national poetry month, day 30.

This seems like a properly stunning note on which to end the month. Thanks go to Shana for this one, as well. My gratitude to everyone who suggested a poem or poet, and who followed this project.

Prologue--And Then She Owns You
by Patricia Smith

This is not morning. There is a nastiness
slowing your shoes, something you shouldn't step in.
It's shattered beads, stomped flowers, vomit--
such stupid beauty,

beauty you can stick a manicured finger
into and through, beauty that doesn't rely
on any sentence the sun chants, it's whiskey
swelter blown scarlet.

Call this something else. Last night it had a name,
a name wedged between an organ's teeth, a name
pumping a virgin unawares, a curse word.
Wail it, regardless,

Weak light, bleakly triumphant, will unveil scabs,
snippets of filth music, cars on collapsed veins.
The whole of gray doubt slithers on solemn skin.
Call her New Orleans.

Each day she wavers, not knowing how long she
can stomach the introduction of needles,
the brash, boozed warbling of bums with neon crowns,
necklaces raining.

She tries on her voice, which sounds like cigarettes,
pubic sweat, brown spittle lining a sax bell
the broken heel on a drag queen's scarlet slings.
Your kind of singing.

Weirdly in love, you rhumba her edges, drink
fuming concoctions, like your lukewarm breakfast
directly from her crust. Go on, admit it.
You are addicted

to her brick hips, the thick swerve she elicits,
the way she kisses you, her lies wide open.
She prefers alleys, crevices, basement floors.
Hell, let her woo you.

This kind of romance dims the worth of soldiers,
bends and breaks the back, sips manna from muscle,
tells you Leave your life. Pack your little suitcase,
flee what is rigid

and duly prescribed. Let her touch that raw space
between cock and calm, the place that scripts such jazz.
Let her pen letters addressed to your asking.
You s-s-stutter.

New Orleans's, p-please. Don't. Blue is the color
stunning your tongue. As least the city pretends
to remember to be listening.
She grins with glint tooth,

wiping your mind blind of the wife, the children,
the numb ritual of job and garden plot.
Gently, she leads you out into the darkness
and makes you drink rain.

national poetry month, day 29.

I've often seen the first stanza of this poem quoted as a sort of life lesson about honesty and confronting your feelings. The full poem, however, is a lot more shivery and complicated than that. From Songs of Innocence and Of Experience. (This one's in Experience. Plainly.)

A Poison Tree
by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

national poetry month, day 28.

Shana found this beautiful disturbance for me on The Nervous Breakdown.

Sideshow

by Lauren Wheeler

For a nickel, you can take a picture of me

standing just so in front of a wooden board

with a heart painted on it.

For a dime, you can take a picture with me,

you squatting behind and peeking through

like I'm one of those cardboard cutouts

of an "Indian Chief" or a unicorn or some other

supposedly mythical creature.

When you offer a quarter, we move to the tent,

dim-lit and dusty, where I sit on the low

quilt-covered pot and pat the space beside me.

You are nervous. "Will it hurt you?"

I shake my head. "It never hurts. Not anymore."

Then I take your hand and guide up towards

the hole in my chest. You tremble for a second

as you reach through me, wiggle your fingers

around behind my back, disbelieving.

"Where is your heart?" you ask.

"How do you live without your heart?"

I take your hand again, kiss it.

"It's amazing the things you can learn 

to live without."

national poetry month, day 27.

This is a song, but it's my blog and I'll sing if I want to. For Leslie, because I love and miss her. Ain't nobody that can sing this song like Billy Bragg, with backing vocals by Natalie Merchant.

Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key
by Woody Guthrie

I lived in a place called Okfuskee
And I had a little girl in a holler tree
I said, little girl, it's plain to see,
There ain't nobody that can sing like me

She said it's hard for me to see
How one little boy got so ugly
Yes, my little girly, that might be
But there ain't nobody that can sing like me

Ain't nobody that can sing like me
Way over yonder in the minor key
Way over yonder in the minor key
There ain't nobody that can sing like me

We walked down by the Buckeye Creek
To see the frog eat the goggle eye bee
To hear that west wind whistle to the east
There ain't nobody that can sing like me

Oh my little girly will you let me see
Way over yonder where the wind blows free
Nobody can see in our holler tree
And there ain't nobody that can sing like me

Her mama cut a switch from a cherry tree
And it on the she and me
It stung lots worse than a hive of bees
But there ain't nobody that can sing like me

Now I have walked a long long ways
And I still look back to my tanglewood days
I've led lots of girls since then to stray
Saying, ain't nobody that can sing like me.

dressing daisy kutter.

