Smear--3/31

Smear

I have been reduced
to a red smear.
Someone
clean me up.
I have to be something more
than a dirty word written on the bathroom wall.
I have to be something more
than a constantly spinning rumor mill
cutting through the continuous flow.

I tried to kill my doppelganger
but she ran wild through the woods
with a dead woman's words written across her breasts
and I ran headlong into a tree
trying to find out where the ghost had flown.
I have to be something more
than a brunette shadow.
I have to be something more
than a caricature with a Marilyn Monroe waist
and a heart I can't cough out of my throat.

Reduce me all you need to
because I am content being shrunk.
Yes, girls, I am made of plastic wrap
but I only have one face
and the jar I’ve kept it in has been empty for years.
Take a scan of my brain
but it will look nothing like my heart.

Dear Abby--3/25

A response to a poem my friend Dave wrote about his ex girlfriend. This is what I thought might have been going through her mind. I'm projecting, maybe?

-d.

************************************

Dear Abby

Your brain hums as her moans
are buffering.
I can hear it at 3:12 in the morning
and I crack and sizzle like a fried egg.
This time, though,
I'm not making your breakfast in bed.

You're a romantic comedy from the 80's
and our banter pricks me like shots of glucose.
You're Woody fucking Allen
but I'll never have Scarlett Johansson's tits
so I don't expect much from you.

I chose to talk to you on a day
when I felt like drowning in my own air.
You haven't helped revive me since
not with cheap beer
or chocolate cake
or stupid sex games you thought would make me laugh.

(if I fall in love with anyone
it's not going to be you)

You spit charisma like used toothpaste
and make your teeth white as MTV.
I hated them like a glare on the television.
When I told you this, you looked at me the same way
as you did when I made you apologize for being in shape.

So I hid under your pillow
like your dad's old Playboy
and when I climbed out
your didn't mind being revealed.

I just wanted you to tuck me back in
but you just continued to hum.
Then when I saw your eyes were full of static
I pushed the elevator button
and watch the concrete rush up to meet me.

Man in the Well--3/20

Man in the Well

I must have mistook you for a wishing well
but it turns out you were only a speakerbox
hidden in a clearing of the winter trees.
I must have stumbled on your stones
as I walked madly around the square
trying to conjure tulips.

I spoke into you, but you only replied
"What's your name?"

When I would not tell you,
you clicked on some switch or other
and a woman's sigh oozed out of you
and onto me.
I tried to clean it out from under my nails
but the humiliating pink still sticks in the crooks of my hands.

(I had no choice but to fall in completely.)

My sisters came to pull me from the well
tying stylish scarves and belts together
and I emerged wailing
plucking minnows off my skin.

They bathed me in a hot blue aquarium
and filled my heartspace with yellow fishes
but it was too late
I was already belly up.

They spoke into you
to find out where I had been
and man in the box only replied,
"What's your name?"

I haven't been the same since
with my propaganda cartoon nose
and my Venus di Milo torso.
Some call me a miracle
but I miss my arms sometimes.

They are writing my biography and making a film
based on the questions they couldn't answer
still I must continue to introduce myself
to the man in the box.

(what's your name, girl?
what's your name?)

random prose...don't know what this will turn into

My name is Eleanor, but you won’t remember me.
I’ve come to realize this long ago, back in the small town that wore the paper mask of a city, situated neatly between the yawning green cornfields and the lonely city of Des Moines (da-Moyn…let’s not be stupid), plump and black in the middle of the country. I can’t imagine what it would have been like when Kerouac rambled through, and how he happened upon the very spot where his Benzedrine-addled brain must have thought that here, in this imitation city, are the most beautiful girls in the world.
Though a few men and women swept back my bangs and told me I was one of them, I never believed her or anyone else. Even while in therapy when I made my false declarations of self-esteem, everyone knew: I was nothing special.
I realized early on that I was incapable of being loved. I attributed it to being a writer. Of all artists, writers are the least likely to be loved. Artists can draw or paint you a picture. Musicians can write you a song. Writers can tear their heart out and throw it red and gasping at your feet and you won’t understand why.
You’ve forgotten it already. That’s okay.
It’s Eleanor.
Eleanor.
Eleanor.
Come see me tonight.

Hexapus--3/4

A six-legged octopus was discovered in a lobster box. I wrote a poem about it.
--db.

Hexapus

She said I was lovely
and they took black and white photos
as if I were microscopic.
They watched my limbs curl
as I clung to you as if you were glass.
But there were some things
I was missing.

When they found me
my glossy pink body was squirming in the lobster box
grasping for your shifting surface.
I am not at home here.

I am a scientific marvel; a transparent cloud of mania.
The scientests gather, shoving each other
harpooning me with compliments.
Still, I'm sure there's something
I am missing.

Blue blood and black ink
shifts through my veins.
Four hearts still intact after my fifth dissolved
leaving only a chalk outline
where my body used to lie.
You let me know, despite my luminescence
that there is something I am missing.

Make me a bicycle with six golden pedals
and I will make trails across the floor of the sea.

Sunday Seance--2/26

Loving you
is like living in a house full of ghosts.
I've met at least three
at one time or another.

The first was a familiar one.
I'd met her before, even
offered her metaphysical tea.

The second was nonthreatening.
She was as round-faced as a birthday cake.
I laughed at her; you scolded me
for mocking the dead.

The third tugged at my hair
because she must have thought it was hers.
Her invisible hands clench around my throat
even after the fact.
She danced an icy waltz up my spine.

The jewelry box opened and shut
and the ballerina climbed out.
She spun on your knee and you kissed her painted lips.
I closed my eyes, ready
to vanish.

Pinup (don't remember the date...sometime in february)

I never found much merit in being secretive about my personal life. I don't think any good writers are.
This one is interesting because it was written out of frustration that I couldn't help someone and ended being written out of frustration with being betrayed.
One of the most painful pieces I've written.
-db

***


Pinup

Dear Inner Child,
If you want, in this poem,
I can call you an acid-tongued faerie
or a pinup girl for the damned.
(I knew you’d like that)
I am the yellow lenses in your sunshine glasses.
I am the seashell ashtray that rests on your chest
always knocked underneath your bed.
My lips will turn to ash
and you’ll kiss the carpet with dry heaves.

If you want,
I’ll help you eat those brownies we made.
I am the sprinkles
that you brush off the skinny jeans you bought
because you thought they made your ankles look thin.
So proud
you tally every intervention
laughing with the screeching chalk.

If you want,
I’ll watch the cyborg boy eat you
with his metal lips clutching you like prey
with eight spider-fingers and industrial teeth.
I’ll watch him devour you quickly,
like a praying mantis.
I will be silent
because I am just a picture you’ve taken
and shoved behind a pane of glass.

I will wrap my face in duct tape
if you’d have it that way
because I can’t spend another night
watching you drink from Wonderland bottles
waiting for the poisonous taste
of your kind of love.

So, I gave it to you.
He covered you in bluebird feathers
and his music filled your mouth.
In the end, though,
even after you lay on my side of the bed
even after you tore up the days of winter
on which I scribbled furiously,
the next month will come
with a new cover girl crawling out of the mailbox.
And you, suicide girl, you will find yourself
where you gave birth
among the discarded.