BlandState

you leave your shoes
when you go out hopping

between her and me and baby makes three
swimming the grey puddle betwixt

its amazing fur stays fixed, murky white after your nights
you leave your shoes

cant say I’m bothered by the silent
on my porch, at two or three

cuz when you’re with me, its dirty
not the fluid putty pile

that makes me, her and her smile
you leave your shoes

by the bruised tile mile
then you usually float a while

and baby usually rocks a while

***

for dVerse Poetics , gorgeous painting is by Borg de Nobel and its called Dreamhopper.

Just More Complaints

Zombies and napping.
Why did he bother getting married and having kids?
I’m lonely.

Open Mouth Functionality

I have a tendency to
Kiss boys
In elevators

Rattling cage bars

the child
needs reassurance
and the whore
must be tamed.

House Mother

He would have to go back to the brown house with yellow shutters before too long. What would he tell Donna? He had no worthwhile excuse, no emergency, and no crisis to which he could attribute losing the money. The rent money. The grocery money. His gold wedding ring.

His eye was swollen shut now. He pressed a bag of frozen peas from Biselle’s freezer against it, trying to reduce it to nothing. Trying to freeze himself into infinity.

“Oh, George. It’s not all that bad, is it?” She tightened her silky bathroom around her as she entered the kitchen. The overhead light hummed miserably in conversation with the sporadic rattling of the fridge. The circular bulb illuminated the room just enough to make it look like a horror movie.

“Yes. It IS that bad.” She pushed him down into a chair in front of her. In one hand, a face cloth, in the other, peroxide.

“Sit.” She slowly and methodically cleaned out the cut on his forehead and his cheek. Reaching down, Biselle unbuttoned his shirt and slowly pulled it off. He winced as she revealed bruises over his ribs and a substantial cut on his back. “Sorry. How did this happen?”

“Same old sad story. Fuckers didn’t cover the spread.” A doorbell went off and she placed the peroxide on the table.

“Hold on, love. Let me get that.” Her slippers made predictable noises down the hallway. George heard mumbling by the front door. The sound of 2 chains and 3 locks being undone preceded the entrance of Smithers Forrest. “…I’m afraid you are stuck with Darla tonight.”

“I HEARD THAT!” A female voice, presumably belonging to Darla yelled down the stairs. Smithers followed Biselle to the kitchen and sat down. He wore a bow tie and a sweater vest. He looked like a Smithers with his bowler hat. Biselle put on the tea-pot before she returned to continue fixing George.

“Why George, what happened?” Smithers rested his hat on the table. The rickety kitchen chair creaked under his weight. George ignored him. He raised his body slightly off the chair to reach his beer on the far kitchen corner.

“Knicks missed the spread again.” Biselle said, as she had countless times since George became her customer.

“Betting on basketball is for suckers.” Smithers busted his balls as only men can do to each other.

“Fuck off, fucking fop.” George was in no mood.

“Whew, he does have himself in a SNIT, doesn’t he…” The tea kettle started to whistle. Smithers took off his shoes and socks. Biselle grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and put them on the table. The teabags joined the party. Smithers grabbed his accidentally placed in the moisture ring of George’s Michelob.

The stairs warned of approaching feet with ancient protests of wood and nail. A girl in jeans and a tight wife beater entered the kitchen. Her nipples were candy on display through the flimsy shirt. Bare feet spanked the floor. Darla’s toes were painted bright red. Around her ankle was jewelry which draped seductively down the front of her foot, a sole pearl kissing the first knuckle of the 2^nd toe. Smithers visibly squirmed in his chair as soon as skin hit linoleum. George made a grossed out face and Biselle pinched him

“Why they beat you up? The money wasn’t enough? Why you betting more money than you have, eh?” Despite having been here for 15 years, Biselle sometimes slipped into her French accent. But George was reminded of the Korean lady at the Big Lucky Convenience Store. His mouth itched to tell her off, longed to take out his humiliation and shame on somebody. But it wouldn’t be Biselle. He came here twice a week, sometimes more. And she didn’t always charge him. She kept his beer brand in the fridge. They often sat and talked the talk of husband and wife, the talk he wished he had with Donna, who was so pretty and perfect. George was grateful for how unassuming Biselle was; no judgment. But then he supposed that’s why she was good at THIS.