My wonderful friend Dennice makes brilliant, very sexy accessories with the use of yarn and needles. I make very sexy, kind of surprising jewelry with the use of pliers and wire. We share a similar aesthetic and inspirations, and are turned on by classic Hollywood glamour, rusty metal, liquids, Westerns, and accurate spelling. From time to time through our correspondence, our interests come together in a single idea, and we play it out in our two different mediums. Some time ago, we both read Kazu Kibuishi’s graphic novel Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, and were captivated by the stubborn, curly-haired heroine who embraces bad decisions with a whole heart and a loaded weapon. We were also impressed at how well accessorized she is, and that got us started.

For love of Daisy Kutter, we designed two pieces: a mini-vest in wool blend with vintage lace accents and hardware embellishments by Fringe, and a choker and/or boot cuff in vintage glass, rosy copper, and sterling silver by me.

Both pieces will be listed today in our respective shops, with more complete descriptions.

national poetry month, day 26.

I prefer Sherman Alexie's fiction to his poetry, but am always struck dumb by this four part cycle.

Indian Boy Love Song (#1)

Everyone I have lost
in the closing of a door
the click of the lock

is not forgotten, they
do not die but remain
within the soft edges
of the earth, the ash

of house fires and cancer
in sin and forgiveness
huddled under old blankets

dreaming their way into
my hands, my heart
closing tight like fists.

Indian Boy Love Song (#2)

I never spoke
the language
of the old women

visiting my mother
in winters so cold
they could freeze
the tongue whole.

I never held my head
to their thin chests
believing in the heart.

Indian women, forgive me.
I grew up distant
and always afraid.

Indian Boy Love Song (#3)

I remember when I told
my cousin
she was more beautiful

than any white girl
I had ever seen.
She kissed me then
with both lips, a tongue

that tasted clean and un-
clean at the same time
like the river which divides

the heart of my heart, all
the beautiful white girls on one side,
my beautiful cousin on the other.

Indian Boy Love Song (#4)

I remember when my father would leave,
drinking,
for weeks. My mother would tell me

the dream he needed
most
was the dream that frightened him
more

than any stranger ever could.
I
would wait by my window, dreaming

bottles
familiar in my hands, not my father's, always
empty.

national poetry month, day 25.

I couldn't choose just one poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. I couldn't even just choose two. In the end I stopped trying to choose, and here is a whole pile. 

Of Robert Frost

There is a little lightning in his eyes.

Iron at the mouth.

His brows ride neither too far up nor down.

He is splendid. With a place to stand.

Some glowing in the common blood.

Some specialness within.

***

To Be In Love

            To be in love

Is to touch things with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

You look at things

Through his eyes.

             A Cardinal is red.

             A sky is blue.

Suddenly you know he knows too.

He is not there but

You know you are tasting together

The winter, or light spring weather.

His hand to take your hand is overmuch.

Too much to bear.

You cannot look in his eyes

Because your pulse must not say

What must not be said.

When he

Shuts a door --

Is not there --

Your arms are water.

And you are free

With a ghastly freedom.

You are the beautiful half

Of a golden hurt.

You remember and covet his mouth,

to touch, to whisper on.

Oh when to declare

Is certain Death!

Oh when to apprize

Is to mesmerize,

To see fall down, the Column of Gold, 

Into the commonest ash.

***

Langston Hughes

            is merry glory.

Is saltatory.

Yet grips his right of twisting free.

Has a long reach,

Strong speech,

Remedial fears.

Muscular tears.

Holds horticulture

In the eye of the vulture

Infirm profession.

In the Compression --

In mud and blood and sudden death --

In the breath

Of the holocaust he

Is helmsman, hatchet, headlight.

See

One restless in the exotic time! and ever,

Till the air is cured of its fever.

***

My Little 'Bout-Town Gal

Roger of Rhodes

My little 'bout-town gal has gone

'Bout town with powder and blue dye

On her pale lids and on her lips

Dye sits quite carminely.

I'm scarcely healthy-hearted or human.

What can I teach my cheated Woman?

My Tondeleyo, my black blonde

Will not be homing soon.

None shall secure her save the late the

Detective fingers of the moon.

***

The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till

after the murder,

after the burial

Emmett's mother is a pretty-faced thing;

              the tint of pulled taffy.

She sits in a red room,

              drinking black coffee.

She kisses her killed boy.

              And she is sorry.

Chaos in windy grays

              through a red prairie.