alice's wonderland

mingus
jarring jazz
magic tunnel
chute

o my desire is spreading
sweet notes
raucous
jiving down
ears tuning to the treat

if i could eat this sound
i would be drugged
into the fancyland
of new tunes

never tasted
fruit
tender meat
purple peals
all-night dreams

if i were feathered
charlie
i would sing
of you in birdland

Published in Slow Trains Literary Journal (Fall 2005)

Lamentation

He's dead, cold.
This tears the hope
of those...

Published in Numinous: Spiritual Poetry (October 2011)

Lamentation is a reworking of a poem from a series inspired by Giotto di Bondone's frescoes of the life of Christ:

For wonderful examples of Christian ekphrasic poetry, see Father Kilian McDonnell's work.

I pull you home on the kite strings of my eyes

For all your wildness,
free of the hard facts of earth,
you float with arms furled,
lose the breeze, come to ground:

life-sized, feet of clay, you fear
dissolving when night falls,
when love's rain turns grey.

With gardener's hands
you plant daily, cool contours
cushion the stems of flowers
leggy like women who moisten
your dreams, firm girls
with faces open like tulips,
white with longing for your
lyric breath, your fiery words:

you, who are unable to move past
the promise of your own beauty.

* * * *

Fever

Creature of the trees,

you lured me
from the trail --
I lagged, heard you
thump your chest
and jumped
into the wild.

I wanted dark heat,
rhythms, breaks,
a sound, to breathe
the jungle,
nostrils full out,
senses freed.

A generation
of flocked commands
grew dim with flight --
shrieking birds,
cacophonous caws.

Because of you,
Michael,
I am no longer meek.

...

Languages I Never Learned to Speak

When I was small I lived
near woods, but never learned
the plants or birds
or trees: how smooth
and double-toothed
the alder by the stream,
the juicy hemlock's tiny cones,
the mystery of seeds.
And acorns, while familiar,
held no hint for me
of red oaks' slender
catkins in the Spring.

I knew the owls, of course,
and hummingbirds, but missed
the warblers, the wrens.
The tapping courtship songs
of downy woodpeckers
did not map out a manual
for lifelong mating with a man.

I couldn't name the spicebush,
whose soft yellow leaves
would tantalize my dreams.
And blackberries that stained
my fingers' loops and whorls
could teach me only
o's and y's and e's.

betrayed

when I am blind with hurt whatever bralle-
less truth you tell me can't be read

when this pain gropes
my fingers reach for any spelling

hear what squeezes me – I cannot breathe
the counting grows: I'm owed

my blind pain claims its space
for handicaps – it wears dark glasses

when you move toward me
flinches from your touch

because you know I can't see
yet would violate my heart

and you will never
have this chance again

...

Coast to Coast Blues

Sequoias drum a riff
across the miles
through swaying chants
of cornfields, psalms of snow,

to sea, flat cool-
white sand, jazzed
waves, the syrinx song
of oystercatchers.

Micanopy Palms

Edward Hopper days:
palm trees etched
on turquoise sky, a painting
lonelier than death.

To halt the salty
appetite of blue
I think of
risqué words,

of robin's eggs
and Bessie Smith:
no one to tell
your troubles to.

...

On Reading Gary Gildner*

Synesthesia aroused,
I didn't know if I heard his call,
or stepped, half on purpose,
in a mound of fresh buffalo dung.
Either way, he changed
the way my nostrils flared.

Inhaling the view through
his windows, I held on, fearing
the distance might take me
for keeps. But I kept on reading,
stopped assuming anything,
let sail away the word favorite.

Each story was a different taste:
the blue-eyed sound of Thrasher's
dream (You are almost home),
the physical, green relish of this:
People who leave food 
on their plates are lonely.

I sent him the Polish vodka with the bison
on the label, a blade of grass inside,
and wrote "na zdrowie!" because
I wanted to believe the myth
that the golden blade, an aphrodisiac,
would keep him from going extinct.

* ("A Million-Dollar Story" and "Somewhere Geese are Flying")

From the Dugout

I wanted to stand well,
knees flexed, arms loose,

anticipate his pitch,

hold the bat ready,

know the sweet spot
(no junk, no sting).

