Caesura

You were candy-cane ribbons, silky coils of color,
As you played, giving an impish tug on a branch.

You were enough color to set the sky aflutter.
Shaming the pink and orange—even the daring purple!—with your flirtations.
And just remembering, I am a deluge of color,
Mostly yellow, as I recall, in awe, the bold grasp of your arms,
And the purposefulness of your feet on the peeking roots of the oak tree.

You swung and your toes made an upside down arc-en-ciel.
And the branch, laden with the weight of a girl,
Bowed in creaky submission.
My cowardice kept me still, but the oak tree and I,
We knew what it was to bend for you,
To open a little more in prismatic wonderment.

Call Two Arms (in progress)

When the shofar trumpets
Instead of weapons
Let's call two arms
Two arms to encircle
Two arms to lift up

So mothers, who beat the ground
And to the vacant sky, call
Where has my son gone?
Where has my sun gone?
They'll have two arms, supporting
Two arms, embracing

Until tiny feet marching
Are tiny feet marching
No more

And when they smear war paint
On their cheeks and their chests
Let's call two arms
Two arms to reclaim
Two arms to hold close

this one's not mine, but I do love it so

In Praise of Four-Letter Words
by Ellen Bass

We tell shit
when the egg carton slips
and the ivory globes
splatter on blue tile.
And when someone leaves you
bruised as a dropped pear, you spit
that fucker, fucking bastard, motherfucker.
And if you just got fired, the puppy
swallowed a two-inch nail, or
your daughter needs another surgery,
you might walk around murmuring
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
under your breath like reciting a rosary.

Cock and cunt--we spew them out
as though they were offal,
as though that vulnerable
bare skin of the penis, that swaying it does
like a slender reed in a pond, the vulva
with its delicate mauve or taupe
or cinnamon fluted petals were the worst
things we know. You'd think we despise
the way they slide together,
can't bear all those nerves
bunched up close as angels
seething on the head of a pin.

And suck, our yes
to the universe, first hunger, whole
mammalian tribe of damp newborns
held in contempt for the urgent rooting,
the nubbly feel of the nipple in the mouth,
fine spray on the soft palate.

What does it mean
to bring another's body
into our body, whether through our mouth
or that other mouth--to be taken in?
When life cracks us
like a broken tooth,
when it wears us down
like the tread of old tires,
when it creeps over us
like shower mold, isn't this
what we cry for?

Maybe all that shouting
is shouting to God, to the universe,
to anyone who can hear us.
In lockdown within our own skins,
we're banging on the bars with tin spoons,
screaming in the only language strong
enough to convey the shock
of our shameful need. Fuck! --
we look around us in terrified amazement--
Goddamn! Goddamn! Holy shit!

"How long til my soul gets it right?"

Lilliputian Bets Cycle

I've been doing some reading
And what I have decided
Is that in a previous life
I was a scullery maid
And you were a washerwoman
We gossiped about the lady of the house
And I secretly left lovenotes for you to find
In the pockets of frock coats
And helped you guess
That they were from the thatcher's son
And hoped you knew they were from me

And in another life
You were a rhinoceros
And I was one of those birds
You know, the kind that hangs out by rhinoceroses
I kept the bugs of your back
And got fed in the process
It was a win-win

Then in the one after that
I was a gun moll
And you played for a little jazz ensemble
We met in a speakeasy
I held my cards to my chest,
Kept your bourbon glass in high cotton
And watched your clarinet jealously

And in one way, way back
I was a great banyan
And you were a swaying bodhi tree
We shaded little tulsi plants and wandering chitals
And when the wind blew we had a dance
And our branches almost touched

And in our most recent past lives
We were both mayflies
I had almost built up the courage to tell you how I felt
I had been stewing all day
And just when I finally thought I might be brave enough
To buzz in such a way that you'd know,
All at once the sun set
And we were both eaten by an owl.

Et voila, here we are again
With you so close to knowing
And me, so close to telling
And I can't help but think
I'm making progress
Even if it takes me another three or four lives to go all in,
Shuffle my way to your door
(Or burrow, or igloo, or den)
And say that I like like you
And have for quite a while
And would you like to go for coffee
(Or caribou, or marshgrass, or sunshine?)

