007 Challenge

2 - upon finding out that you once fucked a dog

It brings to mind the developmentally disabled girl,
glassy eyed and eight months pregnant,
who once hung out in my living room like a piece of art
nobody wanted, or cared enough to throw out.

Or the time, naked and sweating, a woman and I
shared a bottle of whiskey and ourselves on a coffee table
as thirty people chanted, "Go! Go! Go!" and we raced
the level of the bottle, to see which of us could forget this, first.

And the highschool myth of a girl,
or a boy. The jar of peanut butter.
The specific gravity of lonely.

I mean to say, I was not immediately disgusted,
but it's the first time in our long acquaintance
where I crossed the line from vague unease to actual pity.
I imagine the sweaty palms clenching into fists
surrounding you, I try to imagine how many doses
it takes to stifle the stomach, what assload of drugs
you must have been on, how terrible the need to please,
or the strange momentum an audience creates;
I try, against all natural inclination, to put your shoes on.

When you said, much earlier in the conversation,
that you'd had a great dog, and when she suddenly died,
you were sad, I realized exactly why.

At four years old, I had a cat that loved me very much.
My mother caught me spinning
around in a circle, both her paws clutched in my fists,
giggling, playing ring-around-the-rosy with kitty.

And, "That noise means pain," and "Kitty is hurt,"
and then, "Kitty got hit by a car," and what I am saying is,
I get it. I never got to properly apologize, either, and I've never believed
being young was much of an excuse.
 
2

We press our faces to the glass,
and breathe upon the frozen frame,
together we can cloud the pane,
and obscure the outside masses;

Isn't it rash for me to presume,
we can veil the past in a brume,
and reveal only the discreet,
to paint our present picture sweet.
 
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3- Sisters of the Cistern

There were two listless sisters,
one a lime, the other a pessimist,
who'd bathe in the rain waters,
held by the household cistern,

Here were two piebald sisters,
one pious, the other appalled,
to take Holy Communion,
with the portrait of a suff'ring Jesus,
hanging on their bedroom wall.
 
Snaps

DA, really engaging second poem. "The specific gravity of lonely"--marvelous. And Bflagsst, very interesting images and sonics on your last poem. I look forward to reading the poems from the rest of your week.
 
3 - For Gilbert Gottfried,

Who asked, "How do you get a faggot to fuck a woman? Fill her cunt with shit."
(After Marty McConnell, with appropriate nods to Robbie Q.)

I imagine your friends laugh
at kicked dogs and dropped ice cream cones.
I would guess you've been the dog
more than once; I suppose,
if we're being honest, you might have nothing
against homosexuals. Still, this is a crime
more specific than you imagine, with the shocked giggles
firing spasmodic from the darkness behind the lights.

Second row, fifth chair
has almost forgotten the face of his mother,
since coming out.

Eighth row, third chair
was paying for gas, this morning, when a whiskey-mouthed
joker asked if she'd ever had a real cock,
"Baby come over here, I'll fix that queer snatch for you,"
and you get the idea, Gil.

I was born the year you tried
on Saturday Night Live, when you were still
a whisper of a man,
smoothly telling jokes only a few people
laughed at. How many one-liners do you have
to scream at a blank-faced crowd,
before failure turns your vocal cords
to gristle and shrill gasping, before silence
makes you hate? Gil, I've dropped bombs
bigger than you. I've driven a thousand crowds
past arms-length, and if we're laying it all on the stage,
I'll tell you I chuckled when you said it.
I laugh when I'm caught off guard, and I am wholly sophomoric.

The knife-edge between us, laugh-monger,
is that you stopped putting yourself on the line,
your crime is that you stopped being honest,
your failure, Gil,
your failure is that since you put your boots on,
you've forgotten what it's like to be kicked.
 
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4 - Burial Instructions

(with a nod at Diona Poff)


If you put me in a coffin,
you're not my friends.
Tuck me naked into that envelope
of dirt and worms, give me back
whole to the earth I am come from.
Cut me no headstone. If my life hasn't
marked the world enough for your memories,
my death won't need a monument.

Ask each of my friends to toss a blank page
in the hole, until I am heaped with possibility;
do not read my poems.

Read every poem ever written about me,
starting with the five that begin, "You ruined my life,"
ask every lover I ever had to say something honest,
make sure there is a boom-box. Make sure they play
Social D. Make sure they play Van Morrison.
Make sure they play "Rhinestone Cowboy,"
make sure everyone knows I'm laughing when it happens.

Cover me with dirt and go home in groups,
do not leave cut flowers. Sprinkle me with pepper seeds,
with strawberries and mulberries and blueberries,
cover my grave with nightcrawlers and peatmoss.

