overture: i am not water lilies

there is a blue box i keep
that hides pictures.
and things.

like figures of girls too thin to dance.
words too displaced to make sense.
men with stiff knees in painted black suits.

i’ve a picture of a pink door too-

would you beat on a painted door
if you knew it to be false?
perhaps.
if you though it was hiding lovers.
and things.

but such realities, as the falseness of a painted door
are trivial in anger.
pains that are illusions
become truths all at once-
until we are swimming in an ocean
thick as pudding.

of course,
my grandmothers anger is a curse
of having “good taste”.
why- then everyone else is tacky.
mismatched.
wrong-

style is such poison.

darling i hid in the tub and poured this confession out.

sometimes an artist must work in porcelain-
trick of the trade darling-
just as van gough.

surely, he’ll know.

for though i am not of his style,
we are of the same mind.
33% mad,
but one of a kind.

we bite like a revolution,
but with half the mess.
without the overthrow.
and things.

this is not monet.

i am not, water lilies .

i really am a medley of dots.

different colors,
mostly black.

the lakeshore

when the lights around the lake are dark
only the streetlights standing tall in their brigades
can watch over the city as it
tosses in it’s sleep.

when the streets around the dark late jitter-
like the fat boy. drumming his sticks
on the train headed towards no where.

headed past the lakeshore.
a stray jogger keeps a steady pace,
a jaded cop in his cruiser watches with a blank face,
and no one along for the ride save a ghost.

the doors on the train
open and shut.
i get out and walk past the museum.
open and shut.
a business-man tumbles down the stairs into the dark,
searching for a car to take him back to his lit high rise,
away from the dark waters he merely watches with a shrug.

past the museum my matriarch starts to bark.
oh, but she cannot beat me today.
for though the light around the lake are dark,
tonight my blood flows calm-

the dark boy drumming his sticks
on the train headed- a stray
jogger. cop. ghost-open and shut. past
the musuem-open and shut. business. car.
dark. waters. city. sleep.

down by the lakeshore.

machine lullaby

is it wrong to want a heart that cannot love?
is it devious of me to want an organ that only beats,
cannot trace the steps that one danced in frantic heat,
or does not know the passions frequently discussed over wine?
is it wrong to want a heart that only fears
that keeper of time?

am i cursed for it?
am i wiser for it?

or would dear venus simply abhor it?

or would she laugh for i've said what no one would,
and i've made the wish only the damned wish they could.
does dear venus think i've discovered the secret
that no great scholar, dare pen in ink?

should i tell cupid, darling, at my door he's met his defeat?
should i ask, no, beg to sleep a dreamless sleep?

i wish for a heart that is merely a machine,
one that cannot intervene with my more
flexible emotions.

give me something that merely keeps my breathing in motion-
in, out, again.
in, out, again.

it would be delicious to have a heart that
would do just that.

one that cannot be broken by lovers or foes,
it will known no delicious woes.
no divine fantasies,
no fanciful stories.

dear venus, come on, give me something mechanical.
write me a machine lullaby.
i no longer want something that is byfunctional.
just a melody to hum, and a name to outcry.

Brooklyn, Je T'aime

I looked down last night and saw both my knees were wet.
it was as if my knees were crying,
dampening the thin cotton layer
of the pants I die in each night.

Last night as I walked up the cold drive
I began to notice each light on the path,
and what was kept dark-

compare the tea lights on the mute path
tot he eccentric lights tacked to the family porches-
now which set thinks.

Which set has a mind-
oh the muses that i find in lights, wet knees,
and the dark spaces inbetween.

creek music

There was a creek behind the house
where a man waded back and forth in bare feet.
fireflies followed children in the moonshine.

it was there i sat pouring over the hours,
during the days where i thought about nothing
at all for a long time.

except the the creek music that crept like his fingers on that guitar.

But thinking about his guitar would trip my mind again.
If I think about that boy I’ll surly die again.

The man who walked the creek
called out to me that love is scripted scene.

people never read what’s in between the lines.
he said you can never trust their eyes.

Listen, I said, he loved me best.
We always danced, cheek to cheek.

He replied with nothing but a nod and a yes.
I’m sure it was true.
But if he felt as lovers do,
then why do you sit and cry by the creek?

I don’t know-damn.
He must have made me weak.

Still, he said, the heart must beat.

strawberries+arsenic

Her fingers were  birds gunning
across gray northern skies. She touched ivory
 keys while her ivory teeth
        clicked, clicked, clicked,
 to the waltz that she played with finesse.

When her husband came home he
neither spoke nor loved. When that man
came home she neither slowed nor spoke.
Her teeth went click, click, click,
to the now choppy rumba she played with vigor.

And then she stopped playing to fix him
a drink. His heart consumed the papers
colorless news. She poured in his
poison and kissed the glass; her teeth went
        click, click, click.

His heart beat once and then twice,
twice again, then back to one,

and was done.

self portrait on a tuesday

my eyes, your eyes-
they are everything that i despise.

we dance, marching back and forth in unimaginable patterns.
the lies are what lie thick and smooth.

we eat till our hearts pop and then start it over again.

but now i will walk away; you will know me another day.

this is a faded portrait for some days i cannot be whole.
today we will not dance, you may not romance me,

i said we cannot dance. do

not make me repeat it.

will you disown me?

or seduce my hands and features with paint,
running the paintbrush down my hair when you are done.

i wish to play artist too.

paint my face,
paint my face as it should be seen.
a divine Versailles, use a heavy hand.

(whatever can be conceived) the reveal and the diagnoses,
the mold and the dinner party,

these things are my work.

i cannot be stereotyped for i am my own.

what proof, what case can you make
to provide or define reasons for keeping a secret
which holds no reason.

call me your
goddess of all seasons,
and you may take me in four poses...

wet your brush, i will strike timely.