Like catholic with broken knee,
I cannot crack my soul to open
full.
There's something
will not bend. My tongue
moves, pushing stones beyond my lips; the hardness
of the words are weights dropped off. Plopped at my feet
to step on
or to trip me up like God dropped stones
on Moses. When it happened,
back in Egypt time, the Israelites they
frisked
no
more. No more
playful otters in their shining lake
of grace, just like myself, here now so suddenly
naked, mute, unable to break this holy
seal
of silence.
Wired Shut
Failed
at everything
attempted,
tired
of licking
drops, this wide open
hungry mouth
is closing up
and no one's
ever
died of silence.
Women, Poetry And Madness
Is it the medium
that invites madness, more in women
than in men?
Emotive flow
of whatever lays in the womb that week?
Estrogen peaks, and out come
Calumet cakes of 'I love you's'
babies
and wanting to finally write: 'the gag reflex is triggered by
those bigger men, and smaller
is much better
after all.'
We conspire to keep this from you-
It is powerful. A couple of inches-
couple of words, a comma, a card
on special occasion, a hug
to wrap around arrested
lonely, little
caesura.
This is what
can shake them
to their most Millay.
But wait. Here comes
the Belle of Amherst
wearing wild, imperfect rhyme
around her hidden, clitoral ring; I think
she
may
be
packin' heat. The men should pat her down
before they offer
up
critique
they ought to
run.
Supply And Demand
Climb up there.
Scratch those scales from the walls.
Pick out the silver strands
and hand them down.
I need
new skin. Part snake,
part painted
cinderblock. I got a walk to match
and a slither or two through grasssssss, so
help me out.
This Garden
isn't
what it
used to be-
too
many Eves
to apples.
Cradle
In 4000 BC,
a ladle
of rich earth
fed by green waters
gave birth
to Sumerian people, a cradle
of verdancy fed farming and the human
mind. The wheel
was invented and the plow. But how a fated
convergence of waters made it
forever
contested ground
speaks of weird predestination, powers
beyond our comprehension
and the awful, deadly flowering of Bible and
thrown bones. Here, we learned
to write on clay
in cuneiform no less daunting
than the computer
zeroes and ones
that vector the routes of cunning missiles
and the smart
bombs.
There is an
aplomb about the place, a chilling sense of
been here before
with the best technology, and always,
a flowering
and a death. It called to
Alexander the Great. The Persians
coveted
Babylonia. There must have been a day
when a laboring farmer turned and saw an army
drawing close, threw down his hoe, prayed to
older gods
and given up. Six hundred years
after the crucifixion, Muslims swarmed. Put
Christians to the sword, tore down
Sumerian zuggernots, entrenched
the rug-prayers and
minarets
and Allah
was the name
on every tongue. That land's seen changing gods
on burning sand, under burning sun
for centuries. Saw
Pope Gregory's little children come to snatch it back
for Christ and saw the children
die
trying, so I ask, are these the
last days
days of darkened sun
and the final
Coming
of the King
or are we merely another foot,
nudging the cradle endlessly rocked, mysterious
compass point anointed so with blood, that patch
from a faraway planet, must look reddest
of all
the quilted earth. A place where
magma boils up
in fluidity
of time, where civilizations
clash and burn the sky, and raise
another flag. This is our
turn
singing- we think
we're bringing shock and awe, but shock and awe
was there from the beginning- it is our
Boardwalk and Park Place; we're merely rolling dice
to see who wins the real
estate, the
headache
place of history
and the Great Flood, the black dirt-
Hope Diamond
of the Middle East
that carries the curse of
Armaggedon, Allah be praised
and
Jesus weep.
Blunt Force
Been pointed out to me
that I lack subtlety: a hammerer
not a cellist, tongue
like a cold, flung cod
on a ship deck: I cannot dance
with nuance,
or understand objective correlative
meaning. Ham
handed, blunt as a snub-nosed thirty eight
and twice as wicked. All I know
is that these eyes,
these ears and hands, these peasant hands
that crack in winter, do the dishes, pull up dandelion
roots-
even
when they grow too deep, I pull and pull
at what will not be rendered
easily,
if at all.
Too many things
snap back at me,
indian
given: rubberbanded friendhip,
health, love-
I need to nail a thing to the floor
lock
the door and simply hunker.
Sniff for
foxes.
One Foot In Eternity
It's true, I have
big feet. Not merely
large, but splayed and bunioned,
veiny, veiny
Mephistophilean tooties
of first magnitude, so shoes
are what I use to cover them up, to keep me
separate from the ground
I'll be becoming,
one day. Never understood
a woman's hankering
for zapatos: Ferragamos, back-strapped,
skinny strips of leather
more 'not there'
than 'there'; like lingerie, you pay way more
for less and less. I want full cover: another
tarp would do, just
cut a neck hole; tape those
boxes to my feet- I'd like to meet my Maker
decked
in Original Style, maybe
thank Him
for that Sin
of His...
Torn
Timelapsed photo of a peony,
pulled leaves rolling open
slow, like prayer, like Catherine of Siena
bleeding, becoming the Cross,
eyes tucked up inside the soul,
I'd like to say this is my truest picture
poem, offering box flung wide
and fill me, fill me to
unfolded all.
But the attic I live beneath
has windows that never open, even
in hottest August. Somewhere someone said
if I didn't crack the double-hungs
and let in air
it could combust. I sit beneath
and sniff the atmosphere
for burning.
And I trust fate,
but not myself.
Arias swell from speakers
as I'm lifted toward a joy so close,
I know the voice
is life itself.
I cannot keep my heart in
but there is broken wire
in the electric cord, the heating pad
that I hug close, ignore the warning
not to let it spend the night
against the chest
that teases death.
It's like a letter to God,
Cup Of Kindness
A bowl of thick, red porridge
bubbled in front of a starving woman.
What's in there? she asked.
Mostly greasy sentiment.
And what's that sharp looking thing-
floating, then sinking,
then bobbing up again?
That's Truth. Hard to swallow.
Harder to keep down.
Gimme that, she said.
That won't fill you. Have a
bowl of the red.
Everybody wants a
bellyfull of that.
No. I want the Truth
I'll be hungry, but it's the only thing
that'll let me sleep.
I've come across a lot of sleepless liars
who can do nothing
but talk all night,
hug each other
and feed from that same pot.
Give me the Truth;
what food I find when I awake
will save these bones.
Forewarned
I was born with a bomb
inside my chest,
that cannot kill me,
but
will pulverize those closest
once the tick-off starts.
I was born
in a new moon:
shadow baby of a tar womb
and I pulse with bile.
Whomever
decides these things
chose me to be
a pretty woman, without guile
but coming closer
with a calamitous heart.
Charm
Perform the charm.
Try to ward off ill
wind. Watch the moon
and calculate
how many days from Walpurgisnacht
and maybe you'll be safe-
but it's not about death;
not about death
at all
when you feel
like falling
as you stand
still, it's about loss.
Edges feather out
from days, it's never
really the end, the edge,
it's water
under no moon,
the dark heart
Catastrophe
....From The Tree Of