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it's coming again
the dragging sound is growing
wail and hiss almost audible
the rooms light is fading
slowly blocked by it's approach
I'm here and my legs won't move
my mind clouds over
thumping a signal
my heart violates me
avid with fear
eyes abulge
I stare
I stare
there will be no visable wounds
no bleeding to stop
doctors can't help me
the roar is bright
a magnifying glass
tilted to channel the suns power
me the tiny ant
it's coming
and I can't stop it

~*~*~

pain wears a crushed velvet gown
glides across the dusty floor
gloved hands outstretched
she comes for me
she comes for me
i find no warmth in her arms
only familiar desolate space
her heady perfume floods my brain
severs all ties with reality
as she rocks me to and fro
mumbling words
empty words
of false comfort
we dance slowly
her grip bruisingly tight
she leads me
in circles
in circles
alone we dance
in that vacant
ballroom

~*~*~

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Dog
Pain
Beating The Tar
Crow Inside
Last Night
Drugs
Chi
Freak Show
Bloated and Battered
My Depression
Hippy Dress
Mother
The Quest
Poem
Awake
(A Pantoum) Grandma Robinson
The Boy
E-Ticket Ride
Bedtime Prayer
DejaVu

I stole his chi
I'll admit it
rode him dry
dazed and spent
his carcass lays
weighty in my bed

I spring to action
filled with power
I bound about
cleaning, cooking
I stole his chi
and I'll admit it

~*~*~

a freak show in a jar
a two headed calf suspended in formaldehyde
looking out while I'm looking in
the distortion is only perceptual
it depends on which side of the glass you stand

the world can be filled with canvas walls
of tented side shows
while sawdust floors
slovenly strewn underfoot
portray the death of a forest
and all around you
bobbing in fluids
are illuminated sample of other beings
stop to wonder
and you are the freak

~*~*~

bloated and battered
the body didn't answer
when i said 'hello it's me'
slurping and sobbing
perhaps it didn't hear
i said again 'hello it's me'
rolling to one side
i saw its face
and it was mine
my face
eyes puffed near closing
nose crimson
and coated with snot
out of cracked lips
dusted with earth
came a thin voice
'i know' it said
and moved to display
a chest...hollow
blood sucked clean
ribs whitely gaping
'you left me' it breathed
i turned
and walked away
hoping to forget

~*~*~

 

 

beating the tar
out of my inner being
unable to raise its fists
to defend its self
curls its form
into the smallest
smallest of size
silent tears streak
its bloated
sorrow filled face
peering up
through a tangle
of hair
that shelters the forehead
opening and closing
its fish like mouth
in soundless sobbing
pain is its pulse
beating and constant
left to the hands
of my self hate

~*~*~

the honey warmness of the gold
sweet sweet I could taste it
a multitude of mirrors
reflecting my image
over and over
the weight of it in my hand
solid and real
the prongs hugging
holding protectively
the stone
a bit of earth
that with time
had become splendor

there is a crow part of me
fascinated by it
wanting to sweep it up
drop it from varying heights
to see it spin and dance
the light striking it
bits of color playing
leaving streamers
that my eyes follow
to the ground
I swoop down
extend gloss black feet
hold fast this gift fly it to my nest
and tuck it in
in where I keep
all my pretty shineys

please don't ask
if I remember his face
the crow part of me
was too busy dreaming
for the human to know
I should have never said yes

a snare holds my leg
wings flap to no release
tethered to the earth
unable to soar
all me-ness drained
held captive by my keeper
I died a little bit
every day I was bound
don't show me the ring
it will kill the crow inside me

~*~*~

last night my home swelled with estrogen
wine bottles were emptied amid avid discussions
about life and love
we smoked cigarettes until a blue grey haze floated
four feet above the floor hung there eavesdropping
not wanting to leave
waiting ... its surreal form
gracefully became a misty shoji screen
through which the television glowed
its ebbing colors lost to the conversations
of three warm women
on a cold November night

~*~*~

to dull the glare
sometimes I drink
for a change of scene
acid does nicely
a lack of mood
just pack the bong

if I were simpler
amused by common things
not as sensitive
less aware
I'd not need my vices

it pleases me to know
that I'm not the only one
why would these drugs exist
if they weren't meant
to dull the glare
change a scene
and to help me lose emotions

~*~*~

THE DOG

There was only the terrier left after the shootings
the family was dead
he was sick of being called 'no, no, bad dog'
he just wanted to sit on the sofa
sleep on their beds
it wasn't a lot to ask
but the damn humans just wouldn't listen
he knew full well what he was doing
the rifle was always loaded
it took little ingenuity
to prop the gun and pull the trigger
the sound was loud
loud as their whining voices that held him back
BANG
that's the last time I have my nose shoved in shit
BANG
now I'll get all the table scraps I want
BANG
you stupid baby for stealing all the attention
now to go outside and wait for the cops
look innocent and shake
shake as though I saw something
someone
ha, I know who it was
but I'm not telling

~*~*~

I've felt that fabric
the cut is acutely familiar
twenty or more years later
it's the same
I wore it
and ran through fields
cried over love poems
fought unjust wrongs
new to you
to be swept through your days
scented with your memories
draped over your body
darling, I hope your era is a shining one
you wear my dress in your time.