Go home in groups and forget about me.
Remember each other like you were the day we met.
Do it loudly. With whiskey,
(and beer and gin and wine. Lots of wine.)
and old jokes, make plans to take each other out,
find something pretty in friends you never knew I had,
and let me rot comfortably, knowing you're not alone.
 
(with a nod at Diona Poff)


If you put me in a coffin,
you're not my friends.
Tuck me naked into that envelope
of dirt and worms, give me back
whole to the earth I am come from.
Cut me no headstone. If my life hasn't
marked the world enough for your memories,
my death won't need a monument.

Ask each of my friends to toss a blank page
in the hole, until I am heaped with possibility;
do not read my poems.

Read every poem ever written about me,
starting with the five that begin, "You ruined my life,"
ask every lover I ever had to say something honest,
make sure there is a boom-box. Make sure they play
Social D. Make sure they play Van Morrison.
Make sure they play "Rhinestone Cowboy,"
make sure everyone knows I'm laughing when it happens.

Cover me with dirt and go home in groups,
do not leave cut flowers. Sprinkle me with pepper seeds,
with strawberries and mulberries and blueberries,
cover my grave with nightcrawlers and peatmoss.

Go home in groups and forget about me.
Remember each other like you were the day we met.
Do it loudly. With whiskey,
(and beer and gin and wine. Lots of wine.)
and old jokes, make plans to take each other out,
find something pretty in friends you never knew I had,
and let me rot comfortably, knowing you're not alone.

Oh honey you have not lost a beat. Your poetry is pure joy to read--such a real, honest voice. And since you insist, here. I may have this one played at my funeral. :)
 
Is it hack to say I'd ask for "Moondance"?

I was going to link "Jackie Wilson Said," but I thought that was too hack. And I can think of a few people I'd love to hear "Serves Me Right to Suffer" at my funeral, but ok. :D
 
(with a nod at Diona Poff)


If you put me in a coffin,
you're not my friends.
Tuck me naked into that envelope
of dirt and worms, give me back
whole to the earth I am come from.
Cut me no headstone. If my life hasn't
marked the world enough for your memories,
my death won't need a monument.

Ask each of my friends to toss a blank page
in the hole, until I am heaped with possibility;
do not read my poems.

Read every poem ever written about me,
starting with the five that begin, "You ruined my life,"
ask every lover I ever had to say something honest,
make sure there is a boom-box. Make sure they play
Social D. Make sure they play Van Morrison.
Make sure they play "Rhinestone Cowboy,"
make sure everyone knows I'm laughing when it happens.

Cover me with dirt and go home in groups,
do not leave cut flowers. Sprinkle me with pepper seeds,
with strawberries and mulberries and blueberries,
cover my grave with nightcrawlers and peatmoss.

Go home in groups and forget about me.
Remember each other like you were the day we met.
Do it loudly. With whiskey,
(and beer and gin and wine. Lots of wine.)
and old jokes, make plans to take each other out,
find something pretty in friends you never knew I had,
and let me rot comfortably, knowing you're not alone.

I really like your poem. I'm familiar with your source material too, that poem is one of my favorites from recent history. "His skin, a paper mask, peeled back"
 
4

Nurse had turned the Valium up this morning,
'til church bells had rung in her ears, she recalls
we'd trampled dead cornstalk in the field,
and I'd find the scent of hay, still lay in her hair,
had I lain long, I'd too find her slippers well worn;

In her arm, the long numeral four
stuck like the ivy on the hospital brick,
as I grew nauseous, waiting
with the church bells ringing.
 
5

You're countless mine,
horizon, heavenly

Speaking your invasion
instead of just taking,

You have what's mine already,
is what's yours all that already?

Time kissed your head
sometime last century.
 
6

Kiss me a quiet ending
come to me undone
lay like Calliope,
and drop your tablet,
your mother's memory,

It's warm and wet
your hair's charged,
but my palms sweat
like cold chicken
from the fridge,

The plot never thickens
you don't believe
my stories anymore,
your pulse quickens
always at our ends
 
777

I thought if I reformed my life around her,
I might have her how I wanted—I thought wrongly.
As when the observer introduces his own observation into the system,
the way of things is indefinitely altered.

Her kiss seemed a little crooked,
I felt her cooing toward the baby more infantile.
I sincerely believed that if I could only crush my heart to her heart,
and introduce my lungs to her lungs,
I could become one and the same again—
as I was before I met her.
 
