a pretending like that would work
like taking the gremlin doubts that lurk
in my mind and snorting them down into my mouth
chewing them up and squishing them out
through the gaps in my teeth like tender
titian yams, all dull pumpkin spice.
a pretending like that would serve
like the way i dished up the curve
of my shrunken breasts in a boned corset
deluded, that, these were the roundest your tongue had met
truly though its a presentation hiding my womanhood
a sagging secret like a bar of soap in a stocking
a pretending like that would pervert
like sloshing around in mud and dirt
uncapping a jar, trying to capture the breath
of crimson tuberroses, light powdery and bereft
of weight. i hate that the thorny can smell this
waltz on the wind too, so i pull out the roots.
a pretending like that would incinerate
the feathered masquerade mask i would bait
a fire with, that big venetian spectacle you wanted
to wear on the town, so daunted
by showing us perfumed ladies your cherub face.
i would take it away to take away what would hide you.
a pretending like that would water down
a piece of your peace of mind, contrast like the sound
of uncapping your maker's mark, wanting to make a mark
on the tension of boyhood and tasting that dark
amber, which is just diluted now, because i like
your hands how they are. sober, crystal, unshaking.
or it could be (please please be) that pretending
she never sewed the frayed woolen lining
of your cold country solitude, that she
never came before me, it could be
as harmless as furtively clipping your nails.
maybe you couldn't play that guitar anymore but
you look so secured for me when you play bach.
20101130
Cherubim I'm Sorry but Thank You
If my nose were my child, the most valuable advice I could bequeath upon my aquiline little darling would look something like this:
“Poems and sneezes and bees and murmuring mornings will mislead you to think that roses will always offer you a powder perfume light as gossamer wings. I know, beloved- it seems as if one day, all the cherubs took a break from rolling around field of strawberries and stopped splashing in fountains of wine and visited Earth. Eagerly, wonderingly, these little babies –much like you!- popped into the most glamorous and bustling of metropolises, curious and energized at the spectacle man makes of himself. Yet, upon witnessing only terse acts of loving and the most disheartening acts of brutality, the tourist cherubs could not help but blush! Their round nectarine cheeks turned fiery red, a soft pink, even yellow with comical nausea. In the really extreme cases, blood fled their cheeks altogether and fled back to their enchanted nursery in the sky, leaving their faces a pearly white. There was no need for their cheek-blood to flee so hastily however; the disheartened and awoken little angels fled quickly after, scared of what they could possibly see next. The only evidence they left of their excursion? Their cheeks! Marked so, soiled really, with the shock of the ugliness of the human world, the cherubs never really wanted to wait for the sweet nectarine color to return- and definitely did not want to take this in-your-face reminder back with them, to a dreamy world of innocent hedonism and clouds of pillows and nectar. They left their cheeks behind and we called them roses. Imprinted on them always will be the light dust of the clouds that you will always desire, my dear nose.
But remember! The most injurious expectation you can have is that a rose will always be wearing this fine fragrance coat. You see, you should know better than anyone the importance of having nice breath! With this desire in mind, the blowing wind dusts off and picks up the rose’s perfume, stealing it and swirling it around its mouth and blowing it all over the Earth, in hopes that people will forgive his icy wind chill and irritating impudence (his favorite activity being to lift up women’s skirts and playfully peeking underneath, you know).
So treasure your moments with cloud dust when you can and remember something more selfish stole it first if you find a naked rose.