~*~*~

I am old enough to be your...
when you were in diapers
I graduated high school
I am old enough to be your...
you make me nervous
I am a girl again

I am old enough to be your...
skin like a baby
I want to eat you up

I am old enough to...
know I shouldn't
but I will

~*~*~

Confused they swim
lashing their tails.
Troops rally to find
the egg they seek.
Purpose lost
my tongue not,
my tonsils not,
my throat not,
their final
and long sought
goal.
I swallow
and end
the quest

~*~*~

wanting to give
the perfect
shining
smooth
resilient
aqueous poem

I flirt with symbolism
dripping metaphors

fold my hands
resting the tools
after the strain
forming a mound

of spent flesh
veins slowly accept
the blood's flow through them
nail beds breathe

eyes fix on words
hoping they can begin
to convey all
that I've kept

~*~*~

In dreams I'm safe
I can die a thousand ways
and wake to find
the world the same

I can kill myself
be murdered
and yet I can wake
and begin again

It's safe there
in the darkened space
no one wants to admit it
but it's true

When you sleep
you are real
but when you wake
who are you?

~*~*~

mothballs slowly seep an old lady smell
furniture fashionable long ago stands in wait
for her visitors to arrive and ring her bell
sit and exchange stories over bits of cake

furniture fashionable long ago stands in wait
the crocheted pillows she fluffed and patted firm
a place to exchange stories over bits of cake
while you sip your tea and wait your turn

crocheted pillows she fluffed and patted firm
grandma loves to play the charming host
smiling you sip your tea and wait your turn
the sounds of company, this she likes most

in her dreams, it's the good old days
when visitors arrived and rang her bell
alone in darkness, asleep in bed she lays
as mothballs slowly seep an old lady smell

~*~*~

I'm usurping hell
flipping off life
recalcitrant and 9 years old
trapped here
avoiding the unavoidable
with searing grace
the aplomb of an acrobat on thorazine
seen simply as a child
not taken seriously
this a deadly oversight
for laws don't bind me
I'll do what I wish
the consequences are theirs
I mock the words
meant to teach me
I have perfect self awareness

~*~*~

long black whispy trails
stream up-ward after me
as I descend
plummeting through the void
falling over so blissfully
light and focus fading
pain dulling
dwindling to a faint ache
my life subsides
ah, no loss
just an E ticket ride
one that doesn't end at that jerking stop
we're all so familiar with
that clanking of mechanisms
that grind the wheels to a halt
as the bar lifts to set you free
but this time
there is no attendant
to monitor the starts and stops
no line to fill the seats
this ride I'm all alone

~*~*~

NOW I LAY ME
(alone again)

DOWN TO SLEEP
(can't get comfortable)

I PRAY THE LORD
(I pray for a lot of things and Rush Limbaugh is still alive)

MY SOUL TO KEEP
(how do you keep a soul?)

IF I SHOULD DIE
(I should be so lucky)

BEFORE I WAKE
(then the snooze bar will be obsolete)

I PRAY THE LORD
(let that sleeping pill kick in)

MY SOUL TO TAKE
(hell, if I die sleeping I'd never miss my soul)

~*~*~

the door closes perfuntorily
stumbling into the dimness
eyes attempt to adjust
slowly focus comes
round red lights
flame edges of sheet mirrors
ear numbing music
infests the place
while small greasy
lonely smelly men
crouch low
in nauga-hyde chairs
wheezing perverted breaths
with dankness that rattles
chunks of mucus
deep in rotting lungs
sounding sub-sonic
mating calls
eyes dull and glazed
by the fifths drank
in the parking lot
their slothful brains
conjure blurred images
of sinful desires
while sipping flat pop
at five dollars a glass
staring transfixed
at the girl
on the parquet floored stage
scarred by stilettos
clothes glide off
her pale frame
she moves trance-like
a toy on display
her painted smile
devoid of emotion
she is thinking
of a grocery list...
last friday night...
and the warmth of home

~*~*~