Unable

Lately, I am unable. Unable to write, unable to think, unable to work, unable to keep up correspondence. Things that shouldn’t be are taking up all the space in my life. I’m not doing anything as well as I should.

I’m getting angry.

Sorry

Poetry Bomb No. 1

Monday, December 29 at Victorian’s Midnight Cafe at the corner of Fifth and Neil, 7.30 PM.

This poetry bomb will be themeless.

This note includes an assignment: Write a eulogy for that bar of all bars: Larrys.

Yesterday, I got calls, texts, and emails from several people. It took me a while to accept the truth. Larry’s Bar, home to all artistic misceants of Columbus, king of my world, has closed its doors. Larry’s is dead, long live the new King.

See you then and there.

Home

On your back, I traced the words I was too scared
to say. You followed the path of my fingers, though,
and were disappointed by my fear. When you asked
me to give voice to that sentiment, I thought you
could be my new home. I am obsessed with a house

two blocks south of my apartmet. A two story brick
house across the street from a bar I never go to.
My house has had a for sale sign for months,
since long before I thought you could be the place

to which I long to return. I know now, you are no place.
You are a person. You will move, you will shift, you will change
your mind. Like me, you disappear. I carry home on my back.

I carry it when I take the dog to the park. I carry it when
I go to my parent’s house. Maybe this is what the homeless
woman who sat in the middle of the sidewalk this afternoon knew,
that her home was wherever she was. She yelled at me to say
she was not afraid of my dog. If we were young together, I would

take her to my home, I would undress her, I would trace words
on her back that I longed to say. I used to lie in bed and stare
at you and think, I will never love you as much as you love me.

My great love started with the thought that I would never love her.
What a fool, to think that. My great love ended with new scars
on my skin and flailing and job loss. No matter what, I can always say
I went the farthest. I am trying something new these days, I am letting
everything slide. I am walking past that house, my longed for home, daily.

Today, I heard they are closing my favorite dive bar. I thought
of the time you took me there, how we got drunk, how you wrote
my name in sharpie on the bathroom wall. I would like to somehow
take that part of the wall, to have a memorial of our home. You came

back once, but my bed distubed you, the thought of someone new
in it. My next home will have a porch. It will have wood floors,
and a yard for my dog. There will be a light in the kitchen, too.
I will make breakfast there. I will take the dog out. I will clean
the bathroom and decorate the foyer. I will hang my paintings there.

It’s morning again

I keep expecting to run out of new mornings.

I got a new vacuum for Christmas, I ran it twice
last night after putting it together using the cheaply
printed instructions. My old vacuum hadn’t worked
in months. It collected a trash bag full of dog hair.

I put it in the trash can immediately. This morning

I woke up and could hear the sound of water beneath
the tires of cars on the street three stories below.
That’s some loud water. When I woke up this morning,

I wanted eggs and toast for breakfast. I opened the fridge

and discovered I am out of eggs. I am constantly working
against myself. One day, she told me she loves me and
tried to slide her hand around my body to my back. Was it
morning then, too, when I never said I loved her back?

Across the street, someone has driven a limosine to the food bank

and I wonder if it is their job and their only way to get around.
I moved to the city and planned to walk everywhere. Instead,
I drive. My clothing is not nice enough to handle the weather.
I am weak, I will call off work to sit all day watching movies.
I thought I was going to go for a run. Flannel sheets are
very appealing, and the sound of water under tires fades.

When I was a dominatrix

I.
you drove me to work every afternoon laughing
at how easy it can be to earn so much, to do
so little. I never told you about the seventeen
minutes of fear, alone in a room with this unknown,
possible peditor, the way I listened with my whole

body; I felt what should come next. You saw me:
the high heeled boots, shining vinyl bustier,
my Betty Paige bangs. You saw red lipstick,
eyeliner. You felt the welts I left on your back,
you hear my husky-voiced commands.

II.
Inside my stiffened, well shaped cacoon, my heaving
breasts were not born of excitement. I was not
throbbing with desire for your flesh. I kept my fear
and left you with pleasure. While I held that
many tailed whip, I sent it sizzling thru the air,
I made it crack and twitch against your skin,
I was the one being tortured for your pleasure.