Darla snickered at his silence. She extended a shapely arm to the bowl on the top of the fridge and pulled out a red Tootsie Roll pop. After peeling off the wrapper, she leaned against the wall. She watched Biselle firmly press on George’s wounds and sucked her pop. She caressed each leg with the opposite foot. Smithers was unconsciously dunking his tea bag in the now lukewarm water over and over as he pretended not to gawk at her feet.

Biselle didn’t expect him to answer. She delivered her message. She slipper slapped her way to the bathroom and returned a moment later with Band-Aids and butterfly stitches. Smithers put down his mug and daintily picked up his shoes. He had carefully folded his socks and placed one in each shoe.

“My dear, shall we?” He held out his bent arm in a gallant gesture and it was as if good ol’ Darla had just punched her time card. The smile came out and she linked her arm in his. She stroked his arm with her fingernails as they headed for the stairs. Laughter slid down the banister, mocking George.

Biselle was picking up scraps of paper from the bandages. He would have to go home to Donna soon.

“Perhaps, you got robbed, no?” His eyes jumped to hers and a slow smile spread over her face, slipping out of her eyes was a silk sexy version of her. Biselle sat back and pulled out a cigarette. “Wives are easy. No stitches needed. Most of the time.”

She was done fixing him up. She gazed out the back window and enjoyed her smoke.

Clotted

eyeball

clotted in that

spot ever fleeting you

and I were perhaps one and only

cup me

 

normal

see you with that

clotted eyeball and how

ivy grows under careful man’s

green thumb

 

there is

wishing there is

imagined kissing and

desperate knowledge clotted wing song

sing long

 

chase far

heard legend of

such noble creatures with

clotted features, eye balls and all

so small

 

was my

chance like chances

will be sweet something you

regret nothing not the woman

you made

 

normal

chance like chances

spot ever fleeting you

desperate knowledge clotted wing song

so small

Hint I Did the Right Thing

Heart
Hurts like a bitch

Regret For the Green Grass

The car was moving at a crawl. The map was not helping and John was getting very aggravated.

“I just don’t see any Windsong Extension.” Marianne was trailing her finger down the lines of red, roads and streets in farm country. It wasn’t a bad day to be lost. There was so much green, it was like she had escaped toIreland, not the state of her youth. Escaped? She thought in her head. Yes, escaped. And now she was having a conversation with herself.

“Well for chrissakes. Give me that.” He pulled the car over to the side of the road and ripped the map out of her hands. She kept looking where the map had been and then quietly folded her hands in her lap. Lately she had been floating on a sea of his aggression. Without a life preserver, she was treading water in the marriage. Turning her head, she felt her face slip into that familiar expression of serene nothing. Then she saw the field. A gasp escaped her lips before she even realized it. John looked at Marianne in alarm, “What? What is it?”

She recovered quickly and said, “Oh I thought I was going to sneeze. It went away.” He crinkled his eyebrows at her, annoyed at the distraction. The field. She recognized the field. She knew she did. “I’m going to stretch my legs.” She opened the door without waiting for his response. The shutting of the door would have covered any response (if there was one) and she quickly walked forward, into the field. Sneaking a look back, he was now fiddling with his cell phone, trying to get reception. Probably trying to call Richard, she thought. They were on their way to a family party.

The field was well tended and felt like she was walking in slippers on a rug. The grass happily crowd-surfed her to the next group of blades. She cut to the right and approached the fence, surrounding the walkway planted into the hill. Caressing the wood, warm from the sun, she could almost see the snow and hear the children riding down the sledding hill. The slope seemed softer in warm weather and the buzzing of bees was constant. She remembered a giant tree close by that had been a home for bees for years. She imagined the golden summer of long ago, when she almost drowned and Brady saved her. He was stung by one of those bees and she pasted a baking soda poultice on the raised bump.

“Bees die if they lose their stingers in you, you know.” He gestured to the bee on the floor, which would never sting again. She had nodded and looked up, a slow smile on her face,

“What?”

“Nothing.” She quickly responded, wiping the smile off her face, “Should we swim?”

Marianne was surprised he hadn’t sensed her growing crush. Or maybe he did. And he didn’t want to pursue it. Or admit it. Or didn’t like her that way. She was 12, and her adolescent thighs were heavy and she lacked the motivation for make-up or hairspray.

