Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Poetry

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
    Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee


    reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss


    might  fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind


    so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping


    it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then


    we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the


    Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot


    of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship –


    mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out


    how things really are. For example, he spent last night in


    Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because


    he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and


    was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into


    marriage with him. 


    I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because


    it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t,


    and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who


    knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings –


    just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the


    divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him?


    R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which


    I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels


    no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.


    6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes
    Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin –


    with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write


    here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so


    much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three


    sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me,


    tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring


    my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard


    hard into mine – and you know what happened next.  If he turns


    the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little


    yips and screams.  At least I hope not. We spent last night in his


    grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York.


    She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a


    long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of


    whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed


    up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic


    to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like.


    We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a


    muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful.


    Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know


    what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state


    of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s


    houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the


    plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex


    jokes filtered around me.  Who could blame R’s first wife for


    shunning this bunch?


    I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact


    that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will


    also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number


    one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen


    between me and them.


    The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than


    twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that


    absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk.


    Plus one time waterskiing was plenty.  Since dinner is a


    vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have


    sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that


    much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by


    hours of dancing, drinking and fighting.  I go to bed early to read


    but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going


    to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my


    typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep


    coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really


    want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY


    be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading. 


    Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete


    horseshit, alas.


    I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just


    have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later.


    Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM
    Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites,


    revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never


    coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO


    or not but I wish they would.  No wonder R had nothing to do


    with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame


    his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other.


    Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well


    out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R


    was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I


    tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae


    and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.)


    He said something about “our next 25 years” that just


    floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that.  Remember


    saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who


    treated me as well as I treated him. Dad – so ready to take


    anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you that


    you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark –


    the more you think about it the worse it gets. 


    Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far.


    He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back –


    and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie


    about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job –


    he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe


    they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose


    anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought

    –
    shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or


    be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless.


    Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill.  I’m going to


    include her in my article on female pornographers.


    R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my


    novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried


    to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to


    get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone.


    If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk


    on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his


    family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by


    sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.


    12:10 am
    Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.


    Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in


    one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who


    Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding. 

    HAUNTED WEDDING
    The pregnant car disgorges
    Only us. It’s winter.
    Drunk as silver fish
    We beat our gills as light
    As hummingbirds.
    In an amethyst ring
    Of drypoint trees
    The half-built house
    Gapes and swells
    Its timbers stink of sap.
    Windrill fields occlude
    Our crossing, so you carry me
    High above the thorny osiers.
    We sleep aloft for safety
    Locked and levitating
    In this space of air
    One season only,
    Unseen by angry outriders;
    Bloodless in our wedding robes
    Like the doubled membranes
    Of the frozen flowers

        This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written

    for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers


    madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a


    bad poem.


      I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “


    don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as


    if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him


    by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I


    channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and


    that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for


    my diary. 


    Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards.


    He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in


    from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy


    sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never


    been so happy.  And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed


    personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining.


    Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone


    six hours a day.


    One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part


    of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get


    another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans.


    Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too


    exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the


    energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod


    over me.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    31 July 76 Shalimar


    R came in but I managed to get rid of him. Sandy


    brought in a huge bag of string beans, squash and tomatoes


    from her garden – I told Ryder to take them home and cook them.


    My job is turning into a source of tremendous conflict – he is the


    snake in his own paradise. Plus tips really fall off when he is


    here. I am already looking at a very tough month financially –


    trying to take so much time off. He said he’ll be back at the end


    of the night to pick me up – he’s hurt when I’m “in need” and


    don’t call him. So that saves cab fare anyhow. 


    We took a walk between sets and talked about his


    parents – second generation immigrants, lifelong Army. He doesn’t


    tell them anything (they obviously know his marriage broke up


    and now he’s with me – but they don’t know about his deafness,


    for example or about his classes at Gallaudet.) He said to me,


    can you believe I’ve only seen these people twice in the past


    four years? And we live in the same state.  Wait till he meets


    my parents – shudder. I’ll put it off as long as I possibly can.