“Poems and sneezes and bees and murmuring mornings will mislead you to think that roses will always offer you a powder perfume light as gossamer wings. I know, beloved- it seems as if one day, all the cherubs took a break from rolling around field of strawberries and stopped splashing in fountains of wine and visited Earth. Eagerly, wonderingly, these little babies –much like you!- popped into the most glamorous and bustling of metropolises, curious and energized at the spectacle man makes of himself. Yet, upon witnessing only terse acts of loving and the most disheartening acts of brutality, the tourist cherubs could not help but blush! Their round nectarine cheeks turned fiery red, a soft pink, even yellow with comical nausea. In the really extreme cases, blood fled their cheeks altogether and fled back to their enchanted nursery in the sky, leaving their faces a pearly white. There was no need for their cheek-blood to flee so hastily however; the disheartened and awoken little angels fled quickly after, scared of what they could possibly see next. The only evidence they left of their excursion? Their cheeks! Marked so, soiled really, with the shock of the ugliness of the human world, the cherubs never really wanted to wait for the sweet nectarine color to return- and definitely did not want to take this in-your-face reminder back with them, to a dreamy world of innocent hedonism and clouds of pillows and nectar. They left their cheeks behind and we called them roses. Imprinted on them always will be the light dust of the clouds that you will always desire, my dear nose.
But remember! The most injurious expectation you can have is that a rose will always be wearing this fine fragrance coat. You see, you should know better than anyone the importance of having nice breath! With this desire in mind, the blowing wind dusts off and picks up the rose’s perfume, stealing it and swirling it around its mouth and blowing it all over the Earth, in hopes that people will forgive his icy wind chill and irritating impudence (his favorite activity being to lift up women’s skirts and playfully peeking underneath, you know).
So treasure your moments with cloud dust when you can and remember something more selfish stole it first if you find a naked rose.
20101122
Your turn, Kandinsky
you wear cruelty like a color
a thick butter of it just hovers
on the twists and the lines
of your rigid form. It dines
on girls using forks twisted at right angles.
but don't misunderstand me, love
i sorted the science of it above
the restaurant, in the attic, remember?
through pasta with bloody red marinara embers
i told you i was leaving to Argentina.
two things happened right there, right then:
a swig of that shit wine thatd put some men
to shame and indifference coloring your face
at a soldier's march, a condemned rebel's pace
and you requested a leather wallet, "they cure well there."
and that was that until it wasnt
when later you whispered we mustnt
make too much noise as you laid me across
your cool sheets the color of straws
and your baby blues were murky and oily.
oily with greasy apathy that shimmered on top
of you and your skin until it seemed to drop
off your lashes onto your square solid wrists
and THEN then then then i tasted the twist
of how you, you swirl, you feel in colors.
how crimson is every single shade of red but
and titian a mangy magnificent mutt
of it all! all! all! except that sunniness
which it can't take under its wide hoop dress
like the rest of its grandchildren colors.
a thick butter of it just hovers
on the twists and the lines
of your rigid form. It dines
on girls using forks twisted at right angles.
but don't misunderstand me, love
i sorted the science of it above
the restaurant, in the attic, remember?
through pasta with bloody red marinara embers
i told you i was leaving to Argentina.
two things happened right there, right then:
a swig of that shit wine thatd put some men
to shame and indifference coloring your face
at a soldier's march, a condemned rebel's pace
and you requested a leather wallet, "they cure well there."
and that was that until it wasnt
when later you whispered we mustnt
make too much noise as you laid me across
your cool sheets the color of straws
and your baby blues were murky and oily.
oily with greasy apathy that shimmered on top
of you and your skin until it seemed to drop
off your lashes onto your square solid wrists
and THEN then then then i tasted the twist
of how you, you swirl, you feel in colors.
how crimson is every single shade of red but
and titian a mangy magnificent mutt
of it all! all! all! except that sunniness
which it can't take under its wide hoop dress
like the rest of its grandchildren colors.
