died.
My tea had gone cold on the night table,
and so she brought a samovar and a tale to tell,
waking me with a kiss. 

Being kissed by ghosts may be a Russian thing,
like the men getting drunk, or the inevitable failure of the collectives.
I patted the bed and we sat together,
like reindeer waiting to pull the sleigh of a midnight fable.
Finally, Sonya began.

"I met Grigori Rasputin in a barn when I was 17.
He was asleep, slack-jawed in late morning half-light,
the motes spinning lazily around him like stars. 
The Russian cross he wore
and the vodka bottle he cradled
both shone as if they had souls of their own."

I propped myself up with an elbow and listened.

"There are ways and there are ways, little sparrow," Sonya went on.
"Labor is productive, prayer is powerful.
But sometimes the breeze stirs the leaves just as if they were barynya dancers. 
All I did was set my bucket down and join him--a breeze myself--
and he showed me how God created the world."

I said, "They say he stank. That he was insane!
How could you--"

"Pochemuchka," my sister whispered, 
"Madness is essentially Russian. Without that,
without hallucinations in our blood, how could we endure the winter?
And he smelled only of straw,
holiness, and masculine vigor."

Sonya smiled then.
"Little One, do you remember my oldest,
the sandy-haired one, my poet who died on the battlefield in 1915?
Of course you wouldn't. I forget how young you are."
She looked far away for a moment, even for a ghost.
"He had the gift.
The same one you have,
a closeness with the spirit world, and an appetite for everything."

The tea was gone.
Even here, dawn arrives eventually.
Sonya finished her story, saying,
"I warned Grigori to beware
of cakes, aristocrats, bullets, and wide cold waters. 
He laughed, his big bearded head thrown back,
a booming laugh like a fireball landing in a Siberian forest.
He told me he already knew."

With that, Sonya was gone.
Our old one-eyed rooster crowed outside in the yard.
I sat up, pushing my long hair back with my fingers,
and collected my coat, scarf, and ice skates.
Out, then, to the pond where a local fox keeps her den full of kits,
watching my every move.
I spread my arms out to glide, easy as branches in a breeze,
not needing to lay eyes on her to know, 
just the same, 
that she is there. 
________

for Out of Standard at Toads

pochemuchka--a child who asks a lot of questions

barynya--traditional "Cossack Dance" featuring the prisyadka, or knee-bend. 

The Nun Who Escaped In A Fish Barrel

The vessel is weaker
than it used to be--
the page thinner,
the lover gone.

The light is lower
than in summer--
but the angle sweeter
for its brevity.

Cats care nothing
for pointless industry--
and yet they
meet every gaze.

In stillness, in silence,
in age this fire--
consumes me and shames
youth, that boastful pretender.
________

 
 

Rapunzel's Hairdresser

Rapunzel's hairdresser was one lazy bitch,
with sporadic, unpredictable hours,
and a shop inconveniently located smack-dab center of a perpetual rain storm.
And so,
when contestant #15,383 said, "Great hair!"
and really meant "How desperate are you to be seen, 
complimented,
valued,
loved?" and, more to the point, 
"Are you willing to fuck me to get it?" 
Poor Rappy lost her shit right there in the coffee bar. 

It's hard, if you've never tried it, 
to saw off ten years' growth with a plastic knife meant for
spreading cream cheese with,
but our Raps found herself filled with Messianic vigor, 
and, too, her cause was flat-out righteous.
Have you ever seen a perfectly normal girl with really unbelievably long hair
arch her back and hiss? 
Here was your chance,
and pity if you missed it.

Her girlfriends call her "Berry", which started as
Rappy, then Rappy Raspberry, then just Berry.
Now they say,
"Lookit YOU, sugar!" and rise out of their mid-afternoon drowse
and make all appropriate noises one makes about a girl with a fresh style.
So, when contestant #15,384 asked if she was a dyke,
out of jealousy or fear of female power or 
by way of eliciting a shame response or something,
she was Teflon,
she was made of gold,
gloriously side-shaved and in the moment,
too cool for fools and he walked out, hands in pockets,
back to his wife and the 
apartment above the empty shop in the never-ending rain storm.
And our Berry?
She does her own hair now. Word.
_________

for Camera FLASH!

 

Marry Me When I'm Dead

Marry me when I'm dead,
with bloom-eyes of aster sockets.

Accept me as your fleshless bride in degrees of white,
your rock-bound toad with the sand-grit kiss
always emptying, dear--
betray me--I won't care.

Marry me when I'm dead,
and consider:

Asters are named for the stars they resemble,
which, similarly, require no air.
______

A Friday 55 for my BFF.

Orphan Bus In The Underworld

When the Orphan bus in the Underworld stopped
for Unhappy Meals,
the orphans removed the driver's brain and fucked with it.
Out, then, from the dark,
back into mayhem and political doubletalk,
the Occupied Zone their parents died for.

Power comes to the innocent. The Virgin sees to this. 

First, a fish tank for the Premier,
gills and a ceremonial sash trailing in the algae.
Then, a pencil in the eye for every perved-out fat man,
and their scion sons putrefying inside local dance clubs. 

From a book bag--the Sun!
Roiling, blazing, launching sunspot flares!
Snowman parents, gooshy as Christmas;
running in Church allowed.
____________

106 Words for Angie at Toads. Is 106 more than 100? The Orphans say no. 

It's "Orpheus IN the Underworld", not "AND the Underworld." No wonder the stupid boat sank.

Friends, and a book review

One of the best things that can happen is to find a good friend, someone you can share your stuff with, the highs and lows, the triumphs, tragedies and trivia of daily life. It's even better if that friend becomes an old friend by sticking around through all of the twists in the road. 

I have the good fortune to have the world's best BFF, Joy Ann Jones, aka Hedgewitch. She has kindly written a fantastic review of my newest book, "Catechism For A Girl On Fire", on her blog. Please go read it HERE. Honestly, I am humbled by her kind words about my work. Joy, you're the best.