I've never been nervous
about my hair
or hands
or nails,
but when you study me
it's all the same
and I might as well be balding,
or have the sort of cuticles
not even a mother could love
 
Week 5, Poem 1

There is some amazing poetry on this page. I'm going to try not to mess it up too much. Really loved the cuticles not even a mother could love, B, and the dog fucking poem, DA. You guys are hard acts to follow! But I will, anyway.


inspired by a challenge for the Blue Angel by a friend from Lit.

Unzipping the compartments, hands search
for the suitcased remnants of summer,
pulling out the plum swim
suit as blued as this sun falling
down so early now but I am not afraid

this summer left no bones, no boy
men bloodying up the carpet, no
obvious disasters, only fruit stems
thinned enough for the first strong wind,
only the aftertaste of olive.
 
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Week 5, Poem 2

Narcissist

last night I dreamed I was you
kissing this me who wasn't
because I was you
kissing the soft blue shadow
of my upper arm

and I was turned on
by my not self, particularly the
way not me looked
taking me with not my mouth
 
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1

Sonnet of Italianate Perversity

The only women in my life are brave,
If bravery consists in wearing silk
Somewhat too snug for figures of their ilk.
I love how flimsy fabric goes concave
Right at their waist; I, watchful, become brave.
My eyes just focus there, below where milk
Some slumb'ring babe might seek, or I, in guilt,
Might lick lactating nipple that I crave.

A fetish. Sigh, I know. Some philia
That feels too good for my weak moral coin
To quite resist. Resistance would annoy
Some lusty microbe god's wild cilia.
(A poor excuse, I know. I'm desperate.)

Hey. Daddy needs to suckle you, my pet.


.
 
2

Lucifer: Like Star, Light
—after Kim Addonizio, after George Meredith

Well, yeah, we want better management.
We're for that, as any Worker is
If She or He has any brain content.
You know He owns this life contentment biz—
It's like His thing. (Or Hers. One never knows
Which way the Devil swings, or swings at all,
Death being what it is.) But let's suppose
Dark Angel's marching bands don't quite enthrall,
And thoroughbreds don't sizzle us with thrill.
Well, with Mephistopheles I'm still
Quite quite conjoined. I guess I'll stumble through
This damnèd life, even without you.

I know. He's bad. You should believe in Him.
Or Her. Yeah, Her—whose hips move like an hymn.


.
 
Week 5, Poem 3

Sci Fi Double Feature Picture Show

If there were no death we'd be piles
swimming in carniverous hell,
the water spiked with birth control.

Would I kill?
I already know
I would go thirsty to knit our genes.
 
Sci Fi Double Feature Picture Show

If there were no death we'd be piles
swimming in carniverous hell,
the water spiked with birth control.

Would I kill?
I already know
I would go thirsty to knit our genes.
Rawr. :smiley teeth-faced thingie:

I mean, nice poem.

Spell check: carnivorous, I think.

You're a good poet, PG. Just sayin'.
 
3

And, Like Any Doomed Quest

Angela was a sculptor who had wonderfully lean arms and biceps like wire rope from hammering out bronze sheets and chiseling stone. As a spreadsheet jockey, limited time on the Nautilus left my own arms flabby by comparison. No way would I ever arm wrestle her for anything.

That's what doomed the relationship, finally—my fascination with her arms. I wanted to stroke them, lick them, rub my cock over that corded muscle. She'd get angry and say, "My pussy's down here, Jed. Between my legs, remember?"

Oh, I remembered, all right. Terra too cognita. What I wanted was Unknown.


.
 
4

Domestic Prayer
—Kyrielle on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution

It's not because I own a gun,
I hope. It's just I want to be
Much more than phasers set to stun.
Please do not be afraid of me.

It isn't loaded, anyway,
I guess, but cannot guarantee,
Since I've not checked it yet today.
Please do not be afraid of me.

You're overacting here, I think.
I've had a course on gun safety
And only downed a couple drinks.
Please, do not be afraid of me.

It's constitutional, this right.
One can't infringe what it decrees.
I will not shoot you—well, tonight.
Unless you're, Bitch, upbraiding me.


.
 
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Rawr. :smiley teeth-faced thingie:

I mean, nice poem.

Spell check: carnivorous, I think.

You're a good poet, PG. Just sayin'.

Thank you, Mr. Tzara. I thought that was either good or awful and couldn't really tell, yet. And much obliged for the spell check. :rose:
 
Week 5, Poem 4

The whole point of a sandbox
is everybody digging in. No sign says
Interview in Progress or Art Made Here;
it is all just packing, digging and smoothing,
then kicking and starting over. Any hand
can grab a bucket, no Master's
degree required and that
is how I like my art: gritty
and crumbling a little at the edges.
 
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