Vintage by Amy Lowell

I will mix me a drink of stars, --
Large stars with polychrome needles,
Small stars jetting maroon and crimson,
Cool, quiet, green stars.
I will tear them out of the sky,
And squeeze them over an old silver cup,
And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it,
So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice.
It will lap and scratch
As I swallow it down;
And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire,
Coiling and twisting in my belly.
His snortings will rise to my head,
And I shall be hot, and laugh,
Forgetting that I have ever known a woman.

The White Hours

there are three white hours in a day,
one for each daily prayer
said whilst the dealer throws the cards down
and declares the day a bust.

there are three white hours in a day,
and i wear mine like a black dress,
that molds to conform to the days personality,
and usually ends up a horrid
frock with holes.

there are three white hours in a day,
one chime made the city jump,
a second one and the baker dropped the bread on the
butchers wife who ran the knife into the wall
and pierced through the little girls head

making her dunce hat fall like sand to the ground,
disingrating into a steady stream of nonsense,
my hands move swiftly to capture all this as it is.

there are three white hours in a day.
if we can spend one inside me
and like a book you can read me
althought it’s jumbled and the inks running
fast everything should be there somewhat in tact.

maybe we’ll jump the broom tonight
and kick up our feet like the floor fell through
while dancing in giddy circles
pretending that there is no house
and there will be no tomorrow.

or perhaps, this will be the white hour where yout health fails,
so does my head, my heart,
witl perish with either.

L.A. Confidential

It was dark in the afternoon.
Your silent house, I watched it
sigh. I watched the blank T.V.
almost willing it on but I did
not want to disturb you.

Your daughter was in your
L.A. dining room of wall to wall
mirrors around her but they
only reflected the table where
she sat back and so she did not see
me—her pen moved frantic across paper.

I moved into the living room,
trying to keep away from you,
I didn’t want to disturb you,
while I remembered,

running fingers along the
pictures of family I never see,
the piano that’s been so long
out of tune—

after a minute or two L.A was
still there and you were gone.

She left the dining room,
I left the living room,

the hall seemed silent.

Something washed over the L.A
house—

I could hear the solemn apologies
of that death suite—

The next time I dreamed of you
I was passing old warehouse doors
and such desertion brought me back
to you, to what I miss—I remembered
—they wailed, I did not. I thought then
your leave was timely.

The hall seemed silent as I reached out
to touch your door when something
said- Wait! Death has been here!

Yes. I said. I can here her now—the
solemn apologies—the death suite.

I finally saw,
you wore it well.

and so we dance (throw back)

we wonder what will happen today,
what tears will be cried tomorrow
and what pleasures we’ll soon know.

the table was set for one, among the ashes of my old pages
i can see what i will become. black ashes and black tea,
black coffee and red roses.

i wonder if she even cares or am i just there,
because what it is to me it it not to her.

too high, that is my preferred flight pattern,
i wonder, imagine eating pieces of broken sky,
and then watching our bodies turn from us to it.

we’ll walk around with clouds floating across our brow.
i wonder about the cards cast last night, the queen of hearts that
upside down and right side up. and the king of diamonds that
did not want her--does she feel?

do we question?
no so we dance until we all fall down.

Digression

Food
1.

To a suggestion that I make amends with myself.

To you I say there is no justice,
Without heels on, with no lipstick and no perfume,
And to you who knows nothing of the woman I know—chic,
cheek and all of that—
it’s so hard to talk to a woman
who left me in a graceless world of pretend.

And as I hesitate to speak,
I am so quiet, these days,
I am so hungry, these days,
But in my hands there is never anything to eat,
There is never anything here.

I tried to take a bite out from (of) our lady,
Only token virgin of a common sermon,
And so I hesitate to speak,
Mary tasted of motherhood.
She tasted like stale wine and coffee beans,
And Perry Ellis 360, your kind,

Mary, Mary, will you marry me?
Through you I can bear no child,
For I still am one.

Back to you again,
It’s all to you,

Call me a sadist of the mind?
Point out my dike tendencies—
Do you know what a dyke is—
It’s part of the game,
Part of the game,
So what if I’m a bit like that,
I am, I am, I am,
And a mother should love me unconditionally,

Feed me,
For beauty is what you eat,
The things you can cook,

I’m hungry,
I’m digressing,
And I’m done for now.

nightmare chronicles

Bless me father, for I have slept.
It has been two days since my last trial,
And these are our confessions—

1.
she walked deep into a room,
hands feeling around in the air
though she knows there is nothing there but
stagnant life. She moved without looking around,
Only noticing the boy, her boy, so concerned
With looking down that he could not see
That she combed her hair, or the care she
Took putting picking her clothes out of vogue,
he did not look up!

The light trickled away from the sky,
The angels reeled the sun back up,
And she took careful steps on the dark floor,
Trying to catch his eyes, but he kept playing,
Playing, playing, and would not catch her eye.

Such portrayal, he said.
Exhausting, she said.

2.
He saw no room. He was in a parade down main street,
A thousand feet in a thousand rhythms on the dirty
Concrete where chalk and spit and oil and water drops
Culminated in cracks that were too numerous and
Smooth squares so few. Yet peace lasted only
A second or two before something rose up from that
Dirty rock and waved it’s large arms loudly,
Making even the horn players crumble like paper planes,

He had a gun that wouldn’t shoot,
He had legs that wouldn’t stand,
He had a heart that didn’t take on demons,
He had no Vegas hand,
He had double sixes, no aces.

Did It end, she said
Could you end it, he said

3. Interlude


She tried not to speak of what happened next, and
He kept rotating in his bed to get the images out of his
Head and she wished to peer behind the sun to see if
Angels were really there then there were the things in between that no one
said, when she closed her eyes she again saw the shadow
moving, moving, moving
over her out of sync, her voice fading faster than she
could blink, but the shadow hard lined—these things that were in between
they did not talk about. He remembers moving through people,
breathing, breathing, breathing,
demons finally down but so are the people they
dragged all the way from the town hall to the grocery store,
and all he was looking for was a little hand to connect to
the human puzzle that he— she remembered almost tasting
the struggle—and these things in between their dreams bits they
could not maintain and so they took reign.
Killing them, killing them, killingly them,
Steadily—
So what to do, she said.
Check under the bed and in the closet, he said.

They checked nightly,
religiously, and they prayed:

Our father,
Who art up there, somewhere,
Hallowed was thy voice when I dreamed a dream,
Thou kingdom was dark,
And thy house was stark,
Thy angles craved liquor.

she prayed:

give me this night,
a dreamless sleep,
and forgive my laviciousness,
I asked my shadow no favors,

He prayed:

So lead us not into our nightmares,
But deliver us from evil,
This we pray again,


Amen.

between now and when

Between now and when you left me
my head has pounded in that
Uneven rhythm to the semi divine
Vision of when you poured coffee in
My garden and made the flowers grow,

Sowing things that only I should sow.
But I don’t blame you.

It is the woman in me who keeps brining
about these irrational tendencies,
pulling on my thin heartstrings with
her teeth and bringing me dreams of being,
just being, without meaning or fear.

Yes, simply being, just being,
And having you near.

But the fantasies that she brings,
Only happen in the spring,

And winter is my weather
So I’ll put on my black coat and wait,
Pound out frantically about this standard fate,
Of being caught up all over again and why the rose stems won’t sever,

Dreaming of being, just being,
Simply being, nothing less.

She talks through my own mouth,
Straighten up and fly right-
Throwing even my darkest dreams into a forgetting light,

For he wants me to take off my coat and admit,
That your coffee really is sustaining the roots,
that when I put on your garden boots they fit,

and that’s it.