"your love calms my brambles"

Artemis and the Night


I pull one arm back,
The right,
And you see me focus
Then
An arrow lands
Exactly where I meant it to

That, I can do

If I look
Up
Even in the daytime
I know where you are

I can hear your footsteps
Thunder
On the pliant earth

Orion, I never meant this

There are things I couldn't say
Aloud, even to
The trees
But to you I could

To you I could say
Why I keep hunting
Or why no one can touch me

Things I could not tell
My brother

And now
You are distant points of light
And though I cannot speak to you,
Knowing it was my sting
That did you in,
Under you I still feel
Seen

I never meant this, Orion
Never meant to be
So far away
Or to leave you in space

But I am called back
In the night
To where that tiny speck in the center
Of the ocean
Still calls my name

Pan Left

This Halloween I daydreamt of All Saints
All saints were nimbus and placid mouthed
Let me be someone else
Calm my itchy hands and away with this bellow
I was Quasimodo and railing in a tower
The bells I ring, the bells I ring
The bells that never ring for me
Zealous in their glorious timbre
They sounded, resounded, until
I opened my eyes to a desk, a chair
And a bellicose phone, which did not ring but chided
And there was no tower
How much fight is left in this Boleyn dream?
Pan left me in the space of a minute
Sighing, "Lord, what fools these mortals be"
I stirred, and was no angel, no nymph arising
No beautiful glitter-eyed lover
But an elbowy girl shaking dew from her hands
Disappointingly and irrevocably herself
On the day after Halloween
I left a novena in my mouth and tried to stay awake

In Which I Begin "Operation Suck Less."

That's what I'm calling it.
I've decided.

The title is practically the most important part, right?

I'm ready.

Suck less.


It's a three-fold mission, encompassing the following concepts:
Be honest, develop a spine, and take care of myself.
The idea is that those things that make me wail,
"Augh, why do I suck so much?"
Will no longer have a place setting at my table.

So, next time you ask me why I didn't call you,
I will say, "Because I got distracted by life!"
Instead of,
"Um, I dropped my phone into a sewage drain.
It's cool, though. I got it back this morning."

And next time you suggest we go to Hello Sushi
Even though you know I don't eat seafood
And the pop art and intense techno music give me heart palpitations,
I will say, "No! Let's have cereal for dinner."

Choice of Rivers

You died.

It was not as bad as it might have been.
There was crying, cursing, pleading,
Yes, but altogether, it was not graphic.
Your friend held your hand, and even when
You shuddered and sobbed, he didn't look away.
And then you died.

You were broken into thousands of pieces
And your more ethereal parts arose.
Somehow still achy, you floated down
Between two rivers.
And a raisin-skinned man received you
With smoke on his tongue,
Gestured to the rivers
And said, "We begin again. But first you choose.
Lethe or Mnemosyne?"

Lethe beckoned to you.
This river, she proffered toothsome forgetfulness.
She sang, but didn't stop at singing.
She hummed, rocked, swayed.
When you peered in to plumb her,
She gleamed back, inviting nothingness,
Charming satin, enveloping nothingness.

You turned to see the other river,
And Mnemosyne sneered.
Glowering from her bed,
She dared you to test her depths.
When you looked, you did not see
Attractive bubbles, gentle currents,
But instead saw your own reflection.

It was aflame with memory:
The sting of every wound,
The hiss of your breath outward,
Exit lover and colder hands on your shoulders.
Things you learned the hard way.
This was what she offered,
Stark and unrelenting.

You stood, then, on the bank between rivers
While the raisin-skinned man waited
And you did not know which water to drink.
Is it better, you thought, to try again and not know?
You looked to the papery old man
Hoping for some indication.
But he offered no advice, no testimony.

Lethe glimmered, promising you a fresh start.
She wound serenely, attractively,
As if to say, Choose me
And you can be someone new.
Sip and forget.

Mnemosyne was irritable.
She sloshed and steamed, and clearly her tide
Did not believe in sipping
You are not and will not be new, he heard.
But you will be as you are
And what you have suffered will stay with you.
Choose what you will.
Either way you will end up here again one day.

You recalled your life, and the gifts you had wished for,
The times you had prayed to the gods
To make you someone else.
This would be your chance to undress yourself
Of your old foibles and mistakes.

So you knelt at the side of Lethe
And sipped from your cupped hands the opalescent drought.
As promised, you felt nothing.
Nothingness, tumbling over emptiness,
Giving way to a vacuum, a drafty oubliette.

