June 2, 2013 · 1:23 am

ex. ossibus, a poem

starburst reliquary gittern

 

Ex. Ossibus

 

(originally published in the Absinthe Literary Review)

 

Centuries after I die,

my skeleton will be dug up and

displayed in a museum,

the most beautiful bones

in the world — how their perfect

forms will inspire the sensitive,

the artistic, the overwrought —

though while I lived

you couldn’t tell from outside

how much beauty lay within.

My bones will be stored

in reliquaries made of silver, gold

and rock crystal, starburst shaped,

laid carefully inside glass cases

on gray velvet.  I will be placed

next to a 16th-century illuminated

treatise on falconry,

down the hall from a pearwood gittern,

once stroked by Elizabeth the First.

Only the devout, the reverent,

will be allowed to dust me.

Young girls and boys

will be driven mad by my perfection.

 

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Aside

 dreams & wishes & the plain truth, a poem

Image

Dreams & Wishes & the Plain Truth

(originally published in Eclectica)

The man you dreamed up

was like an animal, a confused,

restless animal that didn’t know

what it was.  From one angle,

it looked graceful.  Other times,

it bobbled and bumped in the night

like a blind cow.  It had to be fed, and often.

You never knew what it would fancy–

sometimes plain mash, once in a while

something with a burnt sugar crust,

and lots of whipped cream.  It made noise

constantly.  Whistling, burring, keening,

but never in the same way twice.

You found yourself wishing

it would run away of its own accord–

since it was so unusual no one would take it

off your hands.  It would look at you

out of eyes so swollen and pale

you’d think it was dying,

then it would kick back its head

and bray and bray, music, ringing

through your ears like jittery strips of tin.

After a while, you wanted to kill it. 

Go play in traffic, you screamed,

don’t speak in metaphor, don’t scratch

until you make scars.  The shabby quilts

where it nested called out for mercy.

Still, you hissed, Do something with your life!

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June 1, 2013 · 4:19 am
June 1, 2013 · 4:13 am

the defenestration of prague, a poem

illustration of defenestration of prague 

The Defenestration of Prague

(originally published in Snakeskin)

When my father was six, the other children teased him,

calling him a dirty Bohunk. My grandfather promptly

changed the family name. By this he collaborated

 

with the enemy, he repudiated the family tradition.

Thus you don’t know how resistant we have been.

You have no idea of the damage we can cause.

 

Sure, we look like anybody else, but those children

sensed something amiss. I myself want to throw

people out the window all the time, even after I know

 

they don’t deserve it. I come from a long line

of defenestrators. We take our frustrations seriously,

we live for the dark moments of the soul, we are the truly

 

evil people, we upset the apple cart time and time again.

Our closest neighbors have always hated us. Thanks to

Grandpapa, I can pass for educated, empowered, lucky.

 

I have respect for the less fortunate because they have

respect for me. However misguided, they know precisely

when to ask for favors, they never ask too much.

 

Back home in Prague, 17th century, only the priests were

allowed to drink the blood of Christ. The children never knew

why the grownups were so upset. The children didn’t care

 

about the bread and the wine, they didn’t know how

they were being insulted, they didn’t know they were being

treated like children, all they wanted was to be talked to,

 

played with, tickled under the chin. They only wanted to eat

bread and chocolate, get nuts and oranges every Christmas.

But my ancestor Greguska Pomikala threw two Habsburg

 

representatives out a third story window, unwittingly setting

off the Thirty Years’ War. He was frustrated when he threw

them over the wide marble sill — so cold as his fingers

 

pried their fingers off. He took nothing with a grain of salt.

I am familiar with how he felt at the victims’ moment of takeoff.

Sometimes I wish I’d followed in his footsteps. He felt

 

as if he’d married the most beautiful woman in the world

only to be told, You can’t touch her. Greguska wanted to drink

the wine, too. He wasn’t happy being given bread alone.

 

Neither am I. I am taking back the family name, the family

traditions. Don’t ever cross me and expect to stand

alone, with me, in a room with windows.

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May 31, 2013 · 11:39 am

chin pu (mimetic consumption), a poem

chin pu mimetic consumption duck stretching on rock

Chin Pu  (Mimetic Consumption)
 
(originally published in Blue Fifth Review)
 
The duck on her rock performs a slow dance,
stretching leg and wing she could be flying
but her eyes are steady upon mine.  If I eat

her will I possess her grace?  If I dry her bones,
pound them to powder will I ever be able to fly?
China being the oldest civilization, wouldn’t you think

there is truth in this idea?  Snake blood is the cheapest
aphrodisiac — the glossy firmness of the snake around
my arm makes me remember every time I’ve been

touched.  Panicked by my lust, the snake twists
and defecates, a runny yellow soup emerging
from a shocking red anus which for a moment

seems like blood.  Yet the snake’s eyes never
flinch from mine.  If I roast this body on a wood fire,
will I too be able to penetrate the entire world

with my stare?  Emotions come from an older place
than thoughts — the duck, the snake and I share
more than breath, more than mere life.  We feel,

therefore we are.  It’s not so easy with people.
Even if it weren’t forbidden, could I process
your body for consumption? Could I use all your parts,

not waste a drop?  Aren’t we all waiting to be eaten?
Somewhere, those I love would season me with care,
value my flesh for the qualities they’ve learned to see —

not grace, not smooth strength, but constant
restless longing, the mind completely open,
forever curious.  Don’t hesitate — swallow me whole.