III.
That fall, when I was a dominatrix, I gave.
I gave and gave and gave and gave. I pushed
your face into the floor with my boot, I pressed
your nose against concrete until it bled, I tied
you up and left your when the snows finally
came to press against the wounds.
Your frayed skin, in the end, was mine.

Velvet Elvis

My friend Emily and I wrote this poem together. This is a rough draft, but I sort of love it…

velvet elvis

Rest deep in the field of matte black
plush and dense as Mississippi night;
no screams will jolt you from this
reverie, no girls will faint at your feet
except me, clawing to get behind
the wide gilt frame centered on the wall
to run my fingers thru your hair, to recline
against your muscular thighs, to climb
your twisting legs and scale your hips.

Rest here and wait for me. I will come
to grasp your shoulders, to cling to your name.
I would taste the sugar and the smoke of your mouth,
but when I try to press my lips against yours,
I feel nothing but dust clinging to painted fibers
and the rough places where a painter’s brush
paused, the paint pooling on your bottom lip.
You are all man, rough, hard, surrounded by a sea
soft and impenetrable, velvet waves fading
into a bright white glow at the edges of your face.
I brush one finger along the angle of your jaw,

slowly slide it down the short softness that lies
flat, the revealed triangle of your chest. I step back
and see the gold surrounding, the end of a plush life framed
forever, a bright spot on the dark paneled wall.

Stage fright at the poetry open mic

This is a poem written by Nathan Moore and I over two drunken nights at Larry’s Bar…

Stage Fright at the Poetry Open Mic

Shine on me your blinding light
I’ll twist and fight and still find the sound
at once too fast, too slow. Pain encumbers, but desire
shouts. It’s megaphone fires at my ear.

When I stand in front of you, sweat forms
but when I perform I can’t see. My script leaves me.
My mouth juggles these syllables, my eyes turn you
slant, the say my glasses do. I pinch my nose,
squint, and screw my eyes around that word,
around the world outside this spotlight, the world I’m trying.

Lying like a dog in the scene, I’m telling the truth, though
it’s useless. I’m forcing this beauty down your throught:
meaning is the tonic, and your sonic method met my
architectural wound. Lace up my flesh, run the thread

of your intention through the grommets in my skin. I’m in,
I’m out. Still you shout these asemic billboards. The road hoards
your words. I cannot understand what you want to tell me,
your khole lined eyes convey, then skuttle, sway,
and dart at my teeth. I smile at you and sing from them.

In front of all of them, I’ll flaunt our connection while never letting on.
I’ll go on and this jacket will not fit. We’ll sit and watch your words
squiggle in front, or are they mine, my words, thrown out into the air
are now yours, and I keep them. They’re not yours now. They’re mine.
mine. mine. mine. mine. mine. mine. mine.mine. mine. mine.

Poetry Bombs

I am thinking of starting a reading/writing/critiqu group here in Columbus, Ohio. Here are a few things we will do

* Meet in local bars, coffee shops, and resteraunts once every two weeks
* share recently written or discovered poems
* offer critique when asked for
* divvying out of poetry assignments
* offer chances for collaboration
* bring poetry to others by presenting inpromptu “guerilla” readings

If you think this group will be right for you, please comment on this post and I will send you info about the first Bomb.

What I wanted

I wanted to write a poem about the tall brown grass
I drive past on the way to work. About how so many cars
pass this patch I watched while I waited on the off ramp,
about the way it sways. I wanted to say it once was flexible,

once it was green and fleshy. Lately, I adjust my bra straps
over my shoulders and long for my body to be solid
as it was a few years ago. I wish I could feel hard bone
and muscle close beneath my skin. I wish that I would shrink
like the grass as I age, instead of expanding, instead of continuing.

Seal these wounds

I’ve been drowning my fears
in astringent and slitting them
open with the tip of a knife.

Your words can dissolve
the edge of my anger, but only
motion can wipe the residue

of horror and sadness
off of my skin. Only the feel
of paper against my index finger

or the warmth that lies
inside your mouth can seal
these wounds I created.