Blackfish

Terce
We’re waiting for the bus.
Snow, grayed by time and dirt,
crunches underfoot. My bag holds
what I need: a receipt,
spare glasses, a petal rosary
my friend gave to me.

Sext
The rails attest my sore knees; the candles
how I bent to my heart’s ear.
Our fountain is mute, but the arches sing
ohohoh from their adobe mouths
while pines bristle at the gate.
Along a gravel path, black shadows
send limp leaves waving,

as I have been waving all day.
I want to go over the edge,
crouch looking up from the grave, speak
to rain and moles. I kneel
to my work, but yellow September
calls from beyond the wall.

Nones
When my friend comes, I promised
that he would know me by the red lily
held in my right hand. He would know
me by the way I turned to face the sun.
Ignore the sound of clinking
dishes, I will tell him. This is not
a diner and I am not a waitress. Forget
that my brown roots show. Listen,
I will tell him, you can still hear the beads
slide through the numbers slow.

.

Mud

1.
It squeezes between d-i-g-i-t-s, toes
fingers, grips the ribs,
frames a grave, adit to a square sky.

2.
Moles have no memories beyond the roof of their heaven,
incongruous ozone, knees of elms and moss.

3.
If low notes blanket like the infrared,
what black note knells the dome of hell?

4.
The sines of mountains grate to the bone,
rising Leviathan’s throat shudders for the dead.
Consider the ultraviolet an ether
and cirrus veils the stir of light/bright/wings.

5.
What threshold… / …marks that speechless _______
flavored up down charmed bottom and strange
where stars sink out of sight
………………………… subjacent mantle
Mohorovicic discontinuity core restless…. molten
lightning, dark night where shades
shine white and shadows light

6.
Lucy slides (through liquid time) and speaks
to the gargoyle on the cathedral peak,
studies the phylogenies of angels.

7.
Listen, Mud!

.

Feral Poem Suitable for a Sunday Morning in April with a Touch of Feng Shui for Modern Living

table, no plate

…………………..the window ajar

two bluejays in a peach tree

(loafnoloaf) matzo unleavend

horserdsh sprd…………………thn

……………………………..hot bite

and tears and runny nose

marked door

hat

hollow man

………..fast…….fast…….fast

runrun…..as fast as you can

no shadow, not bending light

a fat fist holding a cup

………………………….mirror/bright/pretty

birdprettybirdprettybird

jay over a limb

………………..spread a blue hand over my lips

prettybirdpretty

bird

……………………………………………………….(tchtch)

two chairs at the table sliced peach

no fork no spoon the pie cooling

a mist a fog a grey blanket dragging the ground

longnightdarkdoor

……………………mirror…..prettyprettyprettybirdpretty

cover the cage

two birds

.

The Aubergine Vase

A fist flexes
at a bruised neck, a cincture
where the ghosted voice, the thick
flesh of the glassman
forced a pale bell to bow.
Beneath the fire of the annealed
skin, light pierces side
and spear slice stirs incarnadine.
Lips pause; red O quivers,
anticipates the thrust
of stem.

My husband tired of his crabbed
shuffle while I dreamed of green cities,
poppy fields. I left him crouched
at the door holding his cape like a shield.
He could not grow wings.

How to explain the way the breath caught
and would not come, would not come, as I hung
dragging frozen air into my lungs? What I remember,
hold under my ribs in those red moments,
is the desert bright as polished stone;
the way I swung under a chestnut hide
and found that gravity depends less on apples
and more on the string which tethers kite to hand.

A lover gave me an organ grinder’s monkey–
I threw it peanuts; it climbed my shoulder,
chittered sadly in its cage, watched
with sweet, black currant eyes.
My shoes tie me here. I’ve lost
my emerald glasses and Tinman’s left for Vegas.
The bricks aren’t yellow; the witch isn’t dead.

Opera Cloak — the title needs to open the poem more — Opera Cloak — what the **** does that mean? If Paula couldn’t open this poem, then it was impenetrable because she’s an excellent reader and would have seen what was going on. Get a clue, noi.

She could see through antique sleeves;
and she pulls the lamplight closer, finds
Puccini’s newest notes–a sharp, some flagged quarters
— I just was so damned clever here — Puccini, like why couldn’t I just say Madame Butterfly? She who?

trapped in the lining. A boned waist–an hourglass:
how the horses canted ears at the sound
of engines coming closer. The pattern holds
shadows of chemise and corset,
long gloves on swan-neck arms,
evening tails, gaslight and a single room
with bodies packed like rice.
—-This stanza is all screwed up. A woman buys an antique Vantine’s kimono-style opera cloak at a store named Nostalgia. It’s peach silk and dates from 1900 in New York. Nobody in the entire world knows what Vantine’s was and I just got all clever because it’s my maiden name. So, this old gal starts examining the kimono. Okay, that’s not too bad, but the silk worm, which is in the second stanza, should be first. Phrasing is clunky.