In dreams, in practice,
our game was play;
we danced around the bases.

I was not ready for the curve
he threw, body blow:
"You are not a player."

Hard hit, hurting,
I dropped the bat,
the ball, the game.

...

Forgotten Poet

In this major minor poet's

mountain stories
stirring resonances strung
with Mingus, Mozart,
relishing the pure joy
of his language,
how he gathers poems
the way we cluster
flowers in a basket,
with a sense of sounds
acute enough that clocks
will tick away
his concentration,

horn of winds
in mountain trees
decree a verse
as overture or riff,
their gravity compelling
me to lean into
the sharp points
for a time,
until the man becomes
a shadow of the poet,
not the poem itself,
which is immortal.
...

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Photo by John Gay

Walking is uncertain
even with the wind
against my cheek
that moment of being touched
takes surprising strength:
gravity tossed with motion.

I like to fly, though
the moment before take-off
wonder what calls me
to imagine my own death
(the one where even strangers
are not alone).

So why, when your body
offers flight, are we migrating
birds whose destination
drives us from within,
whose archaic goal of safety
outwits the spontaneous impulse?

...

Time Warp

Driving north toward Charleston, Kitty sees signs:  sky the color
of sarsparilla, a dead and puffy armadillo, putrified, the dim contours

of a dream that she will glide in to the bar, observe her high school crowd
forty-five years later, like Dietrich on drugs, say nothing, see everything.

Emotions nailed, Kitty ignores the signs, drives another sixty miles,
turns a corner to the night version of her daydream.

The high school Fonz has become Pruneface, shoveled from his grave,
extending a cold hand: "My brother, truly dead, can't make it."

At her elbow is a geeky guy, forgettable than and now,
his smell surrounding her, like locker room sweat.

Kitty fades into a martini, and through the glass sees
Alfred E. Newman. "I'd know you anywhere," she lies.

A woman hammers her with small talk. "I'd like to say," Kitty cries,
"I'm an axe murderer on the side." The woman replies, "Yada yada."

Newman's eyes, meanwhile, are glued chest-level
where Kitty's flesh-eating name tag gnaws her tattoo.

Invisible shield over ink, hand over crotch, Kitty's now
Dietrich in drag. "A cold shower," she mutters, "to wake me up."

At 7 pm, she sidles down in slinky black dress, red shoes
to a blind date with dry veal, wet apricot tarts, and the animal farm.

Dietrich draped in silk, she purrs, "I wrote a book." No one in particular
answers: "My investments doubled." "My first child was hydrocephalic."

"I voted for Bush." "I live for dessert." "My son's an alcoholic."
"My sister killed herself." "My daughter's in a wheelchair."

Stalking Kitty is Mr. N. with a pitchfork: "My wife won't mind
if I photograph you nude -- for my private collection of tattoos."

Done with Dietrich, Kitty wraps her arms tight, retires to her padded room,
sleeps till morning, then -- bitch on wheels -- spins gravel.

...

Hiragana

He dips water
spoon by spoon
from my glass.

His wife, across from me,
a linguist, seems inclined to know me.

"Apposition," I reflect, and
draw upon a napkin
with my lipstick

Copula," I say.

He sips.

Her Botticelli cheeks now dimple,
eyebrows raised inside.

"It means," I tell her,
"Tokyo is the capital."

She laughs,

we turn toward our sake, warmed.

My eyes glide back to him,
remembering his song of honey-
suckle rose, of sips, of tasty lips.

 Sibilants.

Silent, nip by nip
he quenches thirst.

A morpheme
lost upon his wife,
so modest, so congenial.

Such bruising naiveté
while charming, stirs my wish
to state a predicate,

how he brings women to her
as a child might offer pets
found on the way home.

"Oh, Darling, she's so smart!
Is she not pretty?
Can we keep her?"

Later, in his arms,
I beg, "Please, tell your wife
I'm half in love with her."

...

