cult of he

well, it started well

I lingered over ovens and stoves
he brought me chocolates and rose

I'm nearing thirty now, love's lost its surprise
It's all the same, hold my hand, look in my eyes
and eventually the friendship fades to lies

he changed his mind
he doesn't want to be mine
although I've been nothing but kind
he has gone, left me behind

I fall back to patterns, it's hazy
I tried to warn him I was crazy
that I am alarmingly lazy
I guess he thought he could tame me
said oh so naively, that doesn't phase me

I've mourned the loss of butterflies and bees
I joined the other song birds up in the trees
I fall as graciously as a catholic to my knees
I've read your rule books, your methods to be
I've even been so brave as to be blatantly be me
To hell with this pedestal, this cult of he

late night green

It's nights like this
that despite twenty years
and a lush history of lovers
and an otherwise joyous life
I feel once again
like the fat girl in
the cafeteria that no one
wants to slow dance with.

It's musical chairs
and no one wants to be
the last one left standing
the last one picked in
gym class the last one
left sitting on the bleachers

I'm used to grumbles in my belly
but now it's the rumble lower
the root chakra, the depth
and breadth and center of my
soul and my body there is this
warm, vacant holding place
that lies barren and empty
and above I can't help but
feel unnatural with hands at my
side when I am a born mother
without a child to hold
without a family of my own

I can't buy these things
I can't write business plans or
formulate schemes and time-lines
There is nothing I can do, no press
release, no well-thought out attack
there is nothing I can do
no book I can read nor write
no pill I can take nor spit out
no degree to achieve or certificate to earn
that will bring me the things
I want more than anything else
on this Earth

And I wonder
on night's like this
what makes me so unworthy
or so undeserving
to not have the very thing
that I desire above all others
the same thing I see millions
take for granted everyday
loves laid fallow
children shaken, neglected
why is it that I
have not been allowed
these gifts?
This key to the garden?

I don't believe in God
but I take this personally.

By way of washington square *draft*

The Sylvia Plath Easy Bake Oven
The Dylan Thomas Flask and Bar Set
The Virgina Wolff Plastic Arm Swimmies

Narcissis stuck at the river bend
Face down, on his knees
Persephone takes the page, ties her shoe laces
Descends for her four month suntan
Sans the sand

I twirl my hair while sitting at the bar
I try to explain this has nothing to do with any man
In particular
Maybe just an intrinsic need for
the natural implantation and nurturing of the seed.

Spinster aunts in rocking chairs
Too narrow for their ancient expanses
School marms fat on retirement
Pussies unused and dusty, locked away in boxes
With faded love letters and urns of dead cats

The Zelda Fitzgerald Fire Extinguisher
The Ernest Hemingway Rifle Cleaning Kit
The John Berryman Base-Jumping Chute

Oh to be Holly Golightly
instead of Norma Desmond
Oh to fall asleep in the Village
instead of rotting on Sunset Boulevard

Now back to the typewriters
by way of Washington Square.

...(draft)....

I have nothing to do but sweat
and avoid putting away my laundry
It is eighty-eight degrees in N.Y.C.
and this city doesn't want much else to do with me

I am an inner-chambers kind of girl
You've all heard it before, spilled and spanked
It is something I have grown accustomed to
And without the presence of elegant stair
I have abandoned my furs and jewels

Sunset Boulevard stained my brain
Back in two thousand oh two
And when told I was a borderline
A flash to Fatal Attraction
and in perfect Janice fashion
I blushed, realizing I had boiled bunnies, too

So what am I to do
The beast, the magic, the essense of this heart
is that it beats, it maneuvers in erratic-ocity
But the problem is
That I think I'm wonderful
and oh so peachy and lovely to taste

Yes you made yourself plain
Yes you made yourself a savior of rain
And again
And again

I chase you this way
I chase you that
and yet, and yet
I've yet to meet someone
who loves me as much as my cat

I roll up in the corner and I sleep
I am through with me, too, big city
your bright lights blind in their
oh so unkind
oh so sublime
shatterd broken crumbled absbestos sighs