          Dancing tonight with Alicia. Poor Alicia. She’s a


    “dripper”(constantly leaking pee) but blames it on hypoglycemia.


    She hates dancing when there are so few people in here.


    It’s kind of interesting. She sort of has a whorish appearance and


    doesn’t realize she’s trapped in a vicious cycle – audience thinks


    she’s a loose woman, she thinks they’re perverts.


          I’m trying not to fall into the super-loving, super-giving


    trap but Ryder is the first guy I’ve ever met who would obviously


    be a wonderful father. Rare among men under thirty? Or something.


          Talked to A on the phone – she was bored to tears at home


    so I suggested she come in. We shared a burger basket and she


    saw me dance for the first time. She wasn’t grossed out at all by


    the semi-nudity – which is good – told me I’m a great dancer and


    she really envies me my pelvic wiggle. 


    Also told me I have a terrific body – which really cheered


    me up because I still feel too hefty around Ryder. (At his parents’ house


    we went over his old scrapbooks – he was the star quarterback in


    high school football. They described him as 5’4”! That’s a lot


    shorter than he admits to these days. His boots have at least two


    inch heels.)  A left after one set because all the guys of course


    came on to her. Obvious losers, alas, including the one who insists


    he’s a hitman for the CIA and another who claims to be giving


    away government jobs.


    Unfortunately I’m dependent on the tips of these characters. 


    Ryder has been telling them all that I’m a writer (instead of a call girl,


    presumably) which gives me a lot of explaining to do. 


    I wish I had money to buy things the house needs –


    flashlights and fuses and drainers and shelving and all that stuff –


    but I’m saving every bit for our trip to the Finger Lakes. Aug 5 will


    mark one month in the house and six months since I quit the


    architects. Seems like much longer than that. Where will I be


    six months from now?


    Hope my gothic novel sells – I need an immediate


    hundred grand. I really can’t write with R sucking up all my free time.


    I’ve been struggling with another poem about him – even that isn’t


    coming. Hopefully we’ll settle down into being able to work side


    by side quietly – maybe after our vacation.


    6:00 PM, Chevy Chase Tyler St, 2 Aug 76


    Across the street Shoulders, dressed in a skimpy football


    undershirt, is mowing his lawn. He is a sight to behold.


    Sitting over my repaired typewriter with a cup of hot tea


    and a case of writer’s block. I could write a poem about Shoulders –


    already R is interfering with my life. Beautiful day – a little chilly –


    a little Maine edge to it.


    Finished Stead’s Dark Places – which I adored – absolutely


    one of a kind. Another bothersome thing about R – he really doesn’t


    read. He’s been dragging around a sleazy paperback “heist comedy”


    he pretends to read from time to time. At this rate it will take him six


    months.  I am struggling with All Authors are Equal but I may give


    up on it and read Famous Washington Ghosts which R picked up


    for me to add to my considerable collection of ghost stories (I must


    have 50 vols.)


    On the phone with Maeve my old Baltimore buddy –


    she is behind in her rent but looking for a new job. In the meantime


    borrowing from boyfriends.   I take a perverse pleasure that anyone


    is managing worse than me.


    Shalimar – 10:20 PM


    Called in tonight to replace another girl – great – that


    means I work 5 times this week.  Just that small amount makes a


    big difference. A is in the chips right now and I could owe her


    but don’t want to.


    When I came in they told me R had been in 30 mins


    before. That was a little unsettling – I didn’t realize he would come in


    if I weren’t here. Of course it is really close to his job – but equally


    of course the food is more expensive here than just about


    anywhere else he could choose.  I look at who was dancing


    to see whether he would think she was in any way better than me –


    luckily it was the pisser Alicia instead of potentially scary


    competition like, say, Gloria. He didn’t know I was coming in,


    because Carmen didn’t tell him.  Reading the Ghosts of


    Washington. Wonderful poem potential. 