Missteps erased, you alit back on the earth.
You began anew, blissfully unaware of your past lives.
And you lived for a while, until you died.
It was not as bad as it might have been.

Achy from the loss of your body,
You floated down between two rivers.

On Having Grown Up

The appearance of loveliness wore off gradually.
It started with the faerie dust, which had to be swept
From crevices in the Wendy House.
The island in the clouds became a kitchen peninsula,
Fading into a grout and tile countertop.
She had known it would be a compromise,
But couldn't have guessed
How he would sulk when she did not want to fly,
Or how he'd become impatient when the illusion broke
And he came to understand
That calling himself Father didn't really make him one.
How he didn't want to come home.
Their lives more and more embodied Never-Never
And the boy she had married was a real person,
Who still dreamt of fighting pirates and Indians
But resigned, instead, to a mortgage.

Citypaint

She had brushes, sponges,
Cheap acryclics, and inks.
And I had spray paint, glitter,
And peanut butter sandwiches.
We looked for a project,
Something to make beautiful.

So we looked where we thought
Things were not yet beautiful.
We painted a bench on the levee,
Made little glittery hearts and
I asked, "Is this art?"
She said, "Probably."

We drove north of town,
Saw men with hard faces
Men on porches
Men with cardboard signs
Men, whistling, asking, and eying.
I thought about glittering the street.
I asked, "Is this art?"
And she said, "No, this is life."

We found a blue house
With creepers over the windows
("It's probably haunted.")
("Yes, probably.")
("I dare you to touch the door.")
("No, you touch the door.")

We found beautiful things,
Things that were not childproof
And things that had been abandoned.
We huddled back into my room,
Pulled blankets up to our noses,
And wondered about our adventures.
I asked, "Is this art?"
And she said, "No, this is love."

One two punch

Shut up, I'm being profound.

I want an obscure line of mine
To end up as the title of a really good
Film at Sundance or Cannes.

I don't know what I want to say.
I just want it to mean something.

Tuesday song (in progress)

Tuesday Song

Oh Tuesday, Tuesday
She had rhythm in her knees
In her elbows and her pockets
And her mama couldn't stop it

Oh honey it was black-eyed peas
Oh honey it was rhythm in her knees
And oh honey it was pink lemonade
And oh honey it was black-eyed peas

Tuesday, Tuesday, she whipped her braids around
Some slick young cat
He liked the sway of her back
So whistling at those swinging braids
He yowled and wound around her legs

Oh honey, it was stars and the moon
Oh honey, it was black jelly beans
And oh honey it was cherry cherry pie
And oh honey, it was stars and the moon

And Tuesday's tapping
Her way around the kitchen
Where, oh honey, it was black-eyed peas
Oh honey, it was pink lemonade
And Tuesday, Tuesday
Over-salted those black eyed peas
And if you know anything
Well, you know what that means

Can only mean Tuesday's in love
And there's no reasoning with somebody in love
And her mama said,
"Don't you do that dance
And bring trouble into my kitchen."

So Tuesday, she danced herself
Right out of the house
Tuesday, she danced herself
Right out into the rain
Where that slick young cat
Who liked the sway of her back
Didn't like so much
All her mama's fuss

Saw her tapping, tapping down the street
Humming, singing "Oh Glory be"
Before that song had left her mouth
He was a-running on his way south

Where, oh honey, birds fly in v’s
Oh honey, it was tall palm trees
Oh honey, it was sunny all the time
And not a trace of black-eyed peas

Poor Tuesday found
Her rhythm slowed down

If I wrote slam poetry, it would start like this...

This battle you speak of
With your fist raised high
It's not so much a battle
As it is a lullaby
And yes, there are fighters
Who say, "Now that ain't right"
But even they go home
And turn on their tv's at night
And I, among them
Can't for a moment deny
The pervasive appeal
Of the American lullaby

4252 N. Harrison Street, Apt. 388

Encased squarely by our silly concrete floors
And the wrapping paper walls, we can hear
The neighbors watching pro-wrestling
When we're on the floral couch.
The lights short and it's dark in our hidey hole
Where ramen noodles
Dump MSG into our bloodstreams.
We learn not to glance over at movement
Because it's probably something
With six legs and an exoskeleton.
If you listen to both drips,
The shower and the sink,
They make a little waltz
Which is what you and I are doing here.
Nothing fancy, just a little waltz,
And our peasant feet give light to
The one-two-three of the
Water-wasting rhythm

