Desert
The sunlight beats down,
Warming this expanse of sand.
It fades when night falls.
I asked where the chain of guilt by association ended
And you hated me for it
You knew and I knew that asking was the same as buying a one way ticket across that eternally burning bridge
Where no answer is the same as
(Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out)
I know you’re picturing one long line of people who can get fucked
But actually, it’s a rat king of wrongs
Not to be undone or cut apart
By anyone other than the girl who put the sword in the stone
No true heroes live here
But our rat community is warmer than you’d think
We still hold rat parties
Sing all the great rat songs
It’s almost like being a rat is just fine
Like that’s what we were from the beginning
So I’m writing to let you know it’s okay
To be here, on the other side of things
That I found an answer
about where the guilt ends, and
It’s with me
the answer might just be
all in the outlook
instead of what’s wrong, broke, intangible
find the opposite and cling
sing a song that doesn’t remind me of anyone
dream a dream never considered
otherwise it’s a repeated melancholy
good but not great and mostly mediocre
I can do better
so I will or I won’t
Hradecky, considering Keiko, three or so years
and a doctor’s visit between them—
(in the consternated din of somebody tempering distant dumpsters,
scraping phlegm from a shivering snare drum)
who’d ash in the awkward asses of grumbling window units
slumped against crumbly sills, asea
in dismissive soliloquies, lachrymose wheezing
rasping each crepitant name,
each ambling song of innumerous larks and starlings,
every stiffened and itchily chittering spat amidst oaks and squirrels,
the virginal symphonies circling stars had nourished,
to dull and tumid moans borne ashen and frail as the squealing chalk stubs children had shrunken in dryly transcribing redundant schoolyard dictums, ersatz laws like
“I will not run with safety shears…”, or
“I will not weave my gum in Matilda’s pigtails…”,
“I will not butter the soles of Mrs. Chisholm’s creaking sneakers…”,
“I will not idly tap my toe (to mysterious music nobody knows but me)…”,
“I will not force my thumb into Peter Dilby’s bellying navel
(even if packing it back is of almost mortal concern, a Samaritan gesture)…”,
“I will not file my teeth with a ferrule
(albeit of no other purpose really—far be it from me to have given it purpose)
to resemble the fangs of hyenas and marmosets…”,
toothless rules
of basely compassionate masters scribbled
ad nauseam over a wall or a bruising palimpsest,
lain baying and raking the breast of an umbrous pall
that Chisholm defiled with cock-eyed equations and
wizening maxims, chalk worn down like bones
of a wambling building scrunched like
puncturing ribs entoiling kidneys,
hesitant heralds of lavish catastrophe scratching their scalps to a farrow of dandruff,
plangent calls of a teetering condo shrieking
let me rest already god damn it,
a giddily prickling stitch run wild as ermine sniffing out
tingling herring and rat kings wove as phylacteries over
that gnashing scowl, that sinister limb of that
woebegone Mrs. Chisholm, damned to recant
in but fraying and bandying pink noise
anything even dissembling cherubic freedom —
her uvula stripped to but snickering wire,
her throat besodden with crackling wax,
her teeth worn down to unwieldy chalk stubs,
every phrase refined to a styptic powder that
rankly lolled from her stringent lips
like a prostrate possum’s tongue,
like a skin tag lowering year by year from a crazed and crepitant breastbone.
(Keiko later discovered that Edith Chisholm was only a Mrs. in name alone, no née or beau, and retailed the profound deceit within virulent whispers, nervously folded spalls of notebook paper passed amid restive desks, in erratic chicken scratch chewed through the blackboard one disturbed November morn; and banished her back to Poughkeepsie, never to grade or degrade a pupil again.)
against my skin—-I need to feel raw, baked, so alive
I feel dead. I turn off the water before sitting on the floor,
lightly shivering from the A.C., a beige towel over me & thinking
of our bodies, the smell of our sex, hurting myself. Or
you. Injury & love are one & the same. I pull on a pair of
loose-fitting boxers. I wait for the coffee to finish percolating.
I pour it. Outside, it’s almost too cool (& I’m too lazy,
now, to put on more clothes), but I light a cigarette &
watch the sun slowly rise. Fuck; the nicotine hits my lungs.
The caffeine helps, too. The birds have yet to start
their chirping. It’s dull. It’s a good morning for sex
& a lie-in, but there’s no one for that any more,
for me any more. Should I masturbate? No. I just want
morning kisses. Shut the fuck up & get over yourself,
goddamnit. I hear the first bird sing—-it’s not a mourning
dove; I mourn your leaving instead. I keep none of your things,
delete the remnants of you from my phone. The bird’s a robin.
My grandmother always said that their presence means it’s
officially spring. I know in my heart that I’ll love again,
but the poetic melancholic hubris makes it difficult not
to grieve, & the juxtaposition of my new loneliness against
the budding blooms & mating season stings.
I’ll love again. Or I’m doomed to isolation—-fucking
myself raw. I go back inside & close the curtains. The cats are waiting
for me. Brandy or wine? It’s now 7am. Damnit—-it’s too early.
I can go out & smoke again. The cats purr. Why do people
make quilts then voids in your soul? I choose liquor & another
cigarette. I’ll make love to myself later. Probably cry.
The tears flow now. I’m so goddamn pathetic, but sometimes
there’s nothing else you can do when you miss a lover
& know there’s no return. The cats play with a wool ball before
rolling over onto their backs & staring up at me.
They blaze with passion,
Slide to avoid conflict,
Crinkle with delight,
Flatten with despair,
Shine to project love and praise,
Dim with loss of hope,
Well with agony,
Narrow to laser beams,
Widen with fear.
LHM
ANH
It’s odd to think of early March in October,
with the inevitable snap of wind, clutch
of snow, slick of ice, pit of evening
starting at 5 & staring at me
through frost-webbed
window corners—
with all that
ahead of me.
Right now, the harvest moon is heady,
& I dream of witches waltzing
under ripe leaves, of vintage
tablecloths boasting sharp
black cats, of ravens
with jagged neck
feathers as they
squawk through
husky throats.
So why am I pondering March?
Perhaps because I remember
my end-of-winter altar—
blue glass decanter sitting
in window & echoing
winter sky’s stretch
of crystal clarity,
amber bowl filled with
carnations the color
of clouds lit by
a thin sun,
canvas parasol growing
electric red poppies
with sun singing in
their bowl centers,
blueberries ready
to anoint lips
grandfather’s rosewood
violin, reminder of
bare trees waiting
for spring’s rosin
to play them
into bloom.
~inspired by Edith Elizabeth Pijpers’ “Still Life with Parasol at Wintry Window”