    Shalimar Thurs 5 Aug 76


    R dearer every day, in spite of the fact that he’s


    been checking up on me. Called and called last night – wondered


    where I was – I wasn’t too sure how to tell him A and I were


    over at Shoulders’ drinking, so I just said we were visiting


    the neighbors. Standing in their yard, which wasn’t true. He is


    jealous of Shoulders and I don’t blame him – such lush male


    beauty makes women helpless. A is a complete mess over him.


    He frequently wanders around the house in nothing but his


    boxers – we call them as his “huppa”.


          R. finally got an apt and can stop “crashing” with


    friends – one bedroom at the top of a Rockville skyscraper.


    Sounds crazy expensive to me.  Wrote a good poem –


    capitol ghosts – today from the book R gave me.


    Trying to think where to send it. Tomorrow’s my day off –


    R coming over at 2.


    CAPITOL GHOSTS

    Pale Guiteau
    slants his disappointed child’s face
    downwards; the better to study bloodstains left
    by assassins more accomplished than himself
    who required benefit of anonymous surgeons 
    specially qualified for skewering
    the muscles of the mighty.

    The guard who saw him
    claimed also to hear demon cats
    and could not be relied upon.
    these portents once were matters of
    congressional dispute; now
    no matter; caught within the marbled lurch
    of history, victims

    of the uninspired mad; 
    those who pursue the corpse from whom
    the ghost escaped. He haunts our history
    like the villainous barber who sings as he slits
    both throats and wombs, a pure tune
    some say, picked clean of tragedy
    which only the dying hear.

    Shalimar 7 Aug 76


    Sitting here in a stupor of exhaustion. We had an


    Al Green fan in here tonight – kept playing same song over


    and over. Presumably working through some kind of a


    relationship crisis. They don’t realize coming here and blowing


    their money kills any relationship – and I am not going to tell


    them. Anyway I hate Al Green.  Missed my bus this AM so


    took the Fessenden bus and walked across. A better way to go –


    I like the walk – to hell with this transfer business.


    I have to admit R doesn’t seem to understand


    poetry. He’s very suspicious of all ease, elegance, lightness.


    Too much Nature! “Work” should make you grit your teeth,


    groan and bulge your forehead veins. The easier it comes,


    the less valuable it MUST be. (He would hate Picasso’s very


    best stuff!) I’ve tried getting him to understand by comparing


    art to athletics – it only looks easy – it’s the training beforehand


    that’s so hard. The trick is to render training invisible. But he


    seems to think modern poetry is a plot to make him look stupid.


    Really worried about money lately – everything at


    Unibank is bouncing.  It doesn’t take much to set off a chain


    reaction.  Guess I’ll have to borrow from A after all.


          How true it is that before you can love you must


    love yourself. My love for myself is wavering.  Just finished


    Sean Stiles’ Occam’s Razor. I hate to see a good idea wasted.


    Mostly I am depressed by the poor quality of the stories in


    the Times Detective Story competition anthology.  This is


    something I should aspire to?  I’m on a wonderful streak


    of poetry – keep piling them up – got ophelia and


    haunted house this eve.

    OPHELIA WAS A MAN
    The best revenge is growing up.
    Behold a street of suicides –
    Fringed lampshades &
    Mullioned windows where
    The dentist’s son grew dope
    From seed (they had eight bathrooms and
    The dentist couldn’t be everywhere)
    His wife was nowhere; we saw her leave
    With the cat in a suitcase clawing to get out.
    “Crazier than thou” averred my aunt.
    That boy blew the fruits of orthodontal science until
    The day he blew his mind –
    We traced the hissing-pissing-noise
    To the garage of the stockbroker’s son; he’s
    The one who stayed home from Yale to rewrite Hamlet
    (Made it better – put in people you could recognize)
    Type-cast himself – since he saw ghosts.
    Two fine boys married to each other
    Rosy-cheeked and sightless
    In their parents’ wedding clothes.

