writing live

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 18 2/13/22

Hungry Jack

Room service, how may I help you?

Mr. Nicholson would like one
of everything on the breakfast menu.
Five pots of coffee, sweet rolls and
hot water for tea. Got that? Oh!
And five Mimosas

Yes, yes. Right away.

Panic in the kitchen, under-staffed,
it's Sunday after all. We don't
expect a movie star to order
a breakfast orgy. How much
can one man eat anyway?

Eggs bennie, omelets of several
kinds, soft boiled eggs, platters
of bacon and racks of toast.
Waffles with maple, muffins
and cinnamon buns.

Tray after tray is readied
and steadied, trundled up
to suite 107 where Jack
must be starving.

The man opens up himself;
waves us in with that famous,
wolf-grin.

Here you are ladies, breakie.

And four lithe beauties unfold
from the King sized.

You didn't think it was all for me?
I'm a man of many appetites
but that would be just greedy!

 

[Winter_Fare]

I wanted to paint you a picture
I wanted the ambrotypes of silver mothers
Lost to war and terror
To sing for us
To remind us to crawl up
Crawl towards the light
If only to die in the sunshine
Even when all is lost
And remember the cost

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 19 2/16/22

Grandfather

In the days of British
National Service
when every young man did his duty,
like it or not,
my grandfather and I walk the platform
of one of those cavernous
London stations, St.Pancras or
Liverpool Street. We passed
sprawling ranks of fledgling fighters,
uniforms new and strange.

Shyly, I eyed these handsome
wanna-be heroes-that-never-would-be.
My grandfather haughtily eyed them too.

Loudly, and well within earshot
of the lone black boy,
to my teenage horror,
he pronounced.
“My God! Do they take
ni**ers in the army now?”

In that split second, I felt shame
for both of us and saw my elder
in a new and less respectful light.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Narod

They are different people

What do you mean?

A different kind of people

A different what?

They're not like us

The fuck?

Watch your tone

Watch my tone?

You're too young to understand
You'll see
They're not like us
You should stick to your own kind

Our kind?

Yes dear

Our kind?

You heard

I'm so glad I heard you
I'm so glad I'm not your kind.

 

[Angeline]

They hit me with ropes. I was six
years old. I had welts
on my legs and ran home crying,
saying They said I killed Jesus.
I don't even know who that is.
Daddy comforted me then
and again when they wouldn't play with me,
and called me Dirty Jew, Filthy
Christ Killer.

I wasn't filthy or even dirty. I got a bath
every night. Mama washed my hair
with No Tears shampoo
and I had a Sylvester toy filled with Soaky
Bubble Bath. Everyone knew that Soaky
soaks you clean in an ocean
full of scrubbly bubbly fun

but no one would sit with me at lunch
or choose me for their team
till I met Jewel Tarver who was also clean
and pretty, with big brown eyes
and shiny brown skin. We played hopscotch.
I liked Jewel.

Daddy always said I had to rise above it,
but when I won a paint-by-number set
with pictures of the baby in the manger,
the young man ministering to the poor
and infirm, oh Daddy was furious. He tore it up
and threw it away. His face was red with anger.

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong
anywhere and I've never understood
what any of this has to do
with God.

 

[todski28]

By the time I was 8 I’d tasted
blood from my own face
gnawed at it as if it were steak
to try a quell the growl of my stomach

the beady eyed stares of people looking down on me
I was dog shit they had to scrape from their feet
tasted fear in the air every time I was introduced
record was shipped from school to school
the running tracks of slash marks
up my left arm for all to see

there was no talk of race
or god
just disgust that wasn’t disguised
behind pretty lies or false smiles
treated like the mange riddled dog
that’s hackles are always up
milky eyes glaring murder
because every breath had to be fought for
and every caring hand was a disguise for the stick

learnt early that you couldn’t trust anything
except what you could get for yourself
and some days lying in bed
silent sobs wracking my body
knowing the world hated me
feared me
alone in little boy thoughts
because all I wanted was someone to
care, someone not on drugs
someone not breathing alcohols fetid breath in my face
telling me I needed to be tough and that he would make me so
smashing Mothers head off the floor if she dared disagree

didn’t want to be poor
didn’t want to have torn clothes
didn’t choose to be beaten
to be trained the way you train
the pit-bull didn’t choose to be
bigger
stronger than
all the kids around me
didn’t want to be rejected out of fear

I didn’t get to have the fair fights
was set upon with sticks and rocks
multiple assailants
go home
be told I was weak
pathetic
a loser because I lost
that I needed to toughen up
until I was steel and hatred
till the sun set
and I was alone

but I’m not Jewish
not black
not Native American
not Aboriginal
so all I have are the cries
of stop trying to play the victim
these people had it so much worse than you
echoing in my head
pinning my lip closed
nodding solemnly because they all had it worse
because I don’t matter and never did

somewhere inside I still stare out
with lonely eyes
tears unshed
shut my fucking mouth
go back to work
because struggling on

alone

is how it’s always been
my story is a dime a fucking dozen
in the ghetto no matter
what colour or creed you are

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 20 2/18/22

Loving Advice

With care, she shampoos her hair
knowing that he’d want to smell it.
Piling it up with a pin here and there,
discretely, so he couldn’t tell it.

