Tag: Poetry

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Cheers, Dorothy Parker

Dorothy
I was the girl wearing glasses
filing my tongue on the edge of your words,
your sum of experiments

My Algonquin Round Table
a circle of deep drinking, harsh smoking,
shove it all into our skins
echos, lies, acid trips,
the naked want of us,
red blood true
shouting your line
poets alone should kiss and tell

I banged your bangs before
hairlines were hip again
alas my height deceived no one
my spine not as sharp as yours

The men I broke, they broke me
though we big girls don’t cry
we all have stories
Your line,
he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid
is not my mantra – but my bad habit

At my mother’s wake my tears were real
I read your Epitaph for a Darling Lady
left for her a red young rose
found comfort in your knowing
that her dust was very pretty
as surely so was yours

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Second Born

I loved you next
more a breath
than a cry
placed in my arms
Were you smiling
I think you were
Finally!
Finally!
All this wonder

You spoke to the sky
or it spoke to you
in silent syllables
you gathered my hands
this
is the world
a first morning
dew lipping
each green blade
the magnificent quite

When you wouldn’t fit
the every other box
I forgot the hold
of your hand
scrubbed you
brushed you
pressed you
to hang
exactly like any other

Folding your knees
you covered your ears
flipped the blue collar
stuffed shelves, pumped gas
listened for leaks
until
the quite screamed
and you stood
shouted at the sky
fisted the air
demanded
every bit of matter
and heard
the in between
of everything

You held out your hand
to me
and smiled
with wonder

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First Born

I loved you first
naked squall
placed skin to skin
on my chest
I believed in your eyes
Your face
a silent
oh

and I knew
my salvation

We were both children
really
a child delivering a child
into a box of jig-saw puzzles
and I was hard 
pushing, pounding, shoving
you into place
into all the empty

Packed up, shipped out
you welcomed each city
turning the knob on every door
would this be home
your palm sized hand
never doubting
and now
large enough to cover
both of mine

My mistakes
your character flaws
or strengths
honed
the iridescent grain
of polished maple
reflecting
your own history

and I lauded each one
of your successes
balls thrown farther, faster
the first clip-on tie
the brush
of your culinary knife
saying goodbye to the moon

I was afraid to love you
too closely
so I held you from over here
lest some malevolent eye
stake my weakness on you

and yet here you are again
your face a magnificent
oh
my salvation

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The Critical Line

Hold your breath long enough and you collapse
but before that,
before the burning peels your lungs,
the laying of hands
the unforgivable touch
by the same last name

before the spasms gut your ribs,
the whimpers, the humbling no’s
pushed, folded, smothered
until they’re swallowed

before you lose the urgent need to breath
before the shallow water blackout
you are seven and you begin to count
19,000 breathes a day

I read that the opposite of holding your breath
isn’t inhaling, it’s letting go

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My Nebraska

Nebraska
broad hips, flat chested
horizon up to here
opens me
soothes me
calls me home again
to flop eared cornfields
deep in the marrow
we teased our virginity
listened for rabbit nests
rolled ditch-weed into
California dreams

Nebraska
eyes wide open
tawny wheat lashes
stills me
quiets me
calls me home again
to muddy lipped creeks
lazy grins hinting deeper
where I’ve been, where I’m going
we spread naked in the water
cupping tadpoles in our hands
sure in their knowing

Nebraska
full belly, heavy with dusk
yawning in half-sleep
holds me
cradles me
calls me home again
to crickets gossiping on the lawn
fireflies stuttering
we leapt, snapped their magic
tattooed our arms, our faces

humidity traced the curve of my breast
and your fingertips followed
thirteen hundred miles
from Nebraska

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Faster than a Speeding Bullet

You were Superman
forty-five inches of adolescent steel
caped in cotton blend
arms extended in flight
you soared a metropolis
of crushed velveteen davenports
worn slick, filling station china
the hand painted bust of Elvis.
Your x-ray vision penetrated
half-empty tallboys mounting
the window sills
bent broken glass into prisms.

Able to leap unspoken boundaries
you grinned through dinners of syrup bread
macaroni and cheese splashed with gin
You charmed drunks for cash –
back flips earned a quarter, cartwheels a dime
aerials always brought a buck.
You stuffed pockets emptied
for a half gallon of milk
day old bread and bacon fat.

More powerful than a locomotive
you took all the blows
left hooks scribbling your body in s’s
You took it for the both of us
for truth, for justice, for bacon fat.
Till that night, going for a twenty
you leapt from the roof,
broke your heels, the bones patched
with kryponite.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s …
you never could blend in
like you were from some other planet
some other dimension.
Faster than a speeding bullet
you’re still running
chasing your own vanishing point.

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The Eloquent Ordinary

My father’s hands big as thirteen inch radials
knuckles thick like good tread
cover more miles than the road we’re on
driving south to Shiloh, south to his hometown

I’m along to steer free of ditches
roadside stands slapped shut for winter
cornstalks breaking down in the snow
and like the phone lines routing I-29
he strings stories

stories of scattered flesh and spent mortor
touring Italy in 1945, the smell of flesh
like a 4th of July barbeque
of sweating malaria, diphtheria, morphine
how my mother loved him home again

He wanted to choreograph bridges
galvanized stages leaping the Missouri
Mississippi, the Arkansas rivers
Instead, he danced the assembly line shuffle
the rhythm of tool and die

He engineered field trips to the Pepsi plant
aerodynamic ramps for our bikes
forged King Kong tall Erector set cities
Barbie doll runways, fairways
with Troll rides and a penny toss

Evening narrows the horizon
pulls dusk to our chin
and I am grateful for ten more hours of road

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Frog Legs, a Dish Best Served Deep Fried

These are the stories my mother should have told me
when late at night she tucked me in
the big bad wolf doesn’t huff and puff
he chants, runs a yoga studio off of Melrose
blows his chakras into the wind
Beware boys in men’s clothing

Cinderella, realizing beauty was fleeting
stumbled through too many gin and tonics
at the ball, tripped over the hem of her enormous dress
humpty dumptyed down the stairs, threw up in a potted plant
lost her shoe, ran from the castle as if the sky were falling

That’s not a pea under the mattress, upon mattress
upon mattress, upon mattress stacked like seven deadly sins:
wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony
but a Remington Zig-Zag Derringer .22 Long Rifle US made
tucked away for a rainy day

Careful with your kisses, a toad is not a frog, and frogs have teeth
maxillary teeth, vomerine teeth,
hidden behind their grins to hold their prey, to grip it in place
and as they swallow
their eyes sink into their skulls as if to watch
as they contemplate their next move

Mirror, mirror, on the wall
who’s to catch me if I fall down the rabbit hole
scrabbling to find hold of the earth, fingertips raw 
if only my mother could return for one more tale
fairies that hide and seek and scatter like sunlight tossed into the air
if only one more happy ever after