country homage

momma don't let your babies
grow up to love cowboys
don't let em fall for bikers
and long-haired men in trucks
let em be lawyers and career gals and such

momma don't let your little girls
like pornos
make sure they read Ms. mag
and know what they should make
don't let em wear stilettos or
nails that are fake

momma don't let your babies
go talking to rock stars
make sure they value themselves any size
make sure their iq's more
important than their thighs

momma make sure your babies
grow up with this wisdom
when a man says 'my heart has a history'
make sure they tell him to go piss up a tree

momma don't let your babies grow up to be models
fashion is just a distraction you see, it's
all about making people unhappy.

Momma kiss your little girls good night with warm love,
Set em free smart little women you're proud of.

rain

Above these clouds, bright sun
Warms a bed of wafting cotton,
Gilding it like the
Bedspread of a king.

But down here, grey ashes fall,
Soaking all of the scurrying
Rodents and dustbunnies, and
We never look up to wonder.

We stoically slog through puddles,
Muddy deep, sternly focused,
Relentlessly isolated and
All mildewing from inside out.

Sometimes I want to just lie
In the rain, let it pour down
Till, like Alice,
I float away on the dormouse's tears.

This house

The supports are rotting,
I noticed in the basement.
The floor is sagging a bit and
Cracks run jagged inside the
Foundation.

Pretty sure the roof is in
Dire need of reshingling, and
The gutters are hanging on by
Only the soft grasp of duct tape.

But

we must paint the trim
And keep the lawn tidy.
Mustn't alarm the neighbors.

EM

Why do we do it? Smile,
sweetly, slyly slicing a delicate
line down tender flesh

It separates, blood wells up, we
Feel alive. But I am not that,
not physical that way.

I
Slice deeper, into
The ectoplasmic envelope of emotion
I swim in, I cut a deep line,
With the sharpest kindest blade,
and all that wells up are
Quiet tears
You'll
never
see.

elements: not a love poem

Earth:
Blood pulsing
Soil streaked
Coarse
Ribald
Rotund
Voluptuous
Rooted
Touch, feel, revel
Burial
Birth
Creation

Belief from
the gut
Love from
the loins
from the messy
bloody
heart
Laugh and eat and touch

Air:
Pure, thin
Rational, soaring
Sunny
Open
Clean
Smooth
Invisible, yet
Everywhere, tangible
Think, reason, analyse
Know

Proof from
the evidence
Love from the
head from the
cold, bright
intellect
Fly, stretch, soar

Sky touches ground at
the horizon line, the binding
infinite
One thin line of touch, 360 degrees
the binding
infinite.
Fire mingles fuel of air, fuel of earth,
Water becomes part of earth,
Evaporates, mingles with air,
falls to reunite again with
Earth.

The energy of each of us circulates,
Circulates
In a closed system, we are
Water, we are fire,
we are earth, we
are air.

God and goddess,
Each bound to the other,
the binding infinite.

Bob Marley sang, we all are one.
I a part of you, the lake, the tree, the sun.
You a part of me,
The bird, the sparks, the sea.
The binding infinite, and ever will be.

What if it breaks?

Smashed to red pulp
Like a dropped tomato
Like a Pollock nosebleed
Like the ketchup packet my brother stomped
That time in the mall before he got kicked out;

Smashed and then scraped into a small pile and
Dried and then
Tucked sadly and carefully away

Like the rose from Nan's funeral or the
Corsage my first boyfriend gave me at the prom.

As long as you don't think about things
They don't hurt
Right?

nor can it fly

This is the bird I gave you because
Near you, it always sings
You love it, you say.
You feed it and tend it but you never let it out
You never hold its trembling tiny body
And feel its heart race.

I wonder if you have a room full of caged birds,
And love them all equally,
Platonically and
Distantly.



My heart is a triphammer,
My heart is shot silk,
My heart is
not a bird.

Truth is

She lay on white paper and had the child
Draw her outline in purple and black
Then she stood, stared at the shape before her.
With her eyes unfocused, it looked enormous
Shaped like a continent filled with ugly buildings
And smoggy cities and dense grey highways.

She took a green marker and drew inside
The shape she felt within herself
And it described an island paradise
With beaches and breezes and
Small animals that rustled the undergrowth.

What is truth but refocused lies?

