Posts for 2020 (page 184)

(found poem — pretty version in comments)

A Brief History of…

     SOVIET MOODS

         1 Profit and Loss are Numbers For The devil

         2 WE Will EAT YOUR CAKE AND HAVE IT TOO

         3 We’ve All Killed People, Have You?

         4 Tender Comrades: Justice AND OUR FORLORN HOPE

         5 EAT THE Harvest Horror-scopes

         6 The 80-Hour Work Week IS A Sworded Affair

         7 And THAT’S A RED Dead Scare

         8 Amnesty, AMBITION & Possession

         9 A Memory of Europe in a Feast Hall of Ash

       10 THE AMERICAN CURSE, The Reverse MULTIVERSE

The Seige, The Heist, the War

My cheeks are lined with sores I have bitten, trying to distract myself
The predator disguised as my hypothalamus
Dopamine no longer than the tears streamed from the grimace
Only looking to the stars wishing I could find home on this earth 
Earth is such a beautiful name, I cannot be shamed enough for my regrets  
They look like you, my hands
My head a humorous lobotomy dream
I ramble, my DNA to RNA, it’s all the same
Hopeless mourn, I can never make them love me
I fear the unrequited, I can’t tell the difference from the two
Maybe my vision is worse than presumed

I usually wouldn’t say anything,
but you’re my friend so I know you can handle this…
your hands are knockoffs.

Look at the way that little horizontal palm crease folds.
It’s not deep enough. Most people won’t notice,
but that’s a sure sign that those are knockoffs.

Maybe keep your hands in your pockets at the jewelry store.
They’ll scoff at you if you try to wear luxury jewelry
on those knobby knockoff fake fingers of yours.

this idiot I saw the other day
dropped an entire carton of 18 fucking eggs
face down on the sidewalk
and took a deep breath
and screamed at the top of their lungs
and then scooped the eggs up with their bare hands
and shoveled them into the trash
still screeching
and people slowed down their cars to stare

Once their hands were wet with yolk
They stomped the remaining shells into the pavement
Muttering god damn you
like Elmer Fudd when he throws his hat down
The idiot was me
I am an egg criminal and a stain to polite society

to hear people talk—
sea star, Christine, doubt it. 
our kind, we like to watch.
no quick luring words for you.
though sweet, they would be true. 

sea star you are you, and
everyone you talk to.
you are everything, and
you are nothing of them, so

kind sweet man say you,
i don’t say this to be kind.
you need no favors,
not from me.
when you are strong, or
when you falter—either way
you stand irrepressible. 

and through the cage of meticulous
flesh, breath, and reason I stare
at inimitable, illimitable

you.

Hers a spotless ball of sterling silver
Hers a frying pan of just remember
His a dried thought of mid November
His a tetrahedron of I surrender
It rings out on high from far forever
Here comes another fender bender
You mark the letter return to sender
The postman refuses assuming gender
you see too much all at once
you see enough never
oh disparity
oh the clarity
curse the smiley daytime pretender

The
deer
tick,
a-
bove
all,
is
no-
tor-
i-
ous-
ly
pa-
ti-
ent.
It
a-
waits
a-
top
a
tall
blade
of
grass,
then
at-
tach-
es 
it-
self
to
a
host
of
var-
i-
ous
for-
tune.

When I was younger I wished I’d been born a different color 
Because the girls at school who were darker than me 
Were loud and funny and colorful and brave 
(in my eyes) 
And I was shy and scared and quiet  
(on the outside, anyway)  

I got braver (sort of) as I got older 
I spoke in a colorful way 
(though not ladylike) 
And wore only black because I thought It made me look brave 
(I still wasn’t)  

Now I am even older 
And I sometimes wear bright colors in my hair 
(I’m brave enough to do that) 
And I speak my mind 
(not too shy for that) 

And not very much scares me anymore 
Except losing who I’ve become 

To the murmur & strobe of late-night TV, I was drifting
off when you dropped by with a bottle of Windex, Drano
& backpack of old screwdrivers. Even as my bad

alibis snaked around our friendship, you were happy to mash
a bowl of guac & sort earrings with me on the handed
down couch. You got that I’d fallen too far & like a mother

Mastiff instinctively protected me, though I recoiled
from your knocks, & double-locked the door. I’m sorry,
I didn’t know your lungs were a house of scars. I wish

I’d let you help rather than pretend my crazy
artist ex-boyfriend would show up with a clean stretched
canvas. I miss your pluck. The day you assembled

my computer desk single-handedly, laying out separate
pieces on the soft carpet, the smallest parts organized by
numbers, letters, screws & kick plates placed in their separate

bowls. That time you insisted I move in. I won’t
give you time to think about him. We’ll play Scrabble & drive
down the Mendocino coast. Annie, forgive me for shutting

you out, your diagnosis came in the middle of my 13th personal
sinkhole. Seventeen years since your death & still I can
hear you: Get on a schedule, walking will help. Let’s order to-go:

dumplings and Szechwan shrimp from the Lotus Cafe. I was going
to take you up on that trip to the ocean. I thought
there’d always be a time I could reverse course and say yes.

I sweep lacebark elm’s debris
from front steps & stoop  

a daily June routine, yet this morn
I do not linger on the porch  

but retreat & wait for my contactless
grocery delivery by Thomas 

Sammie, Parham or Michel
to name just a few of the ones  

I no longer can get close to – for now.
Inside I hear ‘George Floyd!’  

reverberating still, damn police
brutality, then receive word

of another fated to infinite distancing –    
Steve S. Class of ’68, whose wit

welcomed me to a new school  but 
could not outwit COVID-19.  Damn.