September Elegy

We all have our problems
I shut out the world Sunday before Monday
Cheat Saturday, fool Friday
Concentrate on matching my cleverly disguised,
Innately erotic
Witticisms to intrinsically designed, pinstripe blue,
Button - to - the - neck - cauliflower-bowtie
Corporate Dayisms
And you have that lover who beats you

I swallow tiny blue sleeping pills on Tuesday
Count backwards from a thousand
Three times on Wednesday
Face Thursday with a chin up, headache back,
One more day I know I can do it, glassine eyed,
got-to-wear-it-anyway smile
And you have that lover who beats you

I slam my door and apologize to no one on the other side
Who can't hear me anyway because I'm alone
On the inside.  Locked up with my super hero comic books
Superfluous I-need-my-space attitude coaxing
forest green, springtime fresh, calgon to take me away
While I stare at the flame red tip of a tissue rolled
Marijuana cigarette and Dinah Washington's blue holiday
Curls my toes into a Bessie Smith mood
And you have that lover who beats you

We all have our problems
Cinnamon toast, stretched taut, touching brown sugar tan
Evoking no aromatic fragrance from my independent sigh
I breathe melancholy every twenty eight days
Dispense generous amounts of acrid tongue wisdom
Deep into a salted night, I toss and turn
A progressive mind; kiss light the dawn with gratitude
As nightmare #23 creeps stealthily from the crook of my arm
And you have that lover...

My Come From Place

My come from place is scary, bittersweet, long on memories and high notes
My come from place hunts night like coon smell hound dogs
anticipating the kill, shine wet, air suck nostrils flared,
a heart thump, tail wag vision of the beast
mirrored in the dark tunnel eyeballs.

Raped (get up BobbyJo)
on a bare wood floor
(I'm gon' tell I swear I'm gon' tell)
in the summertime
(did he touch you)
at grandma's house
(did he touch you down there)
Grit red tongue sponge in my mouth
(stop please stop)
Snuff juice stink running down my back
(you better not tell girl)
Stole
(get up BobbyJo)
like me

Twenty one ain't no fun cause every deuce is wild
One-eye jacks and jokers stack the game for every child

My come from place where Vanessa robbed a bank and kissed a guard,
stole his balls through iron bars, laughed at his manhood on the six o'clock news
and I said she didn't do it.
We played marbles and mudpies, traded ponytails and cat-eyes
but the judge said Life … now give his balls back

My come from place where Big Red was a woman who married a man
who left her for a man who loved men who called my mother sister
and my cousin son.
Where Lucinda's house was rank with bootleg whiskey and Wild Irish wine
and baby sister's sweet honesty was manufactured by Avon
and when the brass knob turns RUN 
you better run or be prepared to see
"Girl, lemme tell you how good your mama was;
she didn't lay all her tricks cause she could play her tricks."
Put your hand in the black; do you ever get it back?

Jump Back Sally Jump Back

Where JohnDog's belly ballooned from codeine and cocaine and co-living
with all that dying and all the furniture wears a price tag
Where Goofie shot his best friend for a mixed bag
and T's and Blues and Quaaludes date the ladies of the new day.
Everyday is festival.
See the man with the white balloon; he will take you there.

My come from place is scary, bittersweet, long on memories and high notes.
My come from place, nestled snug amid thick green scented pines,
shaded cool by healthy overgrown oaks, courting the shell white sands
of a living lake, flirting with a universe.
My come from place … 
where mama  didn't say be good... 
just … be careful.

Blue

blue was the beginning
cobalt blue
an iridescent lightening claim
to the saffron rays of sun
the fertile call of moist
straining to begin
the beginning was blue
m o a n i n g  blue
toe jam, belly-button, funk blue
nestled in blackened blue throats
of old blue men
sucking juicy sweet pulp
from ripe mama tits
draining to begin
the beginning was blue
diaphanous blue
tenacious tendril of smoke curled blue
from my papa's pipe blue
from my mama's open wide 
push
come back baby come back
blue was the beginning
the beginning was blue
squeezed
from the gaping hole of time
inflamed
jettisoned like birth cream
from the yawn of nigrescence

The Bar in Hell

poets sit
at the bar
in hell
espousing truth
from salted rims of
no freeze margaritas
elevating humankind
with sugared
no fizz sloe gin
making past
a present tense
looking up periodically
from pad and pen
to review
what they have discovered
before retreating
to the illusion
of revolution
a matter of mind
over masquerade
at the bar
in hell

haiku 3: watermark 40

her toes had grown corn
while her vineyard, lush and ripe,
yielded still no fruit

haiku 17: heartbreak
vulture eyes don't lie
your carrion appetite
feasts upon my pain

haiku 18: imprisoned

locked up, locked in, trapped
consequence of mindlessness
the future is dim

haiku 13: war

dogs of war arise
tethered by utter chaos
free to wreak havoc

Fat Man Eyes

behind the fat man eyes lie
echoes from a chilled desert space
like whistled wind on full moon nights
coursing raw and shrill, touching
callous rock and hardened stone, leaving
always leaving never staying

behind the fat man eyes lie
one tear, two tears, a well of tears
but no smile to wet the desert sands

behind the fat man eyes lie
a cracked egg,
for the cook to fry,
and serve with haste
to feed the hungry mob
lest they become lost
in the hollow cries
of desert lonesomeness
... forever

Yeah I'm Mad

Yeah.  I'm mad.   I am jaw clenching /tongue popping
/tooth grinding /head snapping /eye squinching
/neck rolling /mad.

Here I am a woman needing my man to be my friend
and, here you are, acting like you don't know the difference.
Yeah.  I'm mad.
Who am I to turn to when I'm caught up in a world net
sitting in the first box of a roller coaster ride,
staring in the face of the scary hairy,
could - be - a - thin - line emotional bust thing?
Are you not the one?

Are you not the one whose scent I wear, whose special I taste,
who knows the swell of my breast as I cover your chest,   
let seep into my skin
the intoxicating feel of your silky … hard ... smooth.
Are you not the one who hears my loud snores,
smells my god-awful breath and kisses me anyway
in the telltale light of dawn?
Are you not the one who sees the spiders in my closet,
hears the creaking pain in my knees from bending too low,
walking too far, squatting too long?

Who am I to turn to when the wrinkles in my brow furrow too deep
and the boogie man takes permanent residence
in the corners of my mind?

Yeah, I'm mad. 
I am fingershaking /neck popping
/head jerking /foot stomping /hair pulling /hip holding
/fist waving /bad mouthing /chest bloating /teeth sucking mad.
Here I am a woman needing my man to be my friend
and, here you are, acting like you don't know the difference.

Hmmpf.   Ask me again.  Am I  mad!