Reindeer Fantasy

will you join me in a
    Christmas-time (and all-time)
    panoply of joy
to wear throughout the year

a fantasy of children
   amber, pink, and ruby boys and girls
   for all the world
                      resembling anyone

we'll beg for them
two simple truths
            one: that you are
                    and I am (me,you,they)
            two: that always
                    when they smell the rain
                    it will be Go(o)d

Yucatan

Trekking for two days
in Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.

High atop the tallest stone:
a gray-throated chat.

Snorkeling in Cozumel:
schooling angelfish, a golden sponge
(tendrils like an octopus),
sea turtles, snappers, grunts.

At the bar in Playa Bonita:
Margaritas, snakes, a monkey
in a cage, transparent waves,
a place for surfing sea ways, bodies.

Walking toward the ocean's crest,
deciding, I will not turn back, then
blinking in the sun until I am,
like Manuel beside me, brown.

...

Hollywood Ending

I want to write poetry with panache,
brilliant and bawdy prose,
show exceptional taste,
eat Hersheys in the park,

be fluent in flowers, indulge
in Latin leanings, jazz
sensibilities, create a sound
that changes everything for me.

But the chasm between mi casa
and su casa confounds my life:
are these proving grounds
or the devil's workshop?

Butt out, I said yesterday. 
Now I sit in a booth,
decide between a small umbrella
and an olive on a sword.

Orphaned, I will book a room
a world away with soaring windows,
wait for the miracle I feel but never see,
read the silence of the educated fans.

(This is a found poem, taken from article titles in a long-lost issue of The New Yorker.)

Pierced

one pierced moment ~ e.e. cummings

when we played hooky

on the first warm day in May

when we sang to Pure Prairie League
falling in and out of love

when he called me every night
on a walk from his wife

when we biked in tandem
on Mackinac Island

when we posed astonished
on the thin ice of taste

when he turned, pulled my hand
to cup his sleeping cock

I did not say this was
one man; remember

words for pierced: parted,
riven, broken, sundered, torn.

Side Show

Once she was the barker for a traveling show,
but remember those on the side.

     Marvella the Dog-Faced Girl sat quietly in her
     cage—not much to look at, but the tickets sold.

     Fazu the Fortune Teller gazed in crystal
     balls. Kitty was the Bad Weather Clown.

     Bearded Lady Belle had a stand-up routine,
     "Funny when a gal walks like a man!"

     Gretta Geek bit the heads off chickens;
     gruesome, but kept the crowds rapt.

Now she's the Tattooed Lady—a living Garden's
Eve. The serpent is still keen for conquest

but Eve knows all there is to know, is
elegant and lush and naked as an apple.


(See companion flash memoir "Eeek Love")

Formation

      She knows Woolf, her life, The Hours her hours.
      Virginia did it. She doesn't have to pocket rocks.

                   A muted sediment settles, ancient dust.

                              She accepts, receives, acquires the ignominious
                              hard granite of day to day affairs. No longer

                                        her own live-in critic, her work does not suffer,
                                        is the work of suffering, her darkness xenolithic,

                                                    marbled with intrusive fragments, broken by
                                                    cave-ins, landslides: a mother lode, lost.

                                       Remember the brother, the father, how they loved.

                              Buttressed, she is durable, dense, strong,
                              metamorphosed by the weight, oh!

                 the heat of her core, igneous, molten fired,
                 wrought to stone, palette of greens,

          the attested instrument of her
          writing, her anguish, her dreams.

Polished to a mirror's sheen, serpentine jade.


(Dedicated to D.H.)

Birthright

Like many discreet professionals, Chausie's career path was oblique. She'd dreamed  of devoting her life to animals and waited anxiously for news of her acceptance to veterinary school. When the letter came, she climbed up the white oak in her back yard to savor it alone, absently licking the dried glue at the torn edge of the envelope as her future rolled out before her. She pictured being surrounded by soft creatures who gave no backtalk.

That vision was clouded when she observed her first surgery. She'd studied the textbooks where all the colors, layers, and organs were in place, and easily memorized the necessary implements and procedures, but shortly after the first slice of the knife she fainted and never went back. All that blood and glistening viscera, such impersonal and shifting interior anatomy!