Incantation (or, Sometimes I Wish I Were a Voodoo Queen)

Red swamp lady, call now to me
Resound below the waterline
Belay my hands, sweet sugar water
For that man, dark and leonine
Invocation, exhalation
Legba runs with les Mystères
With proud loa, dancing cobra
Mask the smell of burning hair
Daytime mister, speak in whispers
Fishermen’s knots work under my skin
Moon-eyed sister, mossy vista
Into my fabric press round little pins

sprog thoughts

200 33rd St. squats phonetically in a cactus garden
Where the front step slants so I have to run past the sprinkler
And stop on a dime so I don't hit my shins on the
Second step up, but then a breath and I'm inside where it's
Palpable love, and Diorite the Awkward Cat
Straddles the wingback.
The shopping carts are piled high
With sixty-something loaves of bread
And countless onions
(Here I am lying about countless, because there were ninety)
And that's just the first round and then
Timid smiles sidle up to peanut butter sandwiches.
The heat gets into my hair and my clothes, and I chop
Onions and more onions, and its dry
like nothing Louisiana has ever considered.
From the very first night, when I soak through my blanket,
I know good things are coming
So I cook and my apron pockets fill and the week blurs
Into sweat and endless chopping, punctuated by a beautiful,
Beautiful storm and its accompanying game
Of lap tag and rain dancing.
And I cannot imagine loving them more when I hear that
Yes I am angry, and yes you are angry,
But isn't it amazing how Love is bigger?
So we link into a new kind of trust, and I learn
That Matt has soft eyes and he speaks
To us as though we were in on his inside joke
And Gustavo always comes back for
Vegan seconds, and Lizzie knows every Disney
Song ever made, god help us, and Amanda is moved
To her very bones so she breaks
Down in the girl's bathroom where Katie,
With her heart-shaped face and round blue
Eyes and no clue what she's worth, says "It's okay, love.
We'll never forget, we'll never forget." So when they,
Red-eyed, come out of the bathroom we
Melt into the most healing kind of laughter.
We embark bravely into anti-oppression and all
Gasp audibly when Noel says that
She and her family were mistaken for the live-in help,
And the simulation arrives and everybody's
Brows knit and maybe we get a little
Snappish the night before but when the
Morning comes Anna heaves in her
Smoker's voice, and Rachel talks through
Her nose, and nobody can stop
Laughing at how ridiculous we all are.
And what I will remember
Comes not from the chopping and chopping of vegetables,
Or the way my feet pound for hours
After I've sat down, but from the way Rachel
Lights up on her birthday when we
Present her with lemon poppy seed cake, or
The way Adelaide doesn't even hesitate
To jump into harmony with me, or how
Acadia and I make a secret fort
Under the picnic table and discover
That she over-salted the pancakes because she
Is in love, and I understand, I understand
Because I've stumbled upon so many
New soul mates that I am certain
I will never feel totally alone again

A Discovery

Oh women
With your squiggly lines
You misbehave and can't remember
How not to judge

So in a room with pillows
And more women
You sigh out of your corsets
What a relief!
How you say, "Thank you
For your permission! "
Eyes round as doberge cakes
You hear the voices
The other women
Who say "Oh!
I am not crazy?"

No, you are not!
You are wide and consummate
What is it in you that longs to be nurtured?
Let it have air!
Give it to the world
And be as you are
As you are
As you are

It is not so easy to trust
To be here and now
But believe, please, that below you
Is a latticework
Of women
With wide and consummate hands

Number 24

Green light, we read novels in the late afternoon, you remember to leave a note, I purr and you scratch my back
Red light
I grouse about folding clothes
You drink more often than I think you should
Red, red light
When you say I've no room to talk because all the candy I eat
Will rot my teeth and give me diabetes
And we're going to die anyways so quit all the fussing
Green light, we have dinner outside and play hangman on napkins and gleefully cheat at cards
Red light
Isn't it always a long day
Work drags, and traffic's bad
There's never really enough money
Green light, when you're just the right temperature, and I sidle in close, and you smell like earth and salt and home
Red light
You don't ever hit but you can see how a person might want to
Green light, we plant a tomato garden
Red light
I forget to water it
Greenlight, we might move to Seattle
Redlight
I clam up when you ask what I want
Greenlight, you
Redlight
Then somewhere along the way
We melt into yellow