Not eros

I have been
Wooed by words
Before

Swept away
Semantically, set
Adrift

Gave my heart,
Blindly to man and
Muse

But
vision complicates, creates
Distraction, physical needs,
Greed for warmth, strips
Away the purity of the
words
alone.

Someday my mind
Will master this body
And this will be
enough.

sheherazade's cousin

You are
Perhaps another shimmering oasis
soon to
disappear, and even if
you aren't, you
are not my oasis. I cannot water here.
You have said, and you
are king.

I need reassurance once in a while that
I serve a purpose beyond being the keystone in
The arch that holds your ego in place. Perhaps
not even the keystone, maybe the stone two
places to the left of it.

When I am removed, your sultan's palace will not
crumble, you will simply find
another stone.

I want to find that place again of being
Essential, needed
I want a courtyard to hang on my every word. I
want to be fed grapes.

I deserve this... but I sure
don't want to head back out into that
desert tonight
unwatered.

backblogged

Sometimes days go by before
The words rise to my gorge and
Demand spilling, you know,
It kind of depends how many
I've had to swallow,
How often I've been around you
And not said Kiss me, please,
And how often I've not yelled into
The phone, LADY LEAVE ME ALONE,
And how often I haven't said hello
To an interesting stranger, and asked
About that curious scar...
Once there's a base of
Swallowed words, they build quickly though,
It seems, rising from deep inside, until,
Here I am, purging
All I've eaten for a week.

And synchronicitously, a stranger
across the Internet is doing the same.

Bill Murray

Choose the day you'd relive.

So hard with spotty memory,
Flecked and smudged with greasy nostalgia, but I
Can remember lying on the prickly grass,
Inhaling the smell of ground and
Home through my blanket,
Warm sun orange through my closed lids,
Soft breeze rippling the pages of the book nearby.

I don't remember which book, and this
bothers me
Probably Anne of Green Gables, or Little
Women, but it could have been during my
Stephen King stage. I want it to be a Huxley
novel, or Vonnegut, but those were
later.

Smell of baby oil, and the sun toasting
me, because I didn't know it was poison.

The best part, the part that makes me want to live this day...
Listening to In Search of the Lost Chord, loud
In my headphones, feeling deepened, different,
transported. House of four doors, opening
the doors of perception in my tuned in mind, as I
settled down into the grass and became a part of
everything.
Om.
Never more present, never more distant.

I think
It was that night I felt infinity expand in my brain as
I looked up at stars forever.

Things I wish I could rip off me

My belly,

My girly need for reaction and reassurance
that makes me fuck things up;

That stupid look I wear
when I don't want what just happened
to have happened;

Two of the nights we spent together that cling to the sides of my brain
Like alcohol coats the glass

My self-conscious fear of asserting my needs,

My experience and wisdom,
so I could frolic carefree like I
never did.

deep wisdom

When I was 14 I did
yoga, I
meditated, I
studied eastern religions

When I was 16 I
salted the corners of my room,
burned candles, summoned
the Mother

At 28 I was
baptized, tried to find
the Father from
Anne of Green Gables

Now when I look inward,
All I see are reflections of
nirvana in others' eyes and
a deep
emptiness.

Plugged

I am gathering up my boredom,
My hurt,
My sticky loneliness that coats this room,
My depression,
My pride--there are still a few scattered bits around.

I am rolling it all together,
Firing it with the heat of
My anger

I will shape it as a plug, a cork to stop up
This hole in my centre.
I'm tired of my will leaking out, the wind
Blowing through.

I'm tired of bleeding.

Since your knife was the last
To reopen the hole, perhaps
I'll name the plug in your
Honour.

superheroes

We all want to
fight evil
We want our lives to be important.
So we label things
and people
evil
and slay them like dragons.

I don't have any dragons, just
Pigeons, and they are an annoyance,
sure,
but not really evil.

I have no purpose beyond ennui.