Her given name was Charlene. Cat breeder parents had chuckled with tender amusement at their agile child who liked to jump on things, and nicknamed her Chausie after the new hybrid cat whose ruddy color matched their daughter's thick, auburn hair.

While still in vet school, Chausie had rented a carriage house on the large estate of an elderly woman with the single name Geneviève, an au courante sculptor whose statues resembled obese Giacomettis. Geneviève shared a taste for luxury with Zula, her Red Abyssinian cat—silk sheets, the finest meats, organic wild-crafted catnip. 

Geneviève's only worry was Zula's fate if orphaned. She spoke of this in the garden with Chausie, savoring the scent of cosmos and lilac, zinnia and verbena, while Chausie's cats, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, conducted their own analyses of the breeze. 

"Charlene, dear, I would like to will Zula to you, with a small stipend, if you agree."

A pedigreed cat! The first scent of greed dilated Chausie's nostrils. Ribbons from New York, a board membership with the Abyssinian Cat Club, mine to stroke: that golden goddess whose coat glows like a flame. "Of course," she said. When Geneviève showed her the will, Chausie was stunned to learn she could live at the mansion with a monthly income of $8000 for as long as Zula lived.

Chausie told her boyfriend Max, "Just think. I could make this into a profession: ten cats, twenty cats. I could afford to have the carpets replaced every three months. Come over tonight and help me celebrate. Bring Claude. It's time he got to know the cats."

Not as species-biased as Chausie, Max had tamed a wild parrot he named Claude whose eyes, circled by white, gave him the appearance of a jaunty academic. Max played to this, teaching Claude Elizabethan curses.

When they arrived at the carriage house that night, Claude cast leery glances at Carl and Sigmund: "Mewling, idle-headed ratsbanes!" 

Chausie became a swanky cat sitter. She sought out wealthy people with elegant cats and gained their trust by showing her sure hand with their pets. But no matter how she ingratiated herself, none of them offered  her an inheritance. To sate her lust for pedigree, she became a cat burglar. Her targets were prominent figures who failed to treat their pets with proper respect. She would grow close to the cats, quietly observe their owners' movements and habits, even be given her own key.

She never burgled while officially pet sitting, and thus she was the last person suspected when cats disappeared—perhaps while their owners were hosting a large party. Chausie would sneak into the house through the kitchen door, grab some gourmet hors-d'oeuvres, and glide unseen up the back stairs carrying Smoked Salmon Tartare, Caviar, or Shimp Ceviche.

A Maine Coon would look wide-eyed when she picked it up, then purr against the familiar cheek as Chausie tiptoed to the window, quietly opened it with one hand, and dropped lightly to the ground. A Persian might hold its ears back, unsure of what to do until Chausie chirped its name, called it to her, cradling it gently as she slipped away. 

By this time Geneviève had met with an untimely accident, leaving Zula and her home to Chausie, who now had plenty of room for more. She renamed all the cats after famous people. Carl and Siggie had set the tone. Zula was now Goldie Meir.

The two Ragdolls she had whisked away from a well-known Republican were particularly rare, mitted with black toes. Male and female siblings, she'd named them Snoop Catty Cat and Madonna. Snoop and Maddie would ride—one draped over each shoulder—as Chausie went about her chores, hardly time now for anything beyond formal cat sitting and informal sitting with her cats—feeding them, changing their litter boxes. An entire afternoon might pass in the enclosed garden while she brushed the longhairs one by one, and the shorthairs chased butterflies and beetles.

About the time that Chausie snatched her fifteenth prize, Max said, "Enough!" and slouched away, Claude swaying in a dither at his wrist. Max's departure was not due to moral outrage (he rather admired Chausie's prowess as a cat burglar), nor to the increasingly strong scents and invisible clouds of dander. No. Jealous of the time and attention she gave the cats instead of him, Max felt neutered.

As they left, Claude cried triumphantly, his spectacled eyes wide upon Chausie through the narrow aperture of the closing door: "Saucy, spur-galled miscreant!"

Losing the Bone

       In the Elizabethan card game Bone-Ace,
      the player with the highest face card up wins
      the bone, one coin paid by each player.