In the weft, the twisted thread
throws years from the center. She sees
a lover’s name written in black ink,
juni-hito, it slides off a seam, grows leaf-by-layer.
—–juni-hito —- that’s too clever, too. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Probably makes someone who is truly familiar with kimonos fall over laughing. This should be the seamstress sewing her lover’s name into the seam.

Caped in her tight skin–whatever holds her at the edge,
—–Her/she’s: they’re all scrambled eggs. This should be the damned worm getting dunked in boiling water. Nice image, huh? I had lettuce on a tray in the original, maybe tea and cress.

she sees Yokohama cherries and lacquered hair,
lets slip the netted, knotted club on her neck
sent tumbling tendril after tendril.
Over her shoulder, pale hands hover; lost needles
ring as the wind shakes them out.
—–And this last ’she’ isn’t too bad, I think. It’s the woman who bought the cloak, putting it on, “absorbing” the lives of the cloak.

She could see through antique sleeves;
and she pulls the lamplight closer, finds
Puccini’s newest notes–a sharp, some flagged quarters
trapped in the lining. A boned waist–an hourglass:
how the horses canted ears at the sound
of engines coming closer. Ladies in chemise and corset,
long gloves on swan-neck arms,
evening tails and gaslight and a single room
with bodies packed like rice.

In the weft, the twisted thread
throws years from the center. She sees
a lover’s name in black ink,
juni-hito, it slides off a seam, grows leaf-by-layer.
Caped in her tight skin–whatever holds her at the edge,
she sees Yokohama cherries and lacquered hair,
lets slip the netted, knotted club upon her neck
sent tumbling tendril after tendril.
Over her shoulder, a blossom hovers; lost needles
ring as the wind shakes them out.

The Ass

I.
Pale road rises from river bank to dolmen
and limestone slabs tilt like old teeth
around the heads of dead kings.
On the path, a donkey,
Damascus-bred and salt white.

Understand, I am the jennet.

II.
And on the road to Moab,
an angel speaks with iron tongue.
Coals of marigold rake as I bolt through wheat.
Why does my master beat me so?
I heard Agave bay wingless bird from tree.

III.
Trail winds past orchards:
an angel shakes expectant air,
waits for me to carry my rider
like grapes to the vineyard press.
Layered slate rakes hip and side
and onager heart leaps inside its cage.
When my master strikes me,
loud-crying vines weep, remember.
There are thistles in my hay.

IV.
Hoof reconciled to road,
bitter girth and cobbles traveled thin–
Moab lies ahead. Angel swings
bright clapper, rings words of light.
Dust, red dust, on my flanks and knees.
What have I done to thee?

V.
I carried the roaring god.

I’m sitting here waiting in the dark for something
to be over. The faucet drips. Traffic slows
but doesn’t stop. The flat yellow street light
always flickers with each passing. Huddled
here in my dark, I am waiting for tomorrow
as if the pink edge of dawn will begin

a new day. I’ll sit on the verandah and sip
Earl Grey and watch the leaf buds
just now swelling green. I’ll swirl
the cup dregs and see how she exhaled blue
steam, left lemon hanging over the table. I’ll turn
to tell her something important, something
she should know, but she has stepped away.
I don’t know how to end it.

I want to dream of ponies, wake with memories
of driving somewhere pink, but dreams
slip through my fingers, turn to mercury,
grow a tail, nip at the mailman.   (list-y)

At 10:00 a.m
I change toner, make copies, goldenrod-
in-triplicate, but while the copier jerks and staples,
a girl shakes out her long brown hair, jangles silver
bracelets.  (time change)
Sometime later, next to the checkout
counter at Smiths, a bin holds
her favourite carnations. They are red
on the tongue and bitter to bite, and I’ll hold
them close to my ear, listening.    (not strong enough)

I
Your car is stick,
of course. I remember
mother saying shift now shift now shift
and I picked Sunday, lazy day, drove
the car, lurching, four blocks away,
filled it up–the buyer due at noon.
You said you liked the control
that a stick shift gives
and signed the title slow.

II
I have offered all
that I have, willing to pull
that dark blanket over my head.

III
If you would just try the damn wig on.
Yes, the color is wrong. So what it itches.
No, no beer. Give it a rest.
I don’t give a flying fuck
whether you want ice cream
now or not. It won’t kill
you if you bend half an inch.
Will you please, pretty please,
take your goddamned pills
before I murder you.

IV
Got Junk men arrived too soon
and they pulled me from the pulmonary
artery sprouted from your chest,
white crab straddling the rip. I knew
I could knit it better, bent to my needles
faster faster thump the doorbell thump
the bell thump, men stared through the broken
valve–no a door–it was a red door
and you knocked
and I looked through the peephole
sun, a halo backlighting hair,
and refused to let you in and the men left.
How could years fit in their truck?
I found the footless Prada with its broken
strap–ankle, arch flexed, pink toes
This little piggy went to the market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy went

V
They rise from their boxes,
slip from their shadows, all the while
murmuring about their dark years.
Some still wear crisp summer dresses,
while others have lost everything
but their small white slippers.

Their unblinking eyes are indifferent
to the stares of strangers. A fat woman offers
twenty dollars for the box, and I watch
as she carries it to her car.