          Tomorrow R is taking me on a tour of the television


    station and out to lunch. This is a biggie – see where he works. 


    So I had to buy a gorgeous black linen jumpsuit (size 5!) Should


    be worn with high red heels – but needless to say, can’t around


    R. So instead, flat sandals. Fortunately everything is on sale.  


    A and I have decided to ask Maeve to move in with us – we can’t


    seem to manage alone and we do have three bedrooms, but


    she’ll have to hide from the landlord. I hate to do it.  Letter from


    D today – he’s in love with the 18 yr old virgin daughter of his minister.


    Didn’t do a thing to me. God bless ‘em.


          Rick the gambler in tonight. He’s a friend of R’s – cheered


    me up by telling me I’ve done so much for R who was really “hurting”


    over his divorce.


    Ryder – I love you – but I don’t really know who you are. 


    Hope you are who you pretend to be.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

        Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland 
    R and I have seen each other every day since Fri –

    I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back.
    I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work
    and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex –
    first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect
    to be all right.
    Adore these slow working mornings. I get up
    with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now
    working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving
    at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar
    such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced
    on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling
    like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec.
    Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors –
    one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree
    in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him
    “Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see
    them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be
    in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to
    dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.

    Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM
    God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body –
    love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face. 
    Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it –
    he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but
    he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon –
    he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t
    care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman  pleasure. 
    We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even
    upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees
    with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a
    hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm
    was so great I wept.  I fell asleep with him inside me.  Wrote
    a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I
    learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent.
    He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want
    to buy a bookcase.
    Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could
    he possibly love me as much as I love him?  Yesterday walking
    in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one
    serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to
    limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer.
    The worst part is his trouble with my job.
    He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because
    he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers
    World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine,
    all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he
    can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as
    I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour,
    before my set.

    11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76
    Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken
    up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more.
    Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays,  Carmen
    checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect.
    We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his
    right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long
    purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the
    supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license
    in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going
    to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much
    as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.

    9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
        Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of

    my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 –
    left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears.
    He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign
    language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made
    him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no
    later than Weds.
    Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of
    the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected
    the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish
    amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house
    (though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight)
    I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.
    Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied
    till I just can’t boogie no more.


    Club Shalimar– 30 July 76
    Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two
    roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is
    a lot younger.
    We had glorious talks on our way there and back –
    about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);
    our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that
    again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around)
    first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned!
    Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he
    can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise.
    I guess I could say the same about him. 
    Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and
    came.  He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and
    his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me
    that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t
    understand it when they married, assuming it was something you
    get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child –
    he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually
    just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective
    concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in
    my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely
    mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount
    it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the
    “perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred.
    2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then
    I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his
    car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time
    to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.
    We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake
    eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem:
    Love, the Magician.

    The Magician is a Capricorn
    Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
    Pale like mine but
    Maler.
    Illusion, he says is memory
    Of things that should have been.
    Doves and rabbits he entices
    From sacred groves between my legs
    Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
    When he dies, passion turns his eyes
    To quarters.
    He hears the world but faintly
    Through his one good ear.
    The other turns to me,
    Safecracker’s daughter.
    Trust the magician, voices tell me
    He knows when to drop the dice.

  • Ice Age


    In photographs


    The ladies scream or laugh


    It’s hard to tell.


    Heads back they bare their teeth


    In agonies of joy or rage


    Or grief; it’s hard to tell.


    All that remains of them


    Withered icons growing ever dim.


    Choosing’s painful; being chosen’s


    Worse. Some lop the juice


    First spurt and say that’s tastiest;


    Some hesitate forever


    As the vessel


    Guards its drops, fearing


    Time itself must have a stop.


    Our language reeks of stops and cuts;


    We have no other way to think –


    Like dancers frozen


    At the brink of freedom


    Paralyzed abreast the arc


    we cannot see


    what this design was meant to be.


    In that first winter


    When they thought the world was dead –


    Dogs cried; devils laughed.