Will's codpiece may have slipped in Shottery
upon a stroll with Anne, or as they trod
the garden path at Stratford-upon-Avon,
gloaming audience of topiary
man and woman, trellised gilliflowers,
rosemary in raised beds edged
with woven willow, sheep shank
bones—behind the house of wattle,
daub, and candent blue-gray stone.
Full of fire, and full of bone...
young Will eighteen when they wed,
Anne's belly swelled.

Mayhap their celebration feast entailed
the preparation of a leg of mutton
minced and rolled in poppet balls—
mace, cloves, dates, currants:
Fartes of Portingale.
Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty...
the culinary phantasm of pie,
perchance, its opening to wild applause,
releasing six live finches, "so delight
and pleasure shew the company."

At twenty-one, he hied to London,
soon forgot his whilom wife
in sonnet thrills; in play and rhyme
did fancy comely wenches,
Catching all passions in his craft...
Anne's cilice, life alone—Susanna, Judith,
Hamnet, and the pence of marriage:
sewing by a failing light, the daily
cleaning, turning rushes for the floor.
In just a decade more the little master,
too, was gone, cause of demise unknown;
with him took Will's only loss of bone.

Upon death the bard's last words:
"item to my wife the second best bed."

      I had rather be married to a death's head...

...

lures

out on the patio
hungry   fish
nibble on talk

the first   top water lure
walks the surface

the second   Bettencourt
Assassin ratchets
the line taut

the third   buzzbait

fires predatory instincts
unique plug
strike-triggering action
knows to walk-the-dog
side to side   rattles me
oh flashy   deep running
multipurpose blade

trust the bait
retrieve   pause
a lure drops
repeats   hooked


...

Eden

Into your eyes I fell,
longing.

Transported, we were
caught up in our bodies' play,
fell deeper, walked into
the mirrors that we held,
that for a moment held us.

To the names we gave ourselves
we pledged our troth,
performed the magic rites,
but in our earthy hearts
ignored the ways the path
could bend us, how
its tortured curves would
     seize us in an instant,
     tear us from adventure,
     hurl us into safe perimeters
     we thought we'd left behind.

As from a cliff where we might
step in space, we fell instead
into familiar territory, captives
in a land where others hold us
hostage, use our given names,
remind us who we are.

Do we lack faith, or are we
in a faery-land, entranced?
Each waiting for the other's call,
the name of names. Each waiting
for the other to awaken,
break the spell, return us
to the place where we may fall
again.
  

Published in Revelations III, 2000

What a Passion Flower Wants

 Clematis florida

Love me, let me be

honored in my singularity,
my complex leaves
dentate, acute.
Ask, as I climb, if
I am rooted deep.

Find the Puritan
in my spare lines,
gaze into my center,
learn the catechism
of my tendriled heart:
I cannot withstand the cold.

Then feel my grief,
be with me when I am
drunk on daylight,
passionate with heat,
swooning from the sun's grace,
delirious with death:

my own cutting an ecstasy.

Published in Go Find Your Sisters: Memories from the Poetry Path with Sharon Thomson, 1997

(A companion flower poem: If a Daisy Could Speak)

Cape Cod Haiku

the waves in their love
form a blue rolling blanket
to cover the shore

we bury our toes
a slow-moving sand dune walks
over to greet us

with tickled noses
the cats seek their fortunes
and leap at a weed

a tiny flower
growing amidst the brambles
I hope I see it

the eyes of the fish
shining cold by the tackle
are always so still

the sailboats gather
to win a competition
the sea gathers too

the lines tighten sails
as wind dancingly hovers
to play their old game

rain pelts the hatches
point and counterpoint above
the swaying hammock

between the islands
where anything can happen
water meets water



The final haiku, "between the islands," was published in key-ku: haiku of the keys, Solares Hill, 2005

Spooked

Somber leaves hiss in the night wind,
dark mounds conspiring.

Gaping spaces in tooth-torn trees
become mouths in silent screams.

Distant light falters, obscured
by clawed hands of weaving limbs.

