1/29--Bluebird

Bluebird

In spring I will take a polaroid of you in your t-shirt
and the bluebird will fly out from under your sleeve.
It came to you
before you had those restless nights
eyes wide was a cartoon cat,
thinking of the dampness of that tent
where she tore you apart like a bear
knocking over thermoses of hot chocolate
and cracking your camera lens.

Since then all the girls came in their blue veils
to plant land mines in your bruised body.
You had to etch it on to remember
when it flew in to meet you
at the farmhouse in muddy spring
while you rummaged through your father's records in the attic.

You said that you like the cold wind at your back,
that snowflakes were softer than babies' fingers
if you can stand facing the sky for awhile.
You can't get the sound of the violin out of your head
or the way she dresses like light catches the bottoms of CDs.

Spring has to come someday
after the sun fades the valentines on your windowsill
and the Christmas candy has gone stale.
I will arrive with it
bumming a ride on the thaw.
Unannounced,
subtle as a note in your pocket
a girl in a purple dress
a bird that does not sing.
It flies.

very uncharacteristic song lyrics---1/27

Song lyrics I can't put to music because the only thing I can play is the tambourine.
And I need a boy vocalist.
Anyone?

db.

*******************************************************************************
Wednesday

(girl)
It was Wednesday and I was riding my bike to school
I thought awhile and realized
I only wanted you.

(boy)
Girl, I don’t want to break your heart, you shouldn’t be a fool.
So many boys must be falling for you
falling for you.

(girl)
I don’t care, just take my hand
(boy)
I’ll let you lead me up the stairs
(girl)
I’ll hide my love well enough
(boy)
you won’t have to
(both)
if you kiss me like you do.

(boy)
I’m glad to have you in my bed.
(girl)
I’m glad your songs are in my head.
(boy)
You're healing all this hurt
Let’s stay up all night
(girl)
I’m wearing your sweatshirt
and I feel alright.
(both)
I feel alright.

To A Tree Outside Ross Hall--1/24 (Ven's CW Poetry)

I wrote this for a poetry exercise today in Ven's poetry workshop. I sat on some cold concrete and stared at a tree for five minutes.
I think I like this class already. I like assignments like this, bizarre as they are.
I'll be posting some of my favorite exercises from the class, as much as Ven doesn't like prematurely published things. I made a couple random changes since I first jotted it down.
Enjoy the fruits of my frozen ass and open mind.

-d
*************************************
To A Tree Outside Ross Hall

O tree
Your sort of modesty frightens me;
The way you cling to your hair like Venus
quaking in her shell.
You are some sort of Godiva with your brown skeleton
holding on to your babies as they curl up.

O tree
in your concrete cape
where I sit discovering that maybe
you are more a woman than I.
In our sparse fall coats,
holding letters to a season we can't remember.

O tree
there is some sort of elegance
in your fingers, the way they hold your leaves
like the pages of a bible.
I want to lie a trash can next to you
and burn burn burn
until you start to glow.

Addictee--1/22/08

Make no mistake. I chose you
because you seemed weak.
You were convinced you were old.
"There's a point," you said,
"when you can't go back."
When the rollercoaster takes it's fatal dive.
You've experimented,
you had been in these same gutters before.

Make no mistake. I chose you
because you were an artist.
(All of those assholes are the same.
So in love with themselves
that they must destroy their bodies
with women like me.)

Make no mistake. I chose you
because you seemed so fragile.
I knew that I could make you spin so fast that
your eyes would plunge forward
until you were forced to shut them.

Goodbye to the houses
where you'd kill the cockroaches
and inhale me.
Not sleeping for days, my perfume mingling
with the greasy wax paper.

Goodbye, my addict.
I would have made you gray
and brought out the color you were born to be.
You exhale the years I still had
and the sidewalk and the forest girls
and the lights which we made pregnant
each one trembling as I waited
in the alley behind the pawn shop.

In spring you will eat vegetables
and ride your bike everywhere
healthy.
So healthy.

Winter Room---1/16/08

Winter Room

You make me into gingerbread,
partaking of me when I'm raw
and I always take the same shape.
(You don't even bother to notice
the red icing.)

You're pouting into your beer as if it will respond
anything like I do.
To you I am concave
you think it's some miracle or other
when you know it's only science,
(evolutionary pity.)

I am making you my song on repeat
you swing violently back to the beginning
a backhand in the key of D
(slightly out of tune.)

If only I could reduce you
by taking your photograph
to blot you out
and reinterpret.
If only I could sanatize everything you've touched;
sew it up.
Still I wait for the change of seasons
for a thaw...
but you are winter
(cold son of a bitch)

Spiders--1/7

Spiders

I've seen houses infested with spiders so small
that they hide underneath our eyelids
revealing themselves when we blink.
We can blame them for the numbers that tick through our dreams.
the scrolling stocks under our tv screens.

It's true that I love the enemy,
or a semblance of who you thought killed your husband,
ripped the stuffing from your son's teddy bear,
who left your gift wrapped in the junk drawer.
He is not a mirror image
not an altar made of shopping bags
and empty fry containers.

I want to take him to your churches,
down every corridor of cubicles
through every Alabama drive-through.
I would be called a whore
a traitor
an unbeliever
because I give you this.

Because I am choosing contrast over symmetry.
Because I have shed the spider's legs, I have
shaken off their skeletons.
Because I refuse to butter my bread in this house anymore.
Because I want to dream the same dream every night.