20101115
Marx were you ever in love?
i become the worst pig of a capitalist
when it comes to owning you
i want you i want you through and through
you have lived gold's worth and i have missed
it all until only pearly days ago
but i would pay more for this moment than any other:
the moment red slapped your cheeks in anger
and found your thoughts so warm she chose to linger
on the chamois of your cheeks as a rosy cover
dancing in a blushing waltz so slow
when it comes to owning you
i want you i want you through and through
you have lived gold's worth and i have missed
it all until only pearly days ago
but i would pay more for this moment than any other:
the moment red slapped your cheeks in anger
and found your thoughts so warm she chose to linger
on the chamois of your cheeks as a rosy cover
dancing in a blushing waltz so slow
20101111
Short-Order Cook to a King
you lowered your mouth to mine, first,
head lowered like a bow, lips straight mine pursed
like a little girl playing bergman
(no, kelly) and i thought that might happen that night and
so i tucked bits of ginger into my teeth
i bought from the stand on Tudor street
because you luxuriate in having that bite in your soup.
i thought that might happen every night until that night
so i tasted like ginger for a while, watching your height
get smaller and farther as you rode away, in late cold dark
and resolved to get some other flavor and make my mark
on the loops and furrows of your boy brain.
but ginger worked until it didnt anymore
and you came around until you didnt for
a while and then it was time for fiery peppermint
fresh sticks of it i stuck in my pockets until it stuck in the lint
of my pink coat. you tried tongue for dinner once, mine,
and winced at its fire, liked it just fine
said it reminded you of cigars and royal crown whispers.
until one raucous evening when i swapped spit
with a towhead yelling skinny thing who couldnt sit
still. That was when we hadnt spoken for a few weeks
and you mentioned books and business and my cheeks
were salty all the time. but i took a brave break from
my sea and went out on the town to the artist's slum
warehouse. he, that blonde, tasted like nicaragua and oranges.
citrus tasted like relief to me and, figuring
you had been missing because you were configuring
messes of minds like ours, i thought you could use some orange, too
a woman's attempt at getting your mood to sienna from gray blue
and then you'd know know know i can bring quiet.
so i bit a golden sun in two and found you two at the bar
a deflated you and your southern whiskey, neat, at the far
end of the room. your murmurs were of disconnect distance
but so intimate i forgot how your absence meant resistance
and showered your sandpaper neck with sugary titian hellos
where were you downcast prince, your humor so marked by the gallows?
you said you liked citrus, then ordered yourself some fried plantains.
fruits go moldy until you rang my bell and pounded on my door. I am unprepared
and you are regal with quiet demands and can hardly muster some care.
now you have shown up here on my door early morning, fog gray
cinereal dove early, and ask so sharply why i taste, taste, taste! that way
your velvet baritone boxes my ears with its lush disgust.
Without pause to pepper my bitterness- in truth?
This taste is the taste of wanting you.
my tongue sweats sadness feral with reeking lust
my gums don a coat of grime tailored from your dust
and my breath? a stale hops catacomb of decay
its longing that keeps me from brushing gossamer cobwebs away.
but you are here now, my love! there's some rosemary i've been saving to chew just for these very moments i get to spend with you.
head lowered like a bow, lips straight mine pursed
like a little girl playing bergman
(no, kelly) and i thought that might happen that night and
so i tucked bits of ginger into my teeth
i bought from the stand on Tudor street
because you luxuriate in having that bite in your soup.
i thought that might happen every night until that night
so i tasted like ginger for a while, watching your height
get smaller and farther as you rode away, in late cold dark
and resolved to get some other flavor and make my mark
on the loops and furrows of your boy brain.
but ginger worked until it didnt anymore
and you came around until you didnt for
a while and then it was time for fiery peppermint
fresh sticks of it i stuck in my pockets until it stuck in the lint
of my pink coat. you tried tongue for dinner once, mine,
and winced at its fire, liked it just fine
said it reminded you of cigars and royal crown whispers.
until one raucous evening when i swapped spit
with a towhead yelling skinny thing who couldnt sit
still. That was when we hadnt spoken for a few weeks
and you mentioned books and business and my cheeks
were salty all the time. but i took a brave break from
my sea and went out on the town to the artist's slum
warehouse. he, that blonde, tasted like nicaragua and oranges.