With fierce-nugget eyes cats
slink by, brush my skin—

I shudder the length of fear,
hairs probing the air for omens.

One foot marks the porch edge:
inches to safety or the last walk.

Terror lies taut—eyeless, inward. Beast
awakening knows where the knives keep.


Published in The Grailville Poets, 1994

Union

It was his gaze that held me fast

on the sea's edge in Scotland
when the sun crashed.
"American?" he asked, sidling.
He wished me harm.

I'd backed toward just this,
his cable-sweatered arm,
his Scottish brogue, his eyes.
He wished me harm
there, stroked my wish.

We walked, how foolishly for me,
away from all the drowning fires,
the families laughing, in the cooling
hush. Then premonition—
belly first, bile rising.

I can taste it as I kill him
with this memory, won't have it be:
my young wrists held back,
his pushing, breaking,
coldly remonstrating, "Quiet!"

Now I kick, gouge,
hear myself not beg, not
bound in dark union,
have it not true that I did not
kill him. A belated dirge.


Published in Creative Voices, Winter 2000

Projections

Our first scene

starred an ingenue
               with eyes like two
               soft chocolate drops.
The seductress
appears on and off
               by now she knows
               her purpose;
unless you count success
in minutes onstage
she's generally a loser
               though some are taken
               in by her act.
But we have been
unpeopled by death:
endings ominously final
as a drawn curtain
               this includes all
               versions of goodbye.
These small finales
leave us shaken,
rehearsing
               stage fright,
the part of
               my selves
consummate woman.

Published in Waters, Cincinnati, 1975

food chain

nobility    they say
not ego
               am I not
then     not to
close in    dancing
on your skin
to linger on your
drenching taste
to swallow    probe

or shiver    suck
ah hunger    leaps
at neck    at thigh
could leap
beyond principle

am I not to    sway

toward that space
animal    skinned
lunge across
muscles flying
am I not
to hunt    tease
or nuzzle    smell
my prey
                 to turn you
with my nose
our eyes    bridged
to watch you
die for me


Published in The Grailville Poets, 1994

Dinnertime

When we sat to eat I looked
at Daddy first, sniffed the air, alert.
Abruptly nodding (on his fat neck),
those German eyes—small prunes
upon his doughy face, he made
the way we ate a test.
(Don't talk! Don't sing!)

My brother smiled (inches taller,
several switchings more mature)—
he saw tomorrow and his own kids
eating shit. And Mama bowed
her head as if she never saw,
or later wouldn't mutter in the kitchen:
"Jackass!" (teaching me the rules)

Fork in hand I thought
to pierce the meat,

then set it down again,
eyes darting to the swing
outside where songs awaited
and my seven sisters (all named
Mary) whispered sabotage.

The ketchup bottle at the table
beckoned: one lick of the top
and I could have Daddy, in my way.


...

Who Are Mr. and Mrs. Clark?

(*inspired by David Hockney's "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy")

she wants love   her eyes express

wretchedness   falling short of

beautiful though rich

her diamond earrings   hips/hands:

communiqué

the man ignores earfuls

feet bare   hair long   beard traced

on chin   he eyes the painter

bored

they've not moved in   or out

sparse vase/flowers   touch of

pretense

unplugged phone

blue lamp   crystal

would have been in baby's room

the air outside is

blue

the table   abstract on the wall

his sweater

all blue

even Percy's white coat

tinged with it   but oh no

not her   blood   red   velvet gown

*Ekphrasis is relating one art medium to another...A descriptive work of prose or poetry, a film or even a photograph may... enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own.

Father Watches

(*imagined while gazing at Mary Cassatt's "Child with Red Hat")

the rosebud lips
he says   match them
and thus the hat!

is not her head askew
turned right
her body    straining
to stay straight?

her rosy nose    cheeks
follow those
deep lagoons    those eyes:

she does not look
at Father.


*Ekphrasis is relating one art medium to another...A descriptive work of prose or poetry, a film or even a photograph may... enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own.