My Reveille

The day arrived in leaden pounds
Tethered to construction sounds
Pulled floorward, flat onto the ground
And prone, I waited to be found

I lolled in perfect loathsome dread
My heaviness with guilt crossbred
“But let there be light,” you said
And all my blues, they came out red

In songs about St. Valentine
With glass pipes in a conga line
With harmonics and dark wine
And laughter in three quarter time

Immediacy of the Kiss

(OR Immediacy of the Kiss and Penelope’s Reflections on How It Can Make You Do Things You Know You’ll Probably Regret Later)

Limping Odysseus
Your murders are forgotten
I’ll rush to your side
Your murders are forgotten for now

After years of fighting, running
Nothing, nothing left to fend off
Shed your ramparts with your tunic
Nothing, nothing left to defend

But do it soon, and very soon
Come tomorrow, I may remember
Calypso and Circe
Come tomorrow, I may remember their names

Don’t give me time to think
The blood on your hands
The men who died for you and from you
Their blood on your hands on my hands

Let those things slide away
In this instant, only your breath
No hero’s song, no fanfare
In this instant, only your breath and mine

But do it soon, and very soon
Come tomorrow, I may remember
The punishment of the hours
Come tomorrow, I may remember their names

I’ve had a decade of waiting
Maybe later I’ll hold you
For the sneers of my beaux
Maybe later I’ll hold you responsible

Perhaps tomorrow, but for now
Tomorrow’s farther off
The laws of proximity insist
Tomorrow’s farther off than this kiss

hmpff

I want a snuggle buddy. Now please.

"Je m'ennui de mon pays"

Barcelonette

Mountain air is different
Somehow
Closer to the sun, perhaps
Or the snow that never leaves

Finds me somehow crisper
More acutely outlined

I tend to blossom
Under the watchful nod of gristly Frenchmen

Michel Dallo shrugs
And tells again the story
Of how he climbed Kilimanjaro
In three days
But took only one day to get back down
Because he was tired of eating
Peanut butter

The summer opens me to
Woodchucks and local wine

And Michel Dallo
Goes rock-climbing and laughs with us

At the Fête Texas
I cannot help blushing
When they proudly serve
Barbeque on baguettes
Under a Confederate flag

We toast mint diablos and
Pass around tomme du vallé and camembert

I fall in love quickly
With the shepherds and statesmen, and feel sure that

I will tell my grandchildren
Of the time Michel Dallo
Drove our van so close to the edge of the mountain road
I thought we’d all die
But instead

We lived

Water Poems About a Girl

Number 22
One of Four

It was not the moment of goodbye
But the moments
Upon moments
Which followed

Those endless moments
That made me wish
I could build levees round my heart

For long after you left
I found traces of you
An earring, a camisole
A pillow still bearing your scent

Each finding, a moment
To make the time drip by
A leaky faucet
To keep me awake
Against the quiet of the night

Stretching seconds


Into minutes



A stop motion flood











An Invitation
Two of Four

Why don't you come back down to where
My heart vacations

When the days are long and hot,

Where the gentle smell of salt
Is stronger than the carnage outside,

Where my unspoken cravings pulse,
Surge, tighten, release forever

It's not always quiet there

But you'll find a forest, a river,
A cavern that goes to the center of the Earth

So perhaps you come down
To this, my locus,

And perhaps this time you stay









Number 38
Three of Four

The thought of your smile
Takes me far from today, far from the mountains
And all the ways we failed ourselves

I plant my heels and with my back taut
I steel against the current of memories

And I can't forgive you this ocean
Nor the way the clinking coffee cups
And running baths became a refrain
And my screams, our swan song

I feel my knees begin to bend

And I can taste how easy it would be
To slide into where someone else
Has already begun to pool photographs of you

So I try to remember that when I cry for you
The dirt on my hands turns to mud

And nothing will ever be as cool and clear
As the last time I saw you smile








Water Poems About A Girl
Four of Four

Here is what I have learned:

Do not fall in love in a hurricane.

Hurricanes serve too well for itchy poets
Grasping for love metaphors
Pain metaphors, loss metaphors, power metaphors
But mostly: love metaphors

Poet eyes scour the news
Hungry for imagery
The wind and the bullets of rain
The lists of casualties and the understanding
That hurricane season comes every year

Poet molars grind, and it’s almost kitschy
How love, my love and her love,
Was a hurricane

Heat and wet and rising air
Wake of broken china and snapped plant stems
The easy, easy way out
Nonetheless, I’ve written a small set of
Inexcusable water poems about a girl

“I Find It Most Curious,” the Mouse Said of the Butterfly

Day by day
I grow more aware

Tiny miracles(you think I don’t notice them you with your silk and your crafty hands)
but I do.