citrus tasted like relief to me and, figuring
you had been missing because you were configuring
messes of minds like ours, i thought you could use some orange, too
a woman's attempt at getting your mood to sienna from gray blue
and then you'd know know know i can bring quiet.
so i bit a golden sun in two and found you two at the bar
a deflated you and your southern whiskey, neat, at the far
end of the room. your murmurs were of disconnect distance
but so intimate i forgot how your absence meant resistance
and showered your sandpaper neck with sugary titian hellos
where were you downcast prince, your humor so marked by the gallows?
you said you liked citrus, then ordered yourself some fried plantains.
fruits go moldy until you rang my bell and pounded on my door. I am unprepared
and you are regal with quiet demands and can hardly muster some care.
now you have shown up here on my door early morning, fog gray
cinereal dove early, and ask so sharply why i taste, taste, taste! that way
your velvet baritone boxes my ears with its lush disgust.
Without pause to pepper my bitterness- in truth?
This taste is the taste of wanting you.
my tongue sweats sadness feral with reeking lust
my gums don a coat of grime tailored from your dust
and my breath? a stale hops catacomb of decay
its longing that keeps me from brushing gossamer cobwebs away.
but you are here now, my love! there's some rosemary i've been saving to chew just for these very moments i get to spend with you.
20101102
If I was old you'd make me young
I never felt as
romantic as that fall day
when i rolled around
in damp musky hay
muffled by the sloshing sounds
of moonshine and rain
those black boots i found
victorian leather and
steel eyelets so black
kicked off to the side
sagging to the side Van Gogh
hidden by more hay
the bottom started
talking one day, flapping its
big flat gabbing mouth
and it wasnt til
you came along that i thought
to fix them and wear
them out on the town
as we waltz through puddles and
hide behind wet oaks!
romantic as that fall day
when i rolled around
in damp musky hay
muffled by the sloshing sounds
of moonshine and rain
those black boots i found
victorian leather and
steel eyelets so black
kicked off to the side
sagging to the side Van Gogh
hidden by more hay
the bottom started
talking one day, flapping its
big flat gabbing mouth
and it wasnt til
you came along that i thought
to fix them and wear
them out on the town
as we waltz through puddles and
hide behind wet oaks!
20101031
Winter yours
Winter you’re the lover who taught me how good it feels to be cradled in a chokehold while being fucked. Sometimes there’s so much of you going on all at once. Sometimes your foggy breath and dripping sweat are salty like the sea near my town and its lovely, it blows all around me as you blow into my neck so rough. But sometimes you thrash too wildly about and it’s strange because I know you’ve done this so many times before. When this happens and you start gauging me with your wet tongue I wonder when it will be over and remember why I don’t shave my legs for you in particular like I will for the sensuality of your brothers. But then you always remember to choke me Winter and its insidious too. Your cloudy fingers tinged with gray work their way across the skyline of my collarbone and shoulders and wrap themselves around my vocal cords. Sometimes you’re softer than others but I like it most when I can’t shake it off even the next day. When you choke me like that Winter it’s like blacking out and all your thrashing isn’t even noticeable anymore. When you grab my throat like that Winter all I can feel is you moving in and out and around my flesh and bones. Sometimes in all that movement there’s a black space of swallowing movement really and you Winter feel warmer than all the rest when you do that.