The inevitable crash came from behind her as John closed his car door.

“Marianne! Let’s go.”

For a minute, she considered running from her husband. The throb of life on this familiar hill was torturous in its fervor. Possibility was alive on when she walked back with Brady from the small creek just beyond the woods at the bottom of the hill. How he had known how to save her? After she spit up the water, he immediately took her in his arms, crying silent tears. She had felt his skin even through her tank top, heard the whistling breath of his scared cry. She had only thought to bring her hand to his face in the speedy moments before he helped her up and turned away. Had she wasted an opportunity?

“Hey.” John ambled up to her and surprised her with a happy face, “Richard said we just missed the turn back there. Guess they built it after you moved. This is really beautiful, huh?” She turned to him and saw the man she married; kind, vivacious, and playful.

That was the magic of the hill. They walked back to the car, hopeful they hadn’t missed the cake.

Contrary

I.
Lift off
To morrow
By sorrow
Traveled highway
Intensely lift off
Tomorrow
By sorrow
Zen Daddy
To my Manic Mama
Switch
You can ride a while

II.
Now calm horses
You-broken
Heed amateur
Dribbles of words/drops of dribbles of words
Make sure now that
You have come to be
Carried
You have come to be carried
Soft man of salt
Hard girl never turning

III.
Chin down
Doesn’t mean I’ve given up
I digress
Contrary

Lost For Words

Don’t know why
It happens again
I fall for
Affection
Receipt of which
I crave

Crash down
Be one at home
With my insides
Body and mind
Be one
Oh yes

Do not lack in you romancing
Do not force this fire out
Do head for lemon tangerine skies

I’m there, I swear

I will always believe
Even if you tell me
I’m here just in case

You are an honorable man
But I will always be hurt

At the end
It will always be a surprise

Nature of the beast
Beast of my hollow
Chance a look

Might I ever
Harvest
Lament
Plain and glorious
15 mins
With you

I’m sorry
I’m sorry

Lost for words

The Temporary Filling Of

Farewell bone sister

stone says to skin

think of me thin

tramp and link

how easy it is to

rid view of your half full glass

all grains gone

gone at last

brief affair

paused implicit there

chance your glow

your power your sex says

lovely tits. lovely big ass.

I use the word lovely too much, she admits sheepishly

brief illusion

Boston hotel room. I’ve never been so fucking happy and I should have known better to have you and my whole world, my whole city, in that window, cold pain, forehead pressed, contracting and expanding with pills and wine and loose scarf and crossed legs on an office chair and can I just watch you tell a story

a play on words

words like

forever

hard

love

adore

trust

soul

seen change to black, or maybe red curtain crash

characters are

words like

I NEED SOME TIME

alone

never again

deny hypocritical

mrs. popular

with jewel eyes

lust new york hotel room picture flirtation heavy words responsibility denial of true entrance never full open honest he was yours first but then he was mine before I knew he was yours always that secret right? right? I thought it was because he was all you wanted I promised it was you above him in my heart and you took of that, ate the bread of my words

exit, stage right

magic reset button

take this pill

she will be gone

peace keeps secrets real well

bitter will hope something withers

hope something of me was making you a certain way and now it dies but other part of me will hope something grows and she will think of it as given by you and not rip down floral creation, tiled erection, trellis of loving and adoration, I will tell my girl her girlfriend is cancelled too they never called you anything they never got used to you told me to come to meet the family as I should like I would be there forever, but those were just words

this thing has a birth

it’s there with you

I can never visit

my birthplace again.

no more words.

my secret if I were to approach you ,beg you to take me back, throw aside my pride you know how I love it yet continuously destroy it to prove my love I’m good my love I’m good strike your words from the record.

no more words.

NO MORE WORDS I SAY

this is just temporary

remind me again

everything is temporary like that line in that movie and like that line in that neil young song this old guitar ain’t mine to keep its mine to play for a while or like old tom said the world is not my own I’m just a passing thru

heart A a dither says to heart B you have stolen something

casual and cute to me

heart B is het up because all the alphabet has forsaken her, a’scared for their permanence, silence, vacation

he is not casual and cute to me

he isn’t your one and only

why unwilling to grant

no you won’t disembrace, but cloak in concern and all the alphabet joined in