7/14--Aftertaste

Aftertaste

A broken heart can make anyone a sponge.
Faceless and asexual,
the guru of the coral reef.
A patient samana
(if only to be
such a beautiful word).

So I kissed a stranger last night
(the only thing I remember was that his hair was nice
it was blonde like a surfer’s swell
but it couldn’t be in this Midwest bar.)
We kissed behind a blue plywood door
if only to get the aftertaste of you
off my tongue
maybe this one would lift the curse you put on me.

Mine was a fate much like a rape victim
or a stray dog.
You are the only story I can tell
repetitive as a romance novel formula
(girl meets boy
girl goes against her coy feminine instincts
and falls in love.
best friend seduces boy.
boy gives girl shards of hope
best friend finally claims boy with a lease
boy rejects girl
girl resents boy)
and so on.

Like this I open the same wound like a Christmas gift
quickly, I tear away the paper to find the same gag:
the same rotting apple cores
the same damage
the same look of disappointment as the neighbor boy
laughs in his folding chair.

Lately I entertain ideas of new characters to replace you
a guitarist with no arms
a bored housewife turned cross-dresser
a hip lesbian with a parrot on her shoulder
some girl named Catastrophe
but you always creep in with your key of D (slightly out of tune)
and blue work shirt (slightly unflattering)
and your glasses on my dressing table
and your Dutch master nose.
It all shows up in the doorway
as I drop the bleach rag on the tile
or spill a bowl of olives
I cross out paragraph after paragraph
strophe after strophe
but you reappear again.

(sometimes when someone asks my name
I can’t reply with anything but
‘I’ll never tell…’)

7/14--Hôtel Mathieu

Once again, I'm giving the finger to expectations and gender roles and writing a non-romantically themed poem about a guy.
Here's to you, Matthew. Thanks for existing.

-db.

***


Hôtel Mathieu

You would sit on the sofa, awaiting the tragedy
of the day
like the dog-eared page
in the bathroom Reader’s Digest.
I’d tell you the tale directly from the tarot cards
that I thought spelled out my fate
as I flipped them over and over in my brain.

My psycho-astrology was fucked.
I’m a red beret lunatic born on a cursed day: November 3
when death has lost it’s novelty
there are no daisies in my eye sockets
and my candy skull dissolved in the rain.
There are no saints on my playing cards
I no longer fish for Saint Anthony
when I lose my keys.

You nod at my metaphors as you stir the macaroni,
the gypsy punk at the antique stove.
I’ve been comfortable staying in your film noir hotel
where it is all black curtains and red scarves
over white paper lamps.
Photographs of inky women with skin like paper
beauty is all chemical
all grayscale.

Lately you don’t mind my lack of scandal.
Everyone needs the neutral poet who only makes love
to her green desk lamp.

Hold the umbrella, amigo.
It’s been raining all morning.

matchmaker--7/2

Matchmaker

Why don't you walk in at about 1 a.m?
Make me be patient
as if you had just fucked your malnourished girlfriend
and decided to stop in for whatever is on tap.

I'll sip my wine, noticing you
wishing I hadn't,
covering up my one night stands like nip slips
or bruises.

You won't notice me, of course
and I'll pretend you're not there
as some Ringo Starr lookalike gropes my thigh.

Our first date
will make me wish I hadn't been one of those girls
who grew up equating Disney princesses
to my future self
(I was Belle: bookish brunette with green eyes)
but I'd never work a tiara
and I always end up passing out on my shawl
two hours before the ball ends.
That teapot should have never suggested an open bar.

You'll laugh at that
and I'll wish I hadn't noticed your smile
or that there is no malnourished girlfriend.
"anorexics never have nice tits anyway" you'll say
and I'll pretend I'm not completely swelling
like the hot air balloon in the guidance counselor's office.

vintage--7/2

Vintage

Darling, you've got infatuation
written all over you.
Why don't you play the innocent yuppie
and I'll be the creepy neighbor.
You play the brooding artist
and I'll play the nerdy underclassman.