Good morning, I am your chrysalis
(I know what may lie inside!)

We young and writhing souls
Will be your broken silverdrops and your blue-eyed sailors
Your malachites and your mourning cloaks
Your satyr commas and your shasta blues
No two the same

So I wait(and sometimes you might even call it patiently)
Wanting to become, aching to change

Not and still not there yet

It’s a tiny miracle—all I ask—a tiny miracle to take this flailing caterpillar

And make me a butterfly

I Dreamt

Craving somnolence, I think
Sleepsleepsleepsleep
Pass the dream around
And spice of ages run through
Tired eyes and purple veins

In less then a minute I am
The darkest shade of burgundy you have ever seen

So you fly me a cloud or two
Creek so slightly lightly in my
Figure, it's all just
Swimming along

So naturally I sing sing
In pockets of clover and
Taken for days at a time I am
Zebra-striped madness loving
All but a pocketmouse

Navigatrice

The Navigatrice
Is tiny
But do not for a second
Underestimate her

I follow her
When I can keep up
Swearing under my breath and

While I thrash through cobwebs
She lilts through memories

And gingerly points out
Ideas
Like Vanna White
Smilingly illuminating clues

I resent on occasion
The uneasy footing

Finally
With wobbly legs and
Soreness in my voice
I ask, "Where am I
Going?"

Her eyes slide across the horizon
Then she points
At my chest
On the left side
Below my collar bone
And says,

"There."

An Offering

When too early the extinguished flame
It was a mother's voice that came
Billowing up from some primal place
She tore her dress and hid her face
"Oh heart, poor heart, my heart" she sang

The man, stony-eyed with lethargy
Walked dreamlike through the cemetery
His mind could not bear the processing
As his wife kept on to sing and to sing
"Oh heart, poor heart, my heart" sang she

For any imagined fate is preferred
No father breathes the same afterward
His fist around his own heart curled
He reasoned it is an upside-down world
When a parent lives and a child's interred

His heart a throbbing, seizing mass
He believed the rest of his days would pass
With the wearing of sackcloth and smearing of ash
Her heaving breaths a thunder crash
A jagged fulminate, "Alas!"

When "Oh heart, poor heart, my heart" she cried
A tiny glimpse of hope espied
Reminding her of Love and Light
To wait out patiently the night
So these dark times she might abide

And their hearts, poor hearts, broke wide open
But Love and Light came softly spoken

So after time, in sadness seething
They moved to quieter, softer grieving
And were less broken for the believing

Sometimes I Think

On the Relevance of Fluff

The dog sits mildly beside me
As I tap away at an unforgiving keyboard
Frowning at metaphors that won't play out

He pants and thinks deep thoughts
Or maybe shallow ones, I can never tell
But he seems, if nothing else, happy
As my hand falls away from work
To rumple his fur

I get to thinking about fluff
While I run my fingers through
His abundance of hairs
How he delights in the sensation
How little it takes to make his tail
Thump quietly on the floor

When all-important things
Are flying querulously about my head
He nudges a flocky ear against my hand
And makes me wonder if perhaps
The fluff could be the best part

The quasi-finished product

A Song About Theresa

I know of no one like Theresa
With voice and hands always an intricate ballet
It’s RENT and Phantom and Tori Amos
When she feels erasable
She grins then and sweeps it all away

Theresa gives more than she’s taken
All she asks is for a prayer along the road
She’s serving pancakes, and her winsome lover
Can never keep up with her
He tries, though, with te amos in the cold

And when I try for musicality, impossible to arrange
I wish upon a Milky Way and still get ten stars’ change
And I invoke muses to abate my lack of inspiration
And the ebbing of my faith becomes a writer’s devastation
But if I quiet, quiet, quiet down, and let the waves subside
It’s Theresa sketched in charcoal that swims over my mind

Theresa’s flown across the ocean
I haven’t seen her now for days and days and days
In Venizia she greets me with that stare
Says, “I’d know you anywhere”
And somehow, somehow it’s all okay

"girls that eat pizza and never gain weight"

I bought a dress for Katie's wedding today.