20101013
tonto
the man i know who loves me second most is teaching me that i am the kindest woman around town until i know you know it and then i become as hard and callous as a callous on that romanian woman's feet, the one who lives up a few feet in the upstairs apartment and has trouble walking a few feet because the skin on her feet is so tough and rough. hi yes my brutishness is just disgusting and i have about as much wherewithal as she does to hide it- the kind of wherewithal that diminishes with time. i care care so much about the way beings care but that being said its only the care thats being brought into being by how much their care can please me. which, admittedly, knowing my appetite, is pretty damn limited.
simply enough though despite this tough im simple as they come, i would say. see foods i find delicious must be high in fat, see, peanut butter, see, avocadoes. i order the same thing at restaurants and i go to the same restaurants and it never feels the same and i revel in that same. erica jong is my lady and we have afternoon tea at three quite frequently by my window on that dark red sofa. i like watching pretty boys undress and sometimes when they undress their thoughts like so many of their shirts and trousers i will listen sometimes. it's like winning a battle and losing a war.
simply enough though despite this tough im simple as they come, i would say. see foods i find delicious must be high in fat, see, peanut butter, see, avocadoes. i order the same thing at restaurants and i go to the same restaurants and it never feels the same and i revel in that same. erica jong is my lady and we have afternoon tea at three quite frequently by my window on that dark red sofa. i like watching pretty boys undress and sometimes when they undress their thoughts like so many of their shirts and trousers i will listen sometimes. it's like winning a battle and losing a war.
20101011
Plath Syndrome
i am the woman that will not wash her hair for days and
i am the woman that will come out looking like marie antoinette as a result and
i was the child that read a book or two a day and mimicked the greats in her mama's mirror and
i was the child that wanted to leave babydom and cross the moat as soon as their heads were turned and
i will be the mother that loathes sucking her husband's cock but stays for the steady
scratch that repeat rewind alright optimism let's try again i will be say it
i will be the mother that languishes in the countryside with her little loves by her side and
i will be the mother that cooks cakes and bakes pot roast and adores it and him with his manhattans and
i am the woman who will make these manhattans although
i was the child that drank too many of them but
i will still be the mother who can make them
even if i dont want to
i am the woman that will come out looking like marie antoinette as a result and
i was the child that read a book or two a day and mimicked the greats in her mama's mirror and
i was the child that wanted to leave babydom and cross the moat as soon as their heads were turned and
i will be the mother that loathes sucking her husband's cock but stays for the steady
scratch that repeat rewind alright optimism let's try again i will be say it
i will be the mother that languishes in the countryside with her little loves by her side and
i will be the mother that cooks cakes and bakes pot roast and adores it and him with his manhattans and
i am the woman who will make these manhattans although
i was the child that drank too many of them but
i will still be the mother who can make them
even if i dont want to
ren
I know a man that
makes it alright to put hype
and breathtaking, in
the beautiful sense
of the word and feeling and
feeling good for it
for putting the two
together as if theres no
other way but his
christmastime i love
you and you and that which was
you, delicate hype
makes it alright to put hype
and breathtaking, in
the beautiful sense
of the word and feeling and
feeling good for it
for putting the two
together as if theres no
other way but his
christmastime i love
you and you and that which was
you, delicate hype
20101005
an old testament sort of evening
i just had a stroll with jacob of old
i threw my words and burns at him
and he listened, jacob of old
and he was tired because he plants trees all day
and he was dusty but he dusted the dirt away
and hes got a direct line with god
and he figured that i needed ice cream birthday cake style
i just had a stroll with jacob of old
i threw my eyes up in relief because he says god says
i'm gonna get better soon
i'm just gonna have to leave that shit alone
i threw my words and burns at him
and he listened, jacob of old
and he was tired because he plants trees all day
and he was dusty but he dusted the dirt away
and hes got a direct line with god
and he figured that i needed ice cream birthday cake style
i just had a stroll with jacob of old
i threw my eyes up in relief because he says god says
i'm gonna get better soon
i'm just gonna have to leave that shit alone
the word replacement doesnt exist
i know im in a bad way when i want to be in a bad way and living off air and smoke and black liquid seems like a good idea and the sneaking suspicion starts that maybe ive been missing out on whats in all those pretty crystal bottles that everyone else gets to drink but not me never me but maybe me again just maybe.
