Vinyl

Charlotte Gainsbourg, AnOther

Vinyl's 

like a lady;

ya gotta get the needle

in the groove.

And, move.

A little scratch,

a little hissing -

just keeps things sounding true.

Like they do.

And, ladies

like the vinyl;

play a lady bad,

and she'll take yours from you.

Walk right out the door with all your Muddy Waters!  Your Stevie Ray, too. That's how I do.  Yeah, that's right.  I use 'em all for frisbees.  Coasters, maybe.  Get some Rick Cave in my cave . . .

A little Magpie for a little Open Link Night at dVerse

The Hour

Right and reason have rubbed me raw.
I'm tattered, scattered, and sore.
Scared and unsure -

when curved as my questions,
the bell of your hips
chimes the hour

for me to edge into the dawn-skirted night.
Claws of  the Scorpion are bright and open wide.
I stack the scale,
but it's mist and straw to a stone

so vast
it breaks the back
it calls home.

And the bell
of your hips
chimes the hour.

Note:  In Babylonian astronomy, the scales of the constellation Libra were known as the Claws of the Scorpion.

Sunday Whirl words for Open Link Monday at Real Toads

The Wolf

What do you do with the wolf
when the coffee and crumpets are gone?
Do you cradle him
to your shriveled breasts
for suckle, sleep, and song?

Do you let him lick clouds from your belly
till sky quivers quiet to ground?
Or, do you just stand aside,
polite and wide-eyed,
and watch
as he blows the house down?

Submitted to Poetry Pantry

The Middle

I'm how the middle makes a life.
Mediocrity's midwife.
Doula to the dearth that's left
beyond your row to hoe.

I'm the lowered expectations
befitting of your station
where the trains all run on time,
but have nowhere to go.

A First Line / Last Line poem (the first line comes from the last line of an old poem) for Susan's Mini-Challenge at Real Toads.

Community Property

I tried to divorce myself,
but it didn't work out.
Myself and I couldn't agree
on who would take what.

Neither of us wanted our house,
our dilapidated old body of a house.
It's falling down,
the maintenance costs are outrageous,
and even the homeless think it lacks curb appeal.
No takers.

Neither of us wanted custody of our two children,
Obsessive and Compulsive.
Both of us were all too willing to settle
for very limited visitation.

And, our little dog, Neurosis?
He was headed for the shelter,
poor thing.

But, myself and I ended up staying together.
For better or worse,
we are bound forever -
oh, not by love,
but by the shit we share
that we're not willing to own
alone.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Under My Ray-Bans

I'm looking fine as filament,
all arted and tarted in pearls.
A lady of linens and lunch
in the open air.

But under my Ray-Bans and charge card,
I'm just sticky cells clinging to bones
that knock at my skin
"beware, beware, beware -

decay is your calling."

A Sunday Whirl for Open Link Monday at Real Toads

Long Day For The Doctor

Sunshine gold
holds the kidnapped dark
star / light locked.
Frocked and besotted,
hot like an impetuous girl.
Pearls in clumsy hands
land lost in the frog mud.

But the witch doctor he don't stop.
Got restoration in his cast iron pot.
What voodoo needs, he'll gladly seed and bleed -

bringing night back to New Orleans.

A bit of Jasmine's Jetsam chain rhymed (I hope) for Hedge's mini-challenge at Real Toads.

Lightning

I flew a kite.
I flew a key.
Lightning split the sky
for me.
I boxed it up.
I took it home
so if I should ever be alone

I'd have lightning.

Behind white walls
and a deadbolt door,
I play with lightning
on the floor.
I clap thunder.
I cry rain
until floods come to wash away

all the things I've been fighting

and nothing's left but lightning.

Bluer

image by Kim Nelson

Looking for a bluer blue

I lost the sky,

and I lost you

and found instead the redder red

of a broken heart

that bleeds regret.

For the mini-challenge at Real Toads

Jaded

If I were less jaded,
I might have seen a love story
in the way the cardinal escorted his lady
through the storm
to the budding pear tree.

I might have smiled
at his gentle, sheltering hover,
or even laughed
at the futility of feathers
against the rain.

Instead, I remembered the warm weight
of your arm around my shoulders
as you huddled me under your jacket
when downpours came

and how I always
ended up
getting soaked
just the same.

Why Do You Ask?

I'm not mad.

Narcissism blues -
3rd verse.
Schizophrenic, too,
and worse.
Mirror fucking,
lead paint sucking,
huffing from a hybrid,
where's the goddamn gas?

Why do you ask?

I'm not mad.

For Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

Breath

There is breath
and breath
and breath
without words.

Breath
and breath
and salt
against my tongue.

Breath
warm
and warming
inside my thigh.

Every breath
a petal
sweet / crushed
and pulled.

For Form for All at dVerse

Servant's Heart

by M.C. Escher

I wish I had a servant's heart

to match these servant's hands;

a heart

more merry meet with fate.

A heart

that would nestle

serene within this vessel

and never beat against

its common state.

I have the calloused fingertips,

and silence sits well on my lips,

and yet, there's disturbance at my core.

I wish I had a servant's heart

to match my servant's hands;

instead I have a heart that thunders

MORE.

For the Sunday Mini-Challenge at Real Toads.

Also submitted to Poetry Pantry.

The Fat Lady

I awoke
to the fat lady in mid-note,
and I wondered

what was over.

Five Years Gone

Five years gone in a womb of waste.
Cord blood rancid, I'm starving slow.
Labor pains loot the minstrel's case
for anesthesia for my bones.

Till Caesar rent the ripe / rot place,
contracted small as I could go.
Five years gone in a womb of waste.
Cord blood rancid, I'm starving slow.

Today, I wear a stranger's face
that bears no mark of what I know
or what I've seen, and I don't go
where my caul is kept - sacred space.
Five years gone in a womb of waste.

Diary Of An Alpha Girl

I unspooled my silvery tongue
between the knees of nothing.
I found it wet as water,
and I had a twin to spare.

The diary of an alpha girl
is oddly dead of details.
There is swimming.
There is drowning.
And, Alpha Girl's still here.

Getting Listed for Real Toads.