    Crystal splintered up in shafts.


    We met in tents, a feathered


    Rendezvous


    Touched and yearned and


    Parley-voused


    Till you were me and


    I was you.


    Somewhere a fetus twists and jerks


    Assemblage of dynastic quirks.


    For kingdom come from nothing came.


    Our world is born


    To bleed again.

  • Cloverleaf


    Some roads lead nowhere;


    They’re my favorites.


    I held my breath while


    You drew my face in


    Blinding strokes and


    Creamed my mouth with curling lines


    Destroyed one picture; then another.


    Left at dawn while I


    Ran downstairs in circles, calling


    Raging, spending


    Nights without you,


    No blue thigh guards


    My sleeping heart while yours looks out


    To gauge the coming storm.


    Now I’m trapped in cloverleaves


    Sentenced to school figures


     By endless angry judges.


    Every face I paint is yours; balked by


     The enervating past


    Of unlived lives.


    Open up the chilly ruffles


    Of my breasts


    To beauty; yours and mine and your


    Strange spine’s;


     A body so much lighter


    Than the mountain that you loved


     The course you learned


    Much better than you learned me.


    Overconfident that


     you’ll come back


    I float across the powdered snow;


    In bird-winged silence


    all-enveloping


    Lost and frozen like my heart?

  • The Woeful Victory

    ELIZABETH SIDDAL; The Woeful Victory
     
    Be still.


    It is evening.


    I almost recognized you; who are you


    Fair one?


    Your mouth is stuffed with poppy hair;


    Fate lies coiled between your breasts


    Like a snake. But


    Your tongue’s torn out.


    You are the echo of my thoughts.


    (I am the motionless cradle.)


    Your flesh takes fire from my setting sun.


    Will you free me, O Lady of the Sundial?


    My eyes are growing dim.


    (Perfect love’s not found this side of heaven.)


    I shall paint you vermilion


    Butcher nightingales and use their tongues for brushes


    Melt you foil & verdigris


    to the tune of Canterbury bells.


    Stay awhile, Fair one.


    I almost thought you spoke.


    (I am the face rising from the pool


    to drag the drinker deep.)


    I am not whole, dear lady.


    I am not myself.


    Who are You?


    (I am thyself. What hast thou done to me?)

  • Epithalanium

    Epithalamium

    The heat that rises


    From our marriage bed


    Powers up this house


    Summoning a cradle,


    Undercroft &


    Buttery;


    Colored jars of


    Seasoned fruit,


    Museums of ripeness


    Captured at the peak – just


    As we are –


    Citified –


    Reveling in


    Ownership;


    Mortgaging


    The future.

  • Haunted Wedding


    The pregnant car disgorges


    Only us. It’s winter.


    Drunk as silver fish


    We beat our gills as light


    As hummingbirds.


    In an amethyst ring


    Of drypoint trees


    The half-built house


    Gapes and swells


    Its timbers stink of sap.


    Windrill fields occlude


    Our crossing, so you carry me


    High above the thorny osiers.


    We sleep aloft for safety


    Locked and levitating


    In this space of air


    One season only,


    Unseen by angry outriders;


    Bloodless in our wedding robes


    Like the doubled membranes


    Of the frozen flowers.

  • A Light Upstairs

    SHIRLEY JACKSON: A Light Upstairs

    This house is empty


    Yet hardly unexplored –


    Something stirs aloft.


    The fat lady’s afraid because


    She cannot climb


    She sits and eats like a lonely child


    Celebrating birthdays


    A cat along each shoulder.


    She lifts her tarot card and listens


    Her own heart gasping in its womb of flesh.


    She fears cars and crowds and planes


    Elevators and department stores –


    Reads only stories where killers


    Are pursued, writes only tales


    Where innocents are stoned.


    It’s hereditary.


    The angry villagers once burned


    Her grandpa’s house.


    She smokes anyway, lighting repeat matches in


    An unsafe mansion where


    None escape alive.