That's why I wrap my thin
layer of self around
sawdust
and dream of
fire.

tell the witch I will pay
she can have my cats, my
sister, my
prettiest beads and even
the hug my mother gives me at
bedtime, and all the golden
love that it holds

take it all

if only she will take her straw and
suck this extra flesh from my bones
like Marie Claire said she did to her

now Marie Claire is fine and
slim while I plod like a work pony
and all the boys coo
when she walks by

take my sister, witch, take
my horse, and take
my future

i want a now.

i don't

i don't see a problem with
sitting conversing driving around
feeling this way if i don't
tell you

you like it
knowing that while i
am nodding and talking about
weather and
our friends

i am picturing you naked sometimes

i respect your
disinterest i
will work out
my desires
elsewhere and
you won't
know
you will think i am a saint
or repressed or
maybe you will wonder but
it doesn't matter one
whit does it?

the breeze from the window
and we drive
and this is good.

blood drinker

tongue running over
canines that she'd
always wanted to be
less prominent
power
surging
thirsty
bored

somewhere here
is the new
taste she
craves
and she knows
deep down
that she
will
have
her
way

Do men feel
it this way
all the time?
The sexpowerlust
is that why they ruled history for so long?

more vice
more

James Taylor

Don't read these
words and imagine,
James Taylor,
That I am talking about you,
Or only about you.
You're so vain.

Any poem I write
Is a process end-product
Raw experience and emotion
Meet their own echoes in my
Mind, and they
Combine, entwine
So that when I record
Reaction it is shaded, metaphoric,
Catalytic and cathartic.

At least, that's the intention.

Don't imagine any emotion I record
That might be a reaction to you,
Your proximity, your heady fragrance and
air of what might be,
Is a permanent fixture in my stratosphere.
A poem is a snapshot, interpreted through
Filters, a frozen moment of how it was
When you brushed my hand
That one time.

Don't imagine, James Taylor, that all
my dreams of falling end in your
arms.

Don't even imagine that this
Poem is entirely about
You.

Still

A repost from my other blog, a poem I'd forgotten:

23.10.05

still

Mostly it's the stillness I avoid

healing quiet
reveals the gaping hole
where i should be

The stillness creeps up on rainy days and when I sense it near I
dive for the remote the computer the phone
the noise will hide me

I can't abide
me.

I don't want to be
still.

Bound

Floating? Perhaps too
Benign a word, although
At a distance like this, it seems a
Gentle sort of pull.

I accelerate with proximity.

I am scared to
Crash.

I need no altimeter to know the exact
Distance to this gravity centre
That draws me.

I struggle to tread water, remain
Safely outside that warm,
dangerous
atmosphere,

but
you can't tread water in air
stupid. You are not a
cartoon.

I am falling so
long, such a
short distance.
Please please make my
landing
soft.

energy in a closed system

loops, curls, reforms
itself around shapes like
ferrets, clouds,
waterfalls, SUVs
oil rigs, endangered moose,
small children with hula hoops...

tiny quarks that may or
may not be here, now,
bump around in oceans of empty
energy-space

and here, in this dark room,
the tv flickers and from the corner
of my eye the three inches between us
dances with sparks.

is it

this science experiment foments
bubbles
raises steam and sparks

i note my observations, the
change in hue in the air, the
way the intensity changes
with proximity to catalyst, and
the change in heat
when the two ingredients are mixed.

He has written down that the experiment
failed, no change occurred.
Perhaps i should ask the teacher to change
our seats.

dreams

I hold his head still
On my chest, I kiss his hair...
Skin rustles on skin.

From the hill behind
My childhood home, a lonely
Howl. Lit red eyes gleam.

How is it possible?
Last day of term, can't find class
Don't recall subject.

His smile warms me, till
Strobing alarm wakes me and
I'm alone, still smiling.

After all, this dance,
And all the sparkle, and
Archness and wit and
Companionship,

This is a warm cloak
Of a different kind, to be
Sure, and yet, it is
As comforting as a hug.

This is the village I need
To inhabit. Even
When the cold night
Presses, sometimes,
A blanket is enough.

I know this addiction cycles through
My blood, and all too soon I will want
Flowers, music, the heat of your blood.
But for now, a clink of glasses suffices.

haiku april

how to trust? -- yourself
or anyone else. Close eyes,
Jump. Fall. Hope. Believe.

all i want is the
kiss that will stop my heart and
love to restart it.

And so, I followed
Another pixie path on
the road to nowhere

Another friend, and
Who can have too many friends
In her lonely room?

Perhaps the sunlit
Way seems more passable when
You're actually here.

