Dirty 30 in 30

[unpredictablebijou]

x-16

If a thousand weren’t enough
what difference would this one make?
I’ve chased you through mountains
sharpened my tongue on you
I used to dive deep and come up
with pearls between my teeth
I’ve broken my fingernails on you
and waved my fists at god on your behalf
a hundred words for one
a chapter for a kiss.
All it did was make you
nervous.



.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-17

I learn you
like I learn a length
of knotted rope
since inside
each curved turn
is an invisible
interior, too tight
for me to see.



.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-18

Not that love but this one, the dark and hungry,
the way the thighs feel, clenched under my kneeling strain
and hardened in my hands. How the added tone,
the ninth note augments, seems so hopeful
when paired with a four beat, a back rhythm that reminds
me of how easy, how free and smooth
I wish we were. Music
is too easy; it smoothes me to cooperate
with nothing and I have no rulership
but the pole, the vision, some single star
too far away, and untouchable. The closer it is
to possible, the less I can tell
what it really looks like.



.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-19

I have gone back, like a dog going home
like a chastised child, to the greatroom
and crawled along the floor
facedown like a nun, crazed
with rebellion, drugged with veneration
and I have kissed the ruby rings
not forgiven, welcomed like an exhausted
missionary, like a soldier, nursed
in layers of white by practical hands.

I have gone back to the open garden where
I lived before I became harsh and was sent
to the desert, to work. I have returned
to the lush green and the bower bench
to wait for the cure, to heal the feet
wounded in fire.




.

 

[Tzara]

16

Resignation of the Prey

Today am I as open
as an eviscerated bluebird.

Pluck this or that red sinew
at your carnivorous leisure,

Inquisitor. Please, however,
torture only with your tongue—

for those nipping, needled teeth are final,
and their damage not undone.



.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

2

I wonder if you had already decided
when you called to say what are you doing
on Christmas and I said maybe this weekend if you decided
then. You don't seem like a collector but then
I've always been farsighted and that was just
too close already for me to be sure
that periphery hasn't set in, again.

How good to be driven
reciprocating ghost stories and sure
we believed, even decked out
in what the hell Brooklyn.

 

[Tzara]

17

4-Color Riff on Offhand Cymbal, Odd Beat

Some red-caped guy flies overhead.
He's stronger than the rest of us
and tries to Right All Wrongs instead
of conquering Metropolis.
What's up with that? You'd think he'd want
as Krypton's glorious Last Son
some zillions of scared synchophants
all genuflecting, singing one

great paean to his superness.
But Clark (as he's been raised) cannot
nor state nor pleasure dome decree.
Nor Khan, nor Lex, nor apricot
(that last an "as if" simile).
He's simply wonderful, I guess.
..........................................But,

Polýxena, Achilles knew.
Upon his pyre, she sighed, Throw us.
A's heel like Kryptonite proved to
undo him. Pay attention, Lois!



.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Rachel

our attention divides
subdivides swerves but not hers

she is rare among the spectrum
the girl who stacks
who rocks
to the rhythm of magazine
pages quick flipped
rattle pace

our attention divides
but she never blinks
laughs until it hurts
as if do not stop
was all she had to remember
curling down to press
her joyless
laugh on lung's last
corner of air

this is what happiness looks like
this is what you want
her laugh
accuses

 

[Tzara]

18

Explanation for Handing in Donne’s
“Batter my heart, three-personed God”
as My Sonnet in Creative Writing Class

Here have I stolen to promote the Good.


How like apology that sounds. To make
A thing that God would like, must one first take
Another’s labor, born of other blood,
Reshape it to one’s narcissistic mood?
Erato’s nymphly bones must surely ache
If this be so; morality opaque
Enough that even Dullness gets approved.

But in my own defense, I quote Gauguin:
Art is either plagiarism or
Revolution. Conservative, I swore
I’d never write as Radical, and so,
Respecting Art, I copied Donne. Enfin,
My sin was cogito, and right, ergo.



.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Tz, #16 made me sad and i tried to write a response (epic fail). And #17 made me lol. And I think Donne's sonnet is the best religious rape poem to come out of that era.

And Dora! Solid solid solid. I Love 'what the hell Brooklyn' and this:

curling down to press
her joyless
laugh on lung's last
corner of air

is just damn fine. It's exactly as it should be.

I'm going to try to catch up. Mate decided to have a kidney stone yesterday, and the drama's not over even now. All day in the E.R. and other wackiness. woof. Not that I'm complaining. The poor beast was in a lot of pain, and all I could do was keep telling the medicians that he was a truck and was going to need a LOT more morphine than most people...

eh bien. off to try to catch up...

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-20

I have become instead a moon
to your constant state, not the twin star
I once perceived, more equal in spin.
You are firm as Jupiter and there is no
shifting you. I can only slingshot
in a spiral around your cloud-covered
solids. Ruled by an imaginary body
and half of me always in shadow
though you force my motion
I rule your tides. Your water
is all mine and your dark cycles
belong to my vague, reflected face.

Far more than volatile
a globe of your own nature, with
an indefinite center, you revolve
in fierce mathematics
and I cannot shift you. I can pull
the liquid from you, but no one
has ever set foot
on either one of us. We keep
an ordained and necessary
distance.



.

 

[Tzara]

19

currency

found, perhaps laid
in some arachnid corner
bound in dust, in silk

and other excrements
my hopeless offering
to join and hold

there, my heart exposed as puppy
or as captured moth or
as a silver coin that’s very old

no longer legal tender
for any debts
public or quite private



.