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May 31, 2013 · 11:29 am

the boy i never kissed, a poem

the boy i never kissed italian renaissance painting

The Boy I Never Kissed

(originally published in Images Inscript)

Michael’s hands are callused, rough and hard;
their worshiping touch is tender as a mother’s.
His voice is quiet, alto, his eyes dewy, downcast

in shy admiration. A forelock of wavy brown
Italian hair cascades over his high forehead
like a Renaissance crown, but his way of approach

is simply too respectful, too frightening.
I know nothing will come of this attraction,
though we sit talking for endless hours

in his old silver Barracuda after midnight,
the smothering summer darkness pressing
against my skin, raising beads of sweat

which I do not brush away, but allow to roll
slowly down between my breasts, turning my nerves
into taut straining wires. My skin is made of glass,

it will crack any second. He tells me sadly
of his foolish sister, Cherie, how she allows
boys she does not love to touch her. He has tried

to protect her, like the mythical big brother
I always craved. Under the golden streetlights,
in his greasy fry-cook’s uniform, his skin turns dusky,

going beyond olive into the baroque region
of infinite mystery. Then he was too good for me;
too noble to kiss. I made him love me from afar,

pushing the moment past, distancing my heart
from damage, keeping forever safe the memory
of such fragile, old-fashioned courtliness.

Where is the man now? Does he remember me, too,
as something far greater than any realized pleasure;
as a delicate, indelible dream of lost love?

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May 30, 2013 · 5:21 pm

the conductress of milk, a poem

Image

(originally published in Stirring:  A Literary Collection)

 

The Conductress of Milk

 

I am a conduit, pure liquid medium. 

It is like bleeding, I prostrate myself

to her lips, lay low while she sends

eloquent messages with her tiny, velvety hands,

 

her eyes dreaming, smiling.  At 3 a.m.

she has the strength of a legend. 

She grasps her own thumbs tightly

while she sucks on me.  There is pain,

 

but not too much.  I hew roads

through this darkness, telling her how one day

we will visit Paris, leaning over the old

sandstone edge of my favorite bridge

 

across the Seine.  The passage exhausts,

yet chronicles how time can stand still,

how the illusion of eternity creates its own value. 

I feel like an impostor — only the fact I’m lactating

 

convinces me I’m her mother.  How quickly

she goes from one emotional state to the next —

she can be fussing one second and smiling

to herself the next.  The silkiness of her cheek,

 

slick with spilt milk, is like angelwings.

She kicks her legs out straight while nursing,

moves her hands and arms like Leonard Bernstein

conducting — she moves her head for emphasis,

 

sometimes pulling back on the breast,

stretching the nipple.  She smacks her lips,

then pops off and lets go.

She looks up at me, wide-eyed, but soon

 

drops off into a very pleasant looking

milk-sucking stupor, a milky drunkenness,

a milk-sucking intoxication.  No wonder

we all ache for drugs afterward.

 

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May 30, 2013 · 3:48 am

knitting with dog hair, a poem

Knitting with Dog Hair

Image

 A novice at spinning, I pump

with feet cramping in the arches,

toes splayed within stained

suede sandals, wisps of fur

 

tearing off, floating through air

made hot, heavy, hard to breathe;

the spindle twitters under my hand

like a dangerous bird; my nose itches

 

inside; I remember your skin

as I saw it long ago, covered

with a curled, golden down

fine enough to make a baby’s

 

first blanket.  I took this

hobby up as cheap therapy;

combing the dog, rubbing his pink

belly in reward, watching his

 

grateful ears rise, then fall…

Soon I will complete my first

garment — draped gracefully

over the shoulders, gathered

 

at the waist, droopy bell sleeves

in the madrigal fashion.  I shall

strut clothed this way, down your

street, to knock at your door —

 

wanting more, I know, than you

could ever give.  Smart, witty,

you are never at a loss for words,

except when faced with my designs.

 

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May 30, 2013 · 3:41 am

belladonna (atropa belladonna), a poem

Belladonna (Atropa belladonna)Image

(originally published in Poetry SuperHighway)

 

Italians have known since the beginning

how I can make a woman beautiful —

it’s all in the eyes, they must be receptive,

 

or impenetrable, they must soothe,

or provoke, they must be wide with innocence,

or with knowledge.  People feel like nothing

 

unless observed seriously,

by a woman with eyes like black stars;

everyone knows the way children call

 

Watch me, lady, See what I can do! 

That is why those seeking beauty

dilate their pupils with my sap… 

 

I was also named for Atropos,

the Fate who severs the thread of life. 

I sever men’s hearts, I am that beautiful lady,

 

I am atropine — I am stinging red

juice used for the dilating effect. 

When I so desire, I flower singly or in pairs,

 

nodding, my corolla blue-purple or dull red,

according to my mood, or the soil I twine

my pale roots in.  So who do you think you are,

 

holding back a polite cough?  Deep down, you know

you fell the second I looked at you, seeing right through

your clothes to the naked body you hold so dear.

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