The Man I Will Marry (draft)

i am stealing again
I am wheeling again.
I just might as well fly
Sprout wings and yes I might
as well just fly
There's nothing else to do
paint my desires on strangers
a dollar and a dream
ice cream and torn seams
close my eyes and
in the moment of disclosure
in the face of disclaimers
in the moment of enclosure
I threaten the sturdy gates within
russian nestled dolls
that take all night to lay out
to find them empty by morn

cracker jack, no prize
no 6 am stroll to tiffany's
no crossiant crumbs
no perfect black dress
and I, well, I am no
Audrey Hepburn
in this age of
wham, bam, fuck ya later, ma'am

no symbolic cigarette smoke
can rival the crass
brass, worthless ass
that I have become

everything I pack, they spill
sugar deafens as it falls
and I wonder why I can't be content
in my existence, in my modular
chemistry, in my young and baffled
amazingly surprised sunset-sweetened
mouth
oh so pretty mouth, little girl
dimples and all
oh such a sweet pretty mouth, Jay girl
you look all empty inside
down that deep dark throat
let's fill that void right up

or maybe it's just 1986 again
maybe I'm seven years old and maybe
I can jump the furthest in gym class
just once
yes maybe just once I can jump the furthest
in gym class
yes maybe
I know my place in line
it's right behind
you
just where I want to be
close but out of peripherial vision

I can taste your Suave shampoo
I imagine backflips
your chaplips
in the clubhouse near the cemetary
in that town whose name means
cursed
in that town with the devil's elbow
in that town where I was born

I'll hum for you, boy
I'll patiently descend
I can wrap around your feet
like the warmest of dogs
and again
yes again

I can be seven again
and you can be my first grade crush
only this time
in the tandem present
perhaps you can love me
not kick me off the kick ball team
yes maybe in this re-touched memory
you can be taller and older
and I can be thinner and prettier
and then
then maybe then it can be my love life
redux
and you, him, whomever you are
can love me this time, too

there are nights
and there are cities
where the air gets soft
and the corner gets still
I can imagine being down there
Running, running wild
Yellow double line
Run until I can't breathe
Run until I find grass
Run until I find stars
Run until I throw my arms
around the whole goddamn world
and in these moments
in these Brooklyn fantasies
in the brief moments between green lights
in the lapses of quiet
I want a hand to hold
A smile to help me keep pace
Someone to stop me from being mugged
And pick me up when I trip
Trip, faint, falter, find
but never fall

This is the man I will marry
the man of skinned knees
and bicycle helmets
This is the man i will marry
the man of star-spinning
and midnight pizza

at least maybe this time
at least maybe sometime for real
maybe
just maybe

secretary (draft)

it is all yellow-green lighting
that blinks and sparks
mimicking heels, the tip tap tip tap
a seizure waiting to happen
illuminating 50's pencil skirts
and hips when women had hips
Blips and slips, I balance precariously
in heels that blister and pop
I raise my chin, I channel
Katherine and His Girl Friday
Only this fella
has more recently seen another film
prior to searching for a Secretary.

I follow the cheap
pantsuit to his office
I am wearing the one white blouse
button down I own
I hold my lungs, every breath
threatens indecency
expansive breasts swollen
on they're monthly schedule
the trenton-bound 5:45 pm
pressing against fabric
suburban lusts and crust
on the faux leather seats

please, miss, have a seat.

it is a tracking shot,
the camera follows
almost up my dress
but it's not me it's
some bondage model
a Veronica Lake- wannabe
puke green filing cabinets
twisting, labyrinthine corridor
I suspect nothing.

film noir, no accordion in sight
tarrantino funny, then splatter
something's the matter
he fingers my resume, eyes my lips
I get the feeling this man
the man behind the desk yellow pit stains
dollar store tie and paper clip to
his pucker, contorted lip
I get the feeling this man
wants me not as an assistant
but as a lady, a tramp, then
tossed out, broken lamp
begging for food stamps
lapping up the gutter-spill
he wants me akimbo, a bimbo
but he asks about dic-
tation speeds and typing tests

later on the way back to bensonhurst
the train teeters on the yellow line
I realize that the advertisement
was all a ploy for a perverted man
who owned too many filing cabinets
and not enough honestly-bared breasts

two days later he calls
the job has been filled
but would I ever consider
letting him place a camera
under the rim of my toilet seat
or perhaps leave one on
while getting undressed before bed?

I am twenty-three
Lips painted Betty Page red
Reclining on rented bed
Russian on the street, winter falling
Outside it is a blizzard
the train can't move in the sky
It is Siberia, it is Chernobyl
I burn my degree, I vomit my pedigree
I tongue my blood line
Consider my options
And tell him maybe next year
If all else fails
I'll let this rich man
watch me shit.

residual

You left your shadow in my dream
A silk, a silhouette on my floor
Feet sunk into soft as I stood
As I climbed from my bed
and continued my search

You are residual
In my residence, I chance
circumstance
I dive under water
maybe I see you only
when delving into
altered consciousness

In my nightmares I am aware
In my nightmares I claw at my arms
I hear killers at my door
In my nightmares I throw myself into walls
Hurl myself into the mantle
Precariously leap from fire escapes
I warble and marble and babble
wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up