 

[Tzara]

20

Malignity
Kinda after Emily Dickinson

These waters do not want my boat
To sail their sheltered waves.
Their acid calmly eats away
The gunwales of my float.

But I shan't be a Sailor should
Such liquors scare me off.
This low pH quite compliments
My sturdiness of would.



.

 

[Tzara]

21

Natural Selection

Theft is the birthright
of the animate, for what rooted stump
could indulge its desire to lift

the thick humus from some neighbor
residing across the creek?
No, a being must move

to steal, as any crow
and eagle knows. Strength or speed
or subtlety

enhance this healthy avarice,
but nothing grasps at wealth so well
as two opposing thumbs.



.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

You two are kicking ass up there. Not sure how long it will be until I get to 30.

Instant Message from the Ex

The urge to protect his wife
is surprisingly strong;
fingers twitch search terms
as I pace the porch

remembering when it was me
and not she who had to wrestle
lies from wishes and send them
to their corners. I imagine her
watching him chew his nails
and wonder if she is relieved
that at least he can still feel guilt.

I do every time he messages
though I never asked him to
but I always answer
yes, doing fine, I remember
remember but no I haven't
any pictures of myself
I lie.

 

[Tzara]

You two are kicking ass up there. Not sure how long it will be until I get to 30.

BJ is kicking ass. I'm just being an ass, as usual.

Instant Message from the Ex

Good (and interesting) poem, PG. I never know if these things are about real events, but yours, whether they are or not, always seem real real.

 

[Tzara]

22

From My Morning Notebook

Last night, I dreamt a blind dream.
A diffuse, warm light
masked the whisk of wheat over bare legs

as you walked shoeless through
that rise of open field.
I wanted to be grain and hook

onto your skin or clothing,
to settle into the clearing that you found
near the sighing river,

lay with you in the crackling stalks,
ripple like the unseen water
in its rush toward the distant West.

But I was neither seed nor stream,
and the crush of your small feet in grass
grew faint, then died away.



.

 

[Tzara]

23

Her Body in Repose

Is not so firm as once it was,
Of course. Nor mine, should truth be told.
In her I see much more than flesh.
I’d better—we’re both getting old.



.

 

[Tzara]

24

She Dipped Her Feet in Thalo Green
(After Wordsworth, More or Less)

She dipped her feet in thalo green,
Then strode along the parapet—
A vision (one could say, obscene),
Or autograph (retiring debt).

It was her MFA degree,
A thesis in Performance Art.
But, lo! That phthalocyanine
(The pigment), well, it stopped her heart.

She lived unknown, and few could guess
The artist that we’d hoped she’d be,
But wasn’t. Still, I’d like to stress
Her non-indifference to me!



.

 

[Tzara]

25

Realpolitik

I want you to imagine a cowboy: a lean, tall man with Paul Newman eyes and perfect teeth. A rope, a whip, a shivering roan stallion between his thighs.

I am not that man, OK? I am not that man.

My “Y” chromosome is just some stub of faulty DNA. I sneeze. I snore. And, God, I am no God of Love.

We have that straight?

OK.

I really do think that you’re cute. I have a job. And furniture. (Well, some. At least a big TV.)

I own an unstained suit. Or did.

So, darling, will you marry me?



.

 

[champagne1982]

07

wet doesn't mean desire
river valleys are swamps

the rain in the arid lands
really means something

the desert begs lips
tongue to lick the dry
dust into puddles

 

[unpredictablebijou]

First time I've had a chance to check in since my last post.

Y'all are blowing me away. Absolutely amazing, all of it.

T, #22. Best. Best you've done to date. Like, ever. I'm serious. Fucking gorgeous.
Do that more.

Dora, is that pic YOU? You're as hot as your work.

Champy, your number seven is such classic you, and as always you make me want to work harder to say as much with as few words as you manage. Not a word out of place, perfect as always.

argh. I got nothin' today. Maybe tomorrow.

On the upside, I managed to have an actual good time on New Year's Eve. I had no idea that was even possible. Danced my ass off. Safe, warm, lovely, and stellar company. Who knew?

I hope everyone's 2010 is blessed, prosperous and productive.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-21

how to tell you’re dreaming

If you feel that you are blending in
with your background, like a chameleon.
If you believe you are shedding your skin
but it does not frighten you.
If there is lightning without thunder.
If you can feel your own bones inside
the core of your body; if your body
seems to hum or sing.
If a series of people approach you
making requests or demands.
If you hear the sound of rain
but it is not raining.
If you notice that the shadows are not correct
for the light.
If someone comes to you and removes
your heart or some other organ
and replaces it with something strange
and valuable.
If you believe that you can fly and then
you do fly.
If your clothes keep changing color, or if
they are a significant color.
If you are paralyzed by visions.
If there is a great hall with tall pillars
like trees, going up forever, going on forever.
If there is something at the end of that hall
toward which you are supposed to walk.



.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-22

I am a part of the house,
a wall, an archway, the frame of a door
and if I left, I would still be shaped
by the stretch of joist and beam
that defines these rooms. I can find
myself in every wall, a silhouette
a cameo in ivory hung on the neck.


.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-23

I have found my way
toward lack of expectations
along that star-black path
of irony, of endings. I’ve turned
my belly upside down
to eat the new and bitter food
I have walked past the cynical cafe
where they have stopped to sit
and tell their stories
of how necessary, how proper
how beautiful it is to fail,
past that to this strange home
this vacant lot where nothing
happens but the weeds
the strings of empty harps that heralded
what we believed were angels.
Even these sharp walls are canvases
for the mad graffiti of the ones
who’ve seen what real night offers
and can’t go back to look through windows
at that illusionary feast, the table
of the simple dream of us.


.