She carefully chooses her un-gartered hose,
her half-cup, her panties - a thong.
She picks out a dress she knows will impress
Feeling she just can’t go wrong

The neckline is low as dress necklines go
But she feels it is tasteful enough.
The mirrors all show her internal glow
She’s revealing all the right stuff

Pinching and jostling and settling the girls
She opens her jewelry case
Choosing a necklace, a long string of pearls
She holds them up under her face.

He sits on the bed and, shaking his head
says. “Isn’t that just a bit silly?”
You don’t need those pearls, go beadless instead
I think it’s called gilding the lily.”​

 

[Tzara]

Confession (Fan Letter)

How may I tell you both
how your poems
stick me to this place

like I've been sprayed
with superglue? It's why
I write, over and over,
something like love poems
which really mean, please
write something more,
since your vision
of the world helps
me feel more wholly human.

And, yeah, I'd like
to have dinner with you
where we'd sip viognier,
discuss Proust and hold hands.
But it's really mostly words.
And your words

are both beautiful and seductive,
and why I look for them,

even when I don't find them,
every every day.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Propaganda
tickling your insides
Leaving a snail trail
In your logic
Big ideas
And neon signs
Error by design
I fruit you
Fruit your loop
Cock a snoop
At your lies
Meet the wise eyed
Wide eyed
Stare of the dead
Tread softly lest you tread on my dreams
And remember nothing is as it seems

 

[Winter_Fare]

To picture the whole
We look down from space
Know truth
Is neodymium
Fixed polarity
Then with the same eyes
Receive the northern lights
Receive the anodyne of our impermanence
Humbled as old gods
Lost in shifting sands

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

21

Keeping up the Neighbours

​

---

“Let down your hair”
He says and watches
as she pulls a single pin.
Her glossy hair spills,
dark as oil against the pale,
bowed shoulders making him gasp.

Still,
so still they are,
barely a breath,
hardly a tremble.

He takes her there
on the new-made bed,
moaning the sheets to shreds,
beating the bedding into submission
and keeping up the neighbours.

 

[butters]

a concretion of views
indigestible boluses of political ambition
split apart nations
a housing block

where white paint and patio furniture
frame a gawping, ragged hole
blackened in some catastrophic abortion
ejected detritus like broken limbs
shorn of their bodies
rebar the colour of blood
occluded and angled
amidst snow and rain
grey chunks and glittering shards

floral sofa
stripped of its cushions
back–bones exposed by a fractious easterly wind
as sooty-edged shreds flap
and twist

a saucerless bone-china cup
sits perfectly perfect
on a paving stone
waits patiently for the teapot that will never come
and next to it
the brightly hued umbilical
of some missing HDTV

 

[Piscator]

Even without a picture, I see the scene in my mind

 

[butters]

Even without a picture, I see the scene in my mind

thank you, P... couple of words i'd change, though, like 'balcony' for 'patio' (as i was visualising a block of flats maybe 3 or 4 stories high but my brain simply wouldn't find the word at that moment), and 'gaping' or something other for 'gawping', to indicate a catastrophically damaged opening to represent a vulva-shaped hole.
in this case, 'gawping' (to my mind's eye) reminds me more of a staring eye than a vulva and so lacks the proper tie-in with 'abortion' and 'umbilicus'. I also wanted to really show that 'umbilicus' as a twisting of the coloured wires inside a cable (so stripped of its first sheath) as it reminded me of a DNA representation as well as the thick, veiny look of an actual umbilical cord directly after birth and i'm not convinced i managed to convey that. Did you see the twisted spirals of coloured electrical wire, or a whole, brightly coloured single cable?

but live writes, so...

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 22 2/28/22

Neighbours and Lovers

For days after his lover died, Buchenwald-thin and scarred by AIDS, his bedroom light stayed on late into the night, a bright, hard beacon of pain.

Sleepless one night, I crossed the deserted street carrying fresh baking and frightened him by knocking at three in the morning. Used to harassment and abuse he feared the worst but the relief in his grief swollen eyes when he recognized me caused my throat to close.

We sat at the kitchen table where they’d both served gourmet meals, his hands lay like wilted flowers, full of emptiness until I took them, held them in mine.

He talked of the twenty years they had shared, the aching chasm beside him now, and how he had no more tears to cry.

Three years later his lover’s legacy bloomed as persistent flu’ and weight loss until it seemed a strong breeze would topple him. His sister came to nurse him or “to watch me die” he said smiling his yellowing, gentle smile, but he clung to life for five more years.

