#25
my butterfly brain
synapses fire at midnight…
neon zen laughter
Whatever poet first equated sultry
with sexy
must never have visited the South.
Sultry is a susurrus of grasshoppers
and motionless tall grass.
Sultry is sweaty droplets
tickling and itching their way down your back
and spilling into your butt crack.
Sultry is like having a wet rag
to breath through,
your lungs laboring to separate
oxygen from H²O.
Sultry is nights so hot it’s
impossible to sleep.
Sultry is using the smallest motion
possible to rock your chair
on the front porch.
Ask any Southerner and they’ll
tell you true. Ain’t nothing sexy
about sultry.
upon waking, you are not sure
in what city
you had fallen asleep
maybe in atlanta
in which case
you will find your mother
on her porch swing
balancing a mug of coffee
she will not finish
on her knee
when you join her
she will remind you
to close the back door
even though
you have never forgotten
–
or maybe you are in
portland
on your sister’s couch
where you must have passed out
after drinking too much
discounted wine
she will be banging
the neighbor boy
from saudi arabia
afterwards
she will shake you awake
to tell you about it
–
you could be
in your apartment in knoxville
in columbus
on the floor of your brother’s condo
jacksonville
lexington
seattle
anywhere
–
next to you
a man
jerks in his sleep
as if while dreaming
he has fallen from a great height
on instinct
you grab his hand
so that upon landing awake
he will not need to wonder
where he is
Call to Post
After “The Poem You Asked For” by Larry Levis
My poem would not cooperate,
refused to appear when summoned.
Day after day it hovered
two feet outside my door,
parading its lines,
teasing the nib of my pen.
I tried to coax it onto paper
with black ink, red ink, a school girl’s
tablet lined in blue. I looked to Webster,
to Rodale – but still it stayed away.
At last, in growing bafflement –
no, in outright desperation –
I challenged it: Show up!
Show up or be disqualified!
My poem obeyed forthwith, flounced in,
sat down, and thumbed its prose at me.
Mary Allen
She said “look at the black cloud back there”
as if that was a bad thing
as if the tornado still twisted her life
as if black was bad
and our president wasn’t our president
or not hers anyway–she said this and sighed
quite heavily
and continued
the silence she had broken a bit before.
I simply thought
of all the flowers that sing for that rain,
for the silver leaves
upturned
in expectancy and praise
of that black cloud,
wandering lonely,
so far removed from those
with which she would shower
with another tomorrow;
of the teenager who got an extra shift
at the gas station to pay
for flowers for his boyfriend
because so many mowers were revving up
for a monocultural matricide;
of the woman who misplaced
her husband to the indiscriminate hydro plane
that carved her wooden life
with a slick, swift precision
only a blade of water could provide;
of the thirsty child
who could only dream
of such a storm
a harbinger in the second year
of his Hebrew dessert of a life,
with nightmares of an eternal Egypt
clouding his mind;
of all the songs of all the possibilities of all the universalities
held in that cloud–
waiting to be spilled
before us,
on top of us–
but so close to being
blown away,
out of our lives
and suffered by another
My legs feel heavy –
Concrete sludging
Through veins.
I’m off balance –
A lumbering Godzilla
Murking through
Ocean waves.
There are no winners
In this battle.
Only those who
Emerge again
From the darkness
May call themselves
Survivors.
he makes notes on things
things seen in shadows
shadows absent in the light
light by which you can make notes
notes you look over
over all the years
years that will bring you children
children who will have no fear
fear will not teach them terror
terror known by such as he
Poem 25, June 25
After Walking on a Cool Morning
Walking after days of Kentucky heat
& humidity, I stare down this page,
looking for words to write,
looking into my psyche where
intimate words are best kept secret.
My walk was no flight like the crickets
in fescue, escaping my feet, first one, then a pair,
blacker than a cloudy night,
their world the only stage
from which they sing, to the drumbeat
of their legs.
After walking, in my own space,
I confront the page. There are shades
over the windows that hide me
from myself. I am reminded of blinders
on the red mule I plowed behind.
Even blind,
to the left, to the right, reminders
of the sweet taste of green, she surely
spies ahead, for the blades
of corn wave toward her nose, her face,
& I can read the quivering of her legs.
Women and girls chatting
in the courtyard
posing for pictures
absorbing the day.
Owen suddenly climbing
a light pole
struggling red faced
all the way to the top.
We all look at him
mystified
from where this drive
to climb?
Shaking our heads
we return
to each other
laughing.