I, a mouse
His eyes seem to grow and grow,
Yellow like the moon overhead that reveals me.
I do not run, I
Am falling in,
Will sucked away
Desiring to stay
Curiousity growing.

Then my fellow nips my tail, hard,
Spell broken, I saunter to safety,
Remembering that I am not
A mouse,
I am a cat.

Edna St. Vincent de Millay

There are some days when nothing will do but some ESVdM. Like Dorothy Parker, she is brilliant at flattening the compulsive male ego. This has been one of my favourite poems since I first encountered it as a freshman. Oh that someday I might elevate my poor musings to this level:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

-Edna St. Vincent de Millay, 1923

april haikus

Feet on ground, head in
Mist of daydreams, memories.
Traffic flying by.

Someone was leaning
On the remote control: Snow,
Sun, rain, fog, snow, wind...

And now...

Breathe.

Proximity teases and even his warmth
Crossing the inches between us makes
Me gasp and--

Breathe.

This heat builds and builds and
Screen zombies and vampires and lightning
Are unable to pull my attention from his
Arm, hand, leg near mine
I want only to --

Breathe.

His scent makes me feral, squirm, but
I sit still, and refuse to direct this, just
Count silently and wait and

Breathe.

And when our lips touch finally
Finally
All the air
And light and heat
Explode and I can't

I can't

Breathe.

Spun

22.3.09

Quietly in this cone of silence,
Web of solitude,
Your reflection teases from a thousand shards
Of bad-luck-broken mirror but
I can't see you,
Though I turn and turn, looking.

spring sotted

It snakes around trees awakening
Silver sliver through grass turning verdant
Slips in through a newly cracked window
With the whoosh of moist fresh air.

It finds me here, strapped to my
Weekday concerns, even on a Sunday,
And coils up to my ear, whispers
Of open roads and apples

The infection shows in a hunger
I can't fill, a thirst unslaked, a
Restless itching desire for these soles
To find pavement, and trail, and go.

Half-realized exotic visions dance in
My head, mangos and prairie and car
Rides and flying to where you are
Greeted by natives in batik or grass skirts or furs.

I want to be anywhere but
Here, anyone but me, anytime but
Now. I twitch, unable to untie the concrete laces
That keep my home shoes on, wed me to reality.

I am drunk and must riot in the streets
I lack a mission, an aim, beyond anarchy
and change, but I am beyond caring.
Break these chains, spring, tidal currents call me.

No matter whose orbit I
throw myself into it, no matter
What zenith, what nadirs I reach, it's
Here I find myself, now, then,
Beginning, end,

Here, ground zero,
Naked mind, heart, alone, with
The cold wind whistling through me

Cleansed of intention,
Torn from pretension,
Building no myths, just
Clinging to the rocks with my toes.

Stretched to the sky.
Me myself and I.

A. Haikus

Lucky for me one
Cannot love fully if the
Other will not share.

**********

I miss his back, his
warmth, the blue tattoo over
his heart, closed to me.

**********

Daytime, cheery smile,
Cute, but then, moonlit, he is
intense, dear, older.

*********

and this --

What I miss most: his
Cat-look under shaggy mane,
Weak knee hugs, just 'cause.

Valentines

Flanked by romance, on
All sides, I close my eyes and
Feel your hot kisses.
***

If skin and skin were
All we were I could do this
...if hearts disengaged.
***

My bloodstream races
With heat and adrenaline
And traces of you.
***

This time, last time, one
Time more and then I must resist
Your magnetic pull.
***

You: crack. A bright bulb
That pulls this stupid moth to
Fruitless flailing. Stop.

Savage Starts

It begins like this:
Sniffing the night,
Seeing the eyes aglow
Beyond the firelight,
Needing to know now

Listening to the howl,
The prowl
The closing in,
Padding footsteps
Thrilling, near

Then pushing into darkness, chasing
Scent, clues, broken twigs,
Finding where you were

I hear you
Heart beating
Blood rushing
Pausing ahead
Then pushing away

Fishermen tell me
to pause here,
Reel in,
Feel you turn and
Learn to come back
But I,

I have hunter blood,
Restless, sporting,
Cannot rest till
we are cavorting
snorting like
bulls but

in this clearing,
Stillness

pant pant

You are lost
to the darkness, moved
On to haunt another enticing fireside

And I have just chased you
Away.