its just that either way and no matter which way i twist it im broken any way i shape it anyway so whats the point of trying another way than the way i knew for so long, i mean, thats my way any way and no one would blame me for going that way its the alcoholics way its the junkies way and its a certain way i know well
its just that i already feel so grimy on the inside and i like continuity i want my insides to match your outsides his outsides her outsides but i just stay grimy and i know how to make my outsides grimy right quick and right to the quick of it
at least then i knew where the sad came from it came from wanting to be gone and the gone not coming fast enough but coming coming coming nonetheless this way im just waiting to be hit by a car or beaten at a bar or go down in an airplane real far trying to get out of this fuckin lonely loveless town full of books and academia and essays and mean boys who will fuck you just to reach in and grab your heart and swallow it whole and walk out the door satisfied with the blood drippin down the side of their mouth.
or ill just read faulkner and pretend im in the south with a love and the wind will bellow and billow real warm around us and ill get that same feeling i used to get in my gut from that flask of cognac me and my little imp used to carry around. cause there was nothing like it, nothing like those cold still days or nothing like the drugs or nothing like her my dearest friend my other half that stuck that rusty needle in my back. still, theres been nothing like it. maybe the south will heat things up again.
its just that either way and no matter which way i twist it im broken any way i shape it anyway so whats the point of trying another way than the way i knew for so long, i mean, thats my way any way and no one would blame me for going that way its the alcoholics way its the junkies way and its a certain way i know well
its just that i already feel so grimy on the inside and i like continuity i want my insides to match your outsides his outsides her outsides but i just stay grimy and i know how to make my outsides grimy right quick and right to the quick of it
at least then i knew where the sad came from it came from wanting to be gone and the gone not coming fast enough but coming coming coming nonetheless this way im just waiting to be hit by a car or beaten at a bar or go down in an airplane real far trying to get out of this fuckin lonely loveless town full of books and academia and essays and mean boys who will fuck you just to reach in and grab your heart and swallow it whole and walk out the door satisfied with the blood drippin down the side of their mouth.
or ill just read faulkner and pretend im in the south with a love and the wind will bellow and billow real warm around us and ill get that same feeling i used to get in my gut from that flask of cognac me and my little imp used to carry around. cause there was nothing like it, nothing like those cold still days or nothing like the drugs or nothing like her my dearest friend my other half that stuck that rusty needle in my back. still, theres been nothing like it. maybe the south will heat things up again.
20101004
to her:
i carry on this affair because i know that in the depths and the roots of your hair
you'd kill for this kind of affection and a section of my nights are freed up for dalliances
(and i can hardly stand to not be filled up now and again any way anyway
(like a car in need of juice to go go go it's kind of the same with me) )
and when we're sitting on the moldy plywood dock and wearing 1940s charcoal blue smocks
i always get the feeling that we will start reeling with anxiety if i don't keep up the chatter
and so i do what you do so that i know what the blue of your dress feels like
and then my girl and i have something to unfurl and dissect and chatchit about for some time
because when it comes down to the brass tacks and brown of it all
i'm just trying to scrub and bleach away afternoons with each rub and toss of our body
the our that's happening right now, there's no consistent right now our you know
do i really really do i i do really really i do i do i have to do this again? again? again? again?
not again.
you'd kill for this kind of affection and a section of my nights are freed up for dalliances
(and i can hardly stand to not be filled up now and again any way anyway
(like a car in need of juice to go go go it's kind of the same with me) )
and when we're sitting on the moldy plywood dock and wearing 1940s charcoal blue smocks
i always get the feeling that we will start reeling with anxiety if i don't keep up the chatter
and so i do what you do so that i know what the blue of your dress feels like
and then my girl and i have something to unfurl and dissect and chatchit about for some time
because when it comes down to the brass tacks and brown of it all
i'm just trying to scrub and bleach away afternoons with each rub and toss of our body
the our that's happening right now, there's no consistent right now our you know
do i really really do i i do really really i do i do i have to do this again? again? again? again?
not again.
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