Darling, you are too cool for school.
You scream vintage t-shirts and bands I've never heard of.
Like every other modern boy
you'll make me do all the work.
Times are changing,
so girls like me get laid
once in awhile.

Darling, isn't it funny
that you lasted as long as a pack of cigarettes?
You stamped out the law of attraction
when I burned it right down the label.
Lucky Strike
doesn't live up to it's name.
You can't find that shit around here.

fidget--7/2

Fidget

I went out on a limb (as it is
always dangerous to do)
and nearly broke my neck.
There were no birds on the canopy
of that same oak I've climbed over and over again
no promises from the robin of springtime
and certainly no bluebird of happiness
(the birds had flown)
so I just fell
with no idea
how I'd catch myself.

No one hears of thsoe near-death experiences
where there is no light at the end
no wedding gowns or quiet bedside lamps
just a darkness black as licorice
and just as bitter.
An eternity of damp basements full of sweating bodies
dancing under a shit-ton of asbestos,
and you're the only one standing by yourself
They'll hold out their tongues to catch the snow
and you're the only one who knows
this is no acid trip,
no French absinthe.

Try living your life being sure of nothing
except the fact that you'll grow old
and accessorize as you always have:
with a bottle of pills and a sloppy notebook.
Try being the only one to know
that love is just a hologram carrot
and you're still one of the stupid mules chasing after it.
Try waking up in the kind of sweat
that you haven't felt since you were forced to attend church
each Wednesday night in Indian summer
that exact brand
of discomfort.

So you fidget.
Sit up straight in your bed
nothing green or pale or golden
will get you to sleep and wait until 4 a.m.
when the last thing you want to hear
is birds and how they call to morning
as if she's a centerfold.

Prospect Street--6/23

I always wanted to be a Tenenbaum.
-db

***
Prospect Street

It was a summer of olive pits
like those temporary lovers,
they would snap against my teeth until I spit them out.
I'm a modern child
I want things to come easily.

It was the summer he fell in love with a stray cat.
He carried his body to bed in the house
that made me believe I was my own character
in a story too lazy and beautiful to be true.

(If I was your daughter
maybe I wouldn't crave dairy so much
when I'm lonely.) I always pour a glass of milk
and wait for the phone to ring.

It was the summer when June smelled like burning kitchens,
marijuana, and blueberry pancakes.
The necessary things it took to mend my heart.
No doctors could help me find the pieces.
I just had to wait for them to scuttle back into place,
to wash in with the tide.
Thank god they never got woven too tightly
in the bluebird's nest.

I wanted to be their spinster sister
clutching her cameo, approving and disapproving
as she runs neon and naked through her own brain.
But I was just homeless, hopelessly lost
in borrowed and pinot noir
in mascara on the pillowcase.

It was the summer where days overlapped
like sand under the waves,
like glasses of tea being filled and refilled.
I would rise out of the water again and again
like a seal. My freckled nose
like the translucent fin of a bluegill.

The summer would pass in millions of colors,
but I couldn't choose one.
So I am just whitespace,
still it is undeniable:
I exist.

Madame X--5/22

By John Singer Sargent
I think I understand how she feels.


Madame X

I can be a femme fatale for you
and abort my greens and blues for darker shades
if you can give up Cinderella for a few moments
for stranger companies in the linen closet.

Go ahead and tell me stories of your former lovers.
I've lost my taste for jealousy
and I've forgotten how to make dolls
of other girls.

I can make my eyelids film noir umbrellas
and you can climb underneath if you want
but I can't promise you won't feel the rain
now and then.

I can be a sexpot in a victorian city
as minimal as math, my skin full of forumlas
and under my veil you can see
the bobcat still slinking around inside me
appearing and reappearing
eating songbirds to survive
dont' bother to trap him
he's there for good.

Overexposure won't make me less of a woman
but don't be surprised
if it makes you less of a man.