Au Contraire - Bilingual Ode to "W"

        i - L'histoire

I used to fancy  

the tabloids    chacun à son goût

when they featured

two-headed babies,

often sired by an alien;   c’est autre chose

or spontaneous human

combustion: a small room,

a man turned to flame

while lighting a butt;   pièce de résistance

a woman walking on the beach,

suddenly reduced to ashes,

having broken no apparent rules

of good form or taste.   à la mode

Over time the stories

changed to peccadilloes:   enfants terrible

a woman of good form

but questionable taste

shot with a well-known preacher;   faux pas

a politician, presidential

prospects trashed.   rapprochement

It was a joke among my friends    entre nous

that I could never run for President:

a misconception.

I wish The Man

had been my daddy.   dénoûement

I could have whored,

drugged and boozed

south of the border,   fait accompli

done coke at Camp David

and got off with a stint

of youth counseling,

a little cheerleading   à bon marché

on my way

to the white house.   noblesse oblige

     ii - Traduction du Français

chacun à son goût:     My own taste 

c'est autre chose:       leans to the left 

pièce de résistance:   so I'm dishing 

à la mode:                 about the fashion

enfants terrible:        for bad boys

faux pas:                   to step in it

rapprochement:         and still get the vote.

entre nous:                Between you and me,

dénoûement:             the plot is apparent:

fait accompli:            deny facts

à bon marché:           and strike the bargain

noblesse oblige:        that oils big wheels.

Mary Bast

Veteran

I understand your Witch.

She stirs the cauldron:

bits of snails, sharp things
fill her brew.

I estimate her call: she feeds

your fear, she wants

your faint heart, craves it

living from your breast.

You seek her belly,

need her nipple, want

to turn into the Earth

of her, be guarded

as she lulls you, rocks you,

croons, and eats your soft heart.

Mary Bast, Revelations: Personal Poems by Cincinnati Poets, 1998

Dreams

             i

Across the cool dirt to your barn

I ride bareback

the horse you tamed for me,

nuzzling thighs,

one beast, one rider,

tandem dreams.

             ii

Running bare

through Montana snows,

cool press of ice

thawing lip to lip,

I fall laughing by the fire

wrapped only in your eyes.

           iii

Casting wild,

the river's cool current

thrills my hands,

it rains, rivulets

taste our skin:

two shimmering trout.

I hold you trembling

in the cool air

prompting gently,

is this what you want?

You whisper catch, release,

swim away, and die.

Mary Bast, Velvet Avalanche (Fall 2006)

Everywhere That Mary Goes

 

Ten little hoofed soldiers march

like human kids, catch my eye,

play King of the Mount atop

a stump grand enough to hold

two; the others leap aside.

I walk past. One leaves the mob,

runs close, bleats, then breaks away:

a brave, though slant-wise scoot,

his mother's deeper call a sweet pursuit.

In late spring, I'm told, the lambs

will go to slaughter, bawling terror

and surprise: "Where are my mates

who slept so close, who gamboled

under skies of timber gray?" they'll cry,

their mothers keening through the night,

though I will hear what sounds like "Baa-aa!"

To Sipowicz

Your face is rendered
helpless, as in war,
your heart worn under
love-proof vest.

You seek a woman,
one who sees past
armor, needs
no weapon
to retaliate
against the limits
of your trust.

A woman who
is calm, who sees
the question
mark your face,
the curiosity, the hope.

She comes here
unassuming,
sees your body
turn back, hoping
for her hand to glide,
touch, assume.


...

Sleeping With a Semi-Famous Poet

i

We start a fire, burn
away the slash,
stoke it all afternoon.
I am on fire-watch,
hose in hand.

We talk in the drifting
ash of smoke-jumpers,
digging a bunker,
leaning into the flames.

You give me your flannel
shirt, instruct me quietly
to wear nothing else:
on the green couch,
in full view of the pines.

ii

Cast into the cold, coarse
river, my line snags. I slide
toward it on the mossy rocks,
practice falling.

iii

I pee in the four corners
of the corral, curious,
catch my almond scent,
imagine I will be known
by the prowling cougar.

iv

Rebels from a small school,
anchovies teach my tongue:
their sex-taste,
their fingering length.

v

Hearing is not enough,
nor is the new way of seeing —
I have to try things on.
This morning I wear
the almost-perfect circle
of your breathing house.

vi

Past the delphiniums
I find a field mouse
chucked out of its entrails,
front paws steepled.
I think of a hole-dug, mousy farewell
but see its rear paws pushed out
like a runner's, fling it forward

into the quickening air,
over the back hill beyond
the scrubby bushes, the browning
grass, the punky branches
of remembered trees.

