artist Gerda Wegener Heritage Images/Corbis © |
it was auto-mata erotica
and not quite ever enough
"you", I said to myself
when the empty house
knew, I wanted a wiser woman
letting me pretend to be
in charge though bowed
and better blue bent
tender barnacle beauty been
beans blending banal to bombast too
this is a xylophone-poem...
a tone tome home
where you can sleep
without having to wake up quickly
and ski-daddle wearing wings
of never quite comfortable
staying or sticking around here...
your arms are tired spine
Wintered skin
no regard for mercy
you shout shard glass
provenance or something
that says you were handled
at every station down the line
chained to method and observation...
indeed indica indicates
being stoned since when
I was eleven or twelve
first time I remembered
was power hitter old mustard
yellow plastic squeezed
inhale cough stoned...
I was on a family trip
at an amusement park,
rode with older cousin
got broken in softly sent
heavenly lent around the edges
that day for sure
dizzied with abandonment
the lure was assuredly divine
scent driven madness
no saddle bit or bridle
I am grabbing the mane
and holding on for dear life
this would be considered
stumble dancing from here on out,
into and onto becoming...
words
and the formula
for feeling my way...
a scratch paper poem
you wore this dress
there were two triangles
fabric tenaciously draped
I could not help myself
I began, paw and claw, crawling
ferociously, I had to know...
your tender(s) clung
their mathematics, had me
in a moment caught
where my eyes said
hey nose I need your help here
I want to completely surrender
and show my work
do you think I can
get her to reach for my scent
palms open, fingers outstretched...?
EJR ©
I love this. Every scritch-scratch scrimshawing word.
ReplyDeleteThis is really what I need from a poem most of all:
ReplyDelete"this is a xylophone-poem...
a tone tome home where you can sleep"
These words instantly head-to-toe relax me.
Thank you for sharing such an intimately personal story.
Also, this is erotica to me: "your tender(s) clung their mathematics, had me" ... math
This is my favorite part: "where my eyes said hey nose I need your help here" ... and the rest of the way down
Certainly this is all overtly sexual, but there's a tender coming-of-age purity here as well. An openness, a trust, that's harder to find in older people. The heart is very much still connected to the body here. It makes the poem more touching.
I'm sure you know this already, but it's Open Link Night at dverse, and I thought you might like to share something; I don't have your email, so I'm telling you here ... hope you jump in with your chaps on, like Billy the Kid.
ReplyDeleteedward.rinaldi@gmail.com
Deletegratitude...much