He left me his collection of Billie Holliday albums.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Seed pearls
Small tokens
Of the creator's
Affection
Soul bound to pleasure

There are none
In the fossil record
None

But the long bones
Telling half a story
Would speak
For all of us

Without even
A heart at all

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 23 3/2/22

Harbingers

One day, time unspecified,
the air changes. We hear them
in the distance, calling
and we stop mid-action,
raking the dead grass awake,
looking for our car
in the desert of a parking lot
or just breathing in spring,
and look up.


It takes a while
of squinting search,
then there they are.
Embossed on the blue,
a fine line pressing forward,
drawn by generations.
Calling, calling, constant clamour
of encouragement.
Wings weary from the red-eye flight
yet enlivened by the scent
of familiar wetlands waiting.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Message in a Bottle

Bottles holding hope
floating just out of reach
tantalize on the tide
of mixed emotions/
We'll never know
what we wanted to say
and the wind carries away
the screams of
frustration.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 24 3/7/22

Romancing the Punt

She lies on her back in the flat, shallow boat.
He watches the pulse at the base of her throat.
His pole lying idle, content just to drift
He’s standing above her, his own pulse is swift.

Carefully he moves but the punt starts to tip.
Frightened that a capsize would end their courtship
He kneels down beside her, takes out a small box,
she knows what is coming, he’s so orthodox.

Before he proposes she sits up and says.
“you know I’d be crazy if I didn’t say yes”
A passionate kiss that tips over the punt
and applause from the crowd on the waterfront.

 

[butters]

in a world without books
the sun will still shine
the rains fall
the winds
blow
and the sickness
that burn to write
to fathom the world through words
will sleep
a lion at noontide
to wake again all hunger
claws shredding our insides

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

# 25 3/9/22

Genevieve

Oh, I remember those heady days,
fresh young blades up from Oxford
or Cambridge driving me, reckless,
through spring-green country lanes
with a girl and a wicker hamper
full of food to be consumed later.

My origin is France, love is in my
very chassis so the perfection was not lost.
Time overtook my 1904 open style
and I lay, neglected in a hedge for years.
Rust ate my chrome and the elements
dulled my paint, my leather seats rotted,
field mice made their home
in my dashboard.

It was a lonely time,
until a passing stroller found me
languishing there and pulled me
from obscurity. I was reborn,
cobbled from other decrepit Darracqs,
christened “Annie” and was ready to rally.

My fame wasn’t halted there,
I starred in a film as “Genevieve”
and, as all stars are
I was buffed, primped and coddled.

Still I shine when called to race
but my true fame came
from comedy in the end.
Just call me Genevieve.

 

[Winter_Fare]

I decided to write her a letter
That I knew she would never read
I said prayers for her to get better
Bought clothes she would never need
The grandmother I lost piece by piece
To Alzheimer's and PTSD
Was a hero a poet I'll never cease
To remember her kindness to me
But thirteen years last month she left
In such a horrific way
That even now I'm still bereft
I can barely find words to say
I left part of myself in her house that night
And I watched it die with her
What's left has a hole in its heart tonight
It hurts too much to bear.
Maybe someday I'll hear her laugh again
If there's something beyond the sky
Sometimes when I look at my children
I can almost believe the lie

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

#26 3/10/22

Salvation

Released onto softness
for the first time
they were tentative,
fearful of the alien softness
underfoot.

Silently observing,
heads turning this way,
that way but slowly,
as if unbelieving of
what they see, feel, hear.

They are sad refugees
from torture with drooping combs,
pallid beaks and eyes with no life left.
A life spent in a wire cell too small
hasn’t stopped them from tearing out
feathers in frustration.

We step away,
watch them huddle
as their courage grows,
then small, nervous steps
let them realize the truth,
they’re free.

Now, when we collect the plentiful eggs
bright eyes watch
from under high, red combs
and the pimpled pink flesh has disappeared
under glossy new feathers.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

(stopped counting)

Neighbourhood Watch

I watch her tweak
her spotless curtains, see her
lurking there. The tiniest disturbance
of our quiet street brings her
ghostly shape to the veiled window;
a children’s game, a passing car, or barking dog.

She’s peering now, nose-probe readied,
as two lovers spar in jest. She cranes to spy
as they stagger, laughing, out of sight.
A quick rearrangement of her hiding place
until duty calls again.

We’ve never met, this nosy bitch and I,
but every time I look she’s there
and I’m at my window often.
I like to know who’s on my street,
who belongs and who is out of place
and there she always is, minding others lives
as if she has the right.

The slam of a door,
Mr.Hastead is off to the boozer
for another drunken night,
and, right on cue,
her curtain gives a disapproving shiver.

 

[Winter_Fare]

Rain

Falling raindrops played the river
We were swaying like the willow
Though the pulse was unfamiliar
Neither waltz nor common time
The music ever teases me
You know we must be water
To be this close to breaking
Though we were never whole