(See companion memoir "A Long Way Down" in Connotation Press)

To Die For

All week I've been plagued

by fruit flies. Michael suggests

an eco-solution: bats.

"They'll keep you fruit-fly-free,

hide under the bed,

ask only that you take out

their guano from time to time."

I consider it, wonder if I can

train them to use a bat-box,

but I'm in a killer mood.

The solution looks like a jar

of rotting cherries, smells

like pheromones. The flies

expect to dine well, then get laid.

La petite mort.

Final Thoughts

The poet says he's not afraid
but won't fly, drives his truck
to teach or give a reading.

For me, death by plane
would be the finest way to go.

You'd have some time for final
thoughts the whole way,
and the right kind:

when my car went in a tailspin
all I thought was "Shit!"

You wouldn't be alone.
Not like a murder
in a darkened alley.

On a plane, another passenger
might hold your hand.

You'd hope the pilot, turning in a nosedive,
would pull out; if not, the end would be
so quick you wouldn't quite believe it.

This is all the poet says:
"It is a long way down."

(See companion flash memoir, "A Long Way Down.")

Learning to Drive

When he taught me to drive,
my Lieutenant Colonel Dad
commanded me to learn
on a stick shift. No namby-
pamby automatic ride. We
practiced on country roads
where he trained me to swerve
at will, to get the feeling of control.

This is how he lived his life:
grabbing the wheel. In later years,
hands curled, arthritic claws,
he would not stop driving,
changing course. I never knew
when harsh weather would force
my slide into a lie, fearing
a head-on collision, his sharp nod
the only brake light needed.

I was always missing curves.

I wonder if his ashes press
pedal to vase as he plots,
in Arlington National Cemetery,
a military coup, part of a convoy,
commando spirits planning
to eject hazardous materials
on my wishy-washy life:
a car-jacking, an explosion. 


...

Grand Canyon

While driving west
we passed time
with an article
proposing marriage
could be stronger
if you share the thing
you most dislike.

I came up with the way
he ate his pudding, open
mouthed and rolling forward
on his tongue: I couldn't
swallow if I watched.
Perhaps he thought me
more disgusted than I was.

Sometimes his face
was puzzled at my gibes
though not quite angry
with those small darts
he would say "You don't
enjoy your life. Too
hot, too cold, or hungry.

You're impossible. You notice
nothing in the scenery, your nose
is always buried in a book."
Oh, it was true I read
throughout the canyon
drive, but it was not
true that I noticed nothing.

Growing dizzy at the edge
he tripped so carelessly
reminded me of his invincibility.
And, thus, secure, he told me
I complained too much.
I did complain,
my chronic transience

the one landscape in view.


Published in Revelations II: Personal Poems by Cincinnati Poets, 1999

I Tell the Old Woman to Dip Her Own Pail in the Well

Like the little girl in the fairy tale
I get wrong-ways of a witch.

Frogs and snails
fly from my mouth,
stirred in a serpent's brew,
anger the spoon.

Words, those erstwhile pearls
grown tawdry, become wild
flashers, serrate the air,
whistling their dark way South.

Without the least regret,
I ache to taste the profane.

...

Martin Plaut's Cigar

When we met
at the greasy spoon
and I, the bride-to-be,
defended my Greek God,
you, Martin, with your big
cigar, asked why bother?

Intellectually seduced —

debating "life reflects art,"
Durrell and Keats —
the Alexandria Quartet
reflected my life, lusting
to burst joy's grape.

Why did I meet the publication
of your novel with disdain?
Because you weren't Durrell
or Keats, because I was
so god-damned jealous.
Are you there now, Martin,

with your big cigar?

Mary Bast