The storm is hit. Days now.

I, and the other, under

A roof. Plenty of glamour

Everything wind blown

Ruptured. Reversed.

Yet in glamour.

I and the other in glamour.

 

Elsewhere there are drownings

And we hear stories when

The radio cranks

When the crackle finds the story

Or the phone sings into the ear

Of the hostess.

Everywhere there is glamour

And perversion

Everything is as it is supposed to be

Upside down.

The wealth and the glamour

Are for the wealthy and glamorous

But I am here and so

Me too, I say. This time me too

 

I am the upside down of the story

Saved. Important to the glamour

I am an actress. I am needed.

I can save the glamour. See. I am here

I told you so. And now we see.

 

I have gone thru the cupboards

And saved

The frozen foods, the decent Bordeaux

I have read the poems. Recited them

Upside down even.

I am capable.

 

The cardinal appears ravaged and shaking,

Blown about and struggling.

His red beauty like fire in wind and water.

His red beauty. His red beauty.

Will he erupt and cease or struggle and hide

Until

 

Then I walk to see the dark sky

No trace of humanity in the dark sky

The moon and the stars do not compete

There is no human light. And finally

The stars own the night.

And the moon is gibbous and glaring

I stare and he wants to have a romance

And I think what is this upside down world?

And how am I upright within it?

How does this happen that I do not flare?

Blown about and struggling.

 

The transformers explode

One upon another. We say

‘lightning?’ I say ‘Do you have a knife?

I also say, ‘I grab a knife from the drawer’.

I say many things that have to do with the knife.

I say, ‘knife dropped’.

 

Somehow the violence is listening.

The storm of listening and quiets

The rage of world. Who is angry.

The quiet. The storm. The enchanting.

The dead. The drowned. The blown to shreds.

The listening. The random landing.

The solitude. And finally

The cold sun.

 

You stand side by side

In the philosophy of progress

You watch it topple

This time it chooses

You wait and see

You build it up; it has no balance

You wait and see.

 

            The One

 

As I see day

And after day

Another

An empty self

Pinned into her

Shall we call soul

And the world

Will stand and empty

 

She will stand

And empty

Another day

Pinned to it

If it were me

I would take it

In my teeth

 

Another will see it

I will be the one

That is not

I have done nothing

And I have done enough

 

Many times I have watched it

This time her face is pure

Still

Young seeming

This time she wakes into

The imaginary world

 

He does this

All of this

With his back to me

 

Many times I have watched it.

 

         THE VINEYARD

 

While the rest of them sang,

I leaned my head into the wall

By the door.

It would be the place I would look

All my life at the boy.

 

He was sweet and perfect except

He had been born this way

Instead of by my strength.

 

I took the laundry out.

 

And loved my husband’s family

Because that is what I can do well

And she would not.

She didn’t know.

She would never know.

Too late, too bad and who is she

To say a thing about it.

 

Just don’t touch me.

 

There had been eruptions.

The skin was not anyone’s;

The face, mine once then he called

To say his.  I just don’t want anyone

To touch me is what he said.  It leaves

Scars.  Falls off and leaves scars.

 

Instead of staying under it,

She had unfolded into something else.

That’s how all of this is.

 

How do I explain it?

 

That’s how all of this is said out loud;

Not from under the earth but by the living

In rebellion; And sometimes it is pretty,

 

And sometimes it is not.

 

At the end was a sunrise inside her;

Tucked within rivulets and folds of flesh.

Body of conflict in function;

Grown by struggle and grace.

Brain body.  mind heart.  god hands.

 

I could go on.

 

Simply put,

It folded back the way it came.

So that its edges cut the vitrum of her eyes,

And the drip drip drip of insight down the back

Of throat caused every spoken thing.

 

 

                                         LIFE  

                                 parts I & II

 

                I 

I’m staying in all night

I’ll finish two poems

Start a third

I won’t go out

Unless there’s a good movie

In black and white

With blood

And knives

Long corridors

Thin streaks of light

Everyone smoking

The women in satin dresses

With no underwear on underneath

Satin draped pelvises and guns

Snapped into clutch purses

Between lipstick

Hundred dollar bills

And jeweled cigarette holders

A lot of mist

And whispering

Good camera angles

And doors slamming

A few faces slapped

Arms twisted

Mistreatment revenged
The enemy reduced

By one perfect line

Said in the moment

A man’s elegant hand

On the wheel of a roadster

The other out of frame

Snap of a clutch purse

Then I’ll go.

 

 

 

 

 

                     II

Living with roaches can be fun

We don’t own a television

Don’t want one

Usually

Sometimes we don’t read

Or write

Or have a fight

Or make love or fuck or

Rub on each other

Our kitchen is cozy

I’m a good cook

We are never hungry

For long

I can make a bare fridge vibrate

Call Vipin

Call us to dine

I have baited

The beveled glass jar

With mediocre romano cheese

We eat it too

Put it on pasta

Our roaches fall into pear

Long shape

Of jar they climb in and that’s that

I came home

High on my iliac crest

And all its attachments

Hovered over Egypt

Into Greece

The whole thing moved forward

Stabilized for an ultimate release

Or expansion

Just my toes on the rock

My tailbones twitching

The sea

Surging

Placed my famous jar

Baited

And waited

In four minutes we had four

I bathed in lavender

After watching like our cat

For the fifth

To eat the cheese

And fall.

 

                                 ANGER BIRD

 

She is a mask in cheekbones – blind

Black lined eye – singular

Feather of an egret –

Bird pocket pulling flamingo

Through Rage of fire

Hell

This woman is capable-

Pulling  “you’re going to die”

Off.

Bones and polish – her face

Flawless as an egret

A black and white starlet

At the movies –old

Black and white still –captured

Her 14 perfect facial bones

Like flawless feathers of a bird.

 

Angerbird

When did I want

First talon feel of my blood

Drawn out one eye in

Flood delirium

Shape to a V in the sky

Mother bird of storm returning into Lizard

Of the ground.

 

Collection loops

Metallic trash

Insects - junkies - small

Children kept in cardboard

Boxes

 

Who scream

“East – East” – Side of we in ripeness

No in decay

Resurrecting

 

To a wing call of night

Shiver

The Angerbird.

 

Janet – show me how we

Make them die – Wait

Let’s leave the Eyes open.