I am officially a fatkid.

When did that happen?

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Drum Circle Response Poem

Her skirt is long
His smile is wide
The air starts to hum
A circle of drums

Her hair is pink
His shoes are off
She crawls on all fours
He pounds with his palms

She joins the dance
His eyes are closed
She bows tribal calls
He feels in his bones

She’s djembe joy
He clinks a chime
She taps a tattoo
He’s tambourine bliss

A prayer is sighed
Percussion psalm
A paean to Love
A circle of drums

Lila Disbelieves

They are small gods
Who tumble so easily

When Lila woke to find
Blood on her sheets
They pitched and must not
Have been so powerful
To begin with

How could they have been
If it went so quietly
In the night time whispering its
Way out of existence

All of the never-wills
And the would-have-beens went
Crashing through her mind
Took her by the spine and
Reverberated there
Quaking then crumbling the pedestals

Those gods were too small
To do anything but gape
Fumble with the keys and
Blink too many times

As between her legs
Echoed
A stillborn alleluia

2 verses of A Song About Theresa

Theresa gives more than she’s taken
All she asks is for a prayer along the road
She’s serving pancakes, her Hispanic lover
Can never keep up with her
He tries, though, with te amos in the cold

Theresa’s flown across the ocean
I haven’t seen her now for days and days and days
In Venizia she greets me with that stare
Says, “I’d know you anywhere”
And somehow, somehow it’s all okay

Venus Envy submission

Number 52


The women will rise
Eyes lifted and jaws set
They breathe slowly and expand

From a crouch
They will brush the grass
Fingers over pebbles and aphids
Tense the muscles of their thighs
And spring upward

In their flight are screams
Dredged from the marrow of their bones
Now carried by vast lungs

The women have ancient tusks
In them is genesis
And in their wide arms the world

They will rise, the women
With the specters of fallen sisters
They will rise together
And will not be put asunder

An oldie (but goodie?)

Guitar Sonnet

I, so often, wish that I could
Be made of only strings and wood
And have your hands begin their trek
Pressed lightly at my arching neck
And make a slow but steady trail
By working down my major scale
So stringed melodic I would croon
And then my eyes to your eyes tune
That you would find it no ado
For a bright minstrel such as you
To wrap your arms around my hips
And strum me with your fingertips
And I would find it bliss by far
To be but used as your guitar

The first bit of A Song About Theresa

Theresa's flown across the ocean
I haven't seen her now for days and days and days
In Venizia she greets me with that stare
Says, "I'd know you anywhere."
And somehow, somehow it's all okay.

The Why

It is very early in the morning, which means that I am thinking crookedly.
Robin convinced me that a blog is a brilliant plan, but I cannot imagine how it serves any purpose but feeding my vanity.

At half past midnight, I decided that feeding my vanity was reason enough.

Conclusion: I shall use this space ostensibly for posting poems and soon-to-be poems, and happily accept feedback from you, the interwebs masses (I can tell! YOU are itching to make literary criticisms! Tell me more about myself!)

How strange the internet and its possibilities are.

Number 32, in the works

Her tragedies span lives
But not lifetimes
They are small, personal
They are not this heaving
No tidal waves of grief, no monument
Grains of sand, she knows
And still

And still

It is ancient, this calling in her bones
This ache, this want
Lately crafted into a Byzantine symptom

Number 12

Whether it was tomorrow or had been before
(Or would be this minute)
I can’t say that it mattered
Since I am certain
Tenses change when I am with you

So you and I stay
With spaghetti hair and slouched backs
If we had been smokers, there’d have been
Gray strata hanging ruthlessly
Turning my vision to smudges

But we are not
Or I am not, and you might have been
But wouldn’t say, because I am (or have been or can be)
Disapproving

So as it were, you and I just stay
And you are leaning (ruthlessly) against a column
With last week’s shirt and nothing to do with your hands

Unimportant words drifted out of you
Words about change and movement
They would become languid boats
On the decks of which I could sprawl
Palms open to stagnant air

You will trace patterns in dust on the table
Before laying me there
Then rest your head in the crook of my elbow
We find shapes in the popcorn of the yellowed ceiling
And make up adventures for the shapes to have

Even if I weren’t or wouldn't be happy
I wouldn’t have wished for the ruthless time
Insisting, as it does, on moving
To go faster

Since you (curled against my side)
Seemed like enough
At the time