IF THE BUBBA HAD BALLS SHE’D BE THE ZAIDA
I don’t want to be stung by Fall’s last wasp
I don’t want to be lashed by the critic’s tongue
I have finally gone public with my poems and
yesterday the muse shrieked:
“You fucking famewhore. I’m outta here.”
So I wrote a middling poem about Spring 2013
When it will be green Oh so green
—
Fall 2012
*for Charles Bukowski & Illinois Atkins
WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN
At 4 am as I swim back up up up
to consciousness I must confess:
I have a thought so horrible my brain
shouts DON’T GO THERE
But too late I see myself in the fetal position
in a rectangular box in the ground
DO NOT GO THERE WE REPEAT DO NOT GO THERE
A box that fits my body perfectly
No room to spare No worldly goods
No Nefertiti me Just my pink tee &
work out capris Silent and calm and dead
But not in a bad way All curled up and ready for the long sleep
__
Winter 2012
THE WOMB IS A PERMEABLE MEMBRANE
She has rough red patches on her face
and her teeth are brown & misshapen
She is skinny as a rake
“My mother and father take drugs she
squeaked” “I don’t think my mother
will get better But my father might”
—
Spring 2012
WATCHING YOU WATCHING ME
My little niece Rachel
used to watch us
so carefully
Silently
Like a small girl
detective
or
anthropologist
She sat like a Sphinx
with nary
a blink
And in her un-wavering
stare
I could see
our souls laid bare
Once Rachel said:
I think dead people are
all around us!
But it’s a good thing
they’re invisible
or we’d never stop
bothering them –
She then looked long & hard at the sky
For a minute I expected
her to fly up to meet them
And then drive them to distraction with her stare
—
Spring 2008
SHE HAS A SISTER NAMED ANGEL
Olivia Crop circles burned into her back
Memento of father’s madness Now the
cupboards she was locked inside are locked
inside of her On Tuesdays at 10:15 She
leaned on me like I was a tree and stared off into the distance
—
Spring 2009
SAVE GIRL CHILD NOW
The beauty
of a periwinkle
sky blue pink bruise pink blue
Was I a twinkle
in my
father’s
eye?
That she had
to say good-bye
to mother
& father
At 7 –
Cannot be
true bruised red bruised purple
But it is truer
than true
And bluer than
the periwinkle
bruises
beneath her
eyes
She doesn’t get
much sleep
anymore
Waiting for police
to waltz
through the door
Everyone was a liar
She’ll never
return to you
If I remember them
does that mean
they remember me?
Or have I lost
my identity?
Purple bruises blue bruises under her fluttery eyelashes Always on call for a fire
__
Summer 2010
I AM WOMAN
She looks bandaged barely held together
by strips of color Coming apart at the seams
I have felt this way the odd day Even when I
was supposed to be pulled together –
Especially then
Or perhaps beneath the taught veneer she is
always there wrestling with the trappings of :
bra & dress
heel & hat
The wild-woman anti-heroine Once corseted &
coiffed Now busting out Unholy Mad Madonna
a hair’s breath away from devouring her young
Or you –
So please do give this woman a wide berth on most days
__
Woman 1 1950-52 Willem De Kooning AGO 2011
DAY OF THE DEAD
My friend David gave me
a little box
with a skeletal
bride & groom inside
I’m trying not to read
too much
into it
The sparkly blue backdrop
looks so inviting
They are smiling their
skeletal smiles
So what’s the problem?
He was at my wedding
19yrs.ago –
Is he trying to say:
a) don’t flog a dead horse
b) you are a match made in heaven
c) your marriage is a 3 ring circus and you’ll never get out alive
Or MERRY CHRISTMAS ?
__
December 2009
OF LIFE & LIMB
I read somewhere that losing
someone you love is akin to
loss of limb I suppose that my
child clients miss their parents
like a long lost phantom limb
Are the recent losses I have suffered
akin? 44 yr old cousin with a 6 yr old
son died of lung cancer in 2001 Sarah
of the big brown eyes Said our good –
byes in the ICU Asked for a Rabbi but
they’d never seen a Jew
This year my bulldog nephew & his slim
human mother And as my heart’s in tatters
I shall dare to compare For as my analyst
Beverly said: “If it hurts It hurts”
A statement both deep & rare
__
March 2012
THAT BULLDOG IS THE SPITTING IMAGE OF MY BROTHER
I wasn’t supposed to take my baby
nephew home I just couldn’t resist
24 lbs. of sweet plump perfection
squeaking like a mouse
On the way he morphed into my
other nephew all 65 lbs. of sweet
plump bulldog perfection
I wondered where he’d nap & what I’d
feed him for lunch This baby boy bulldog
filled a hole so deep I’d probably take him
on a roadtrip to the Badlands of Alberta
Where bully-bones & barren old aunt-bones will be unearthed Someday
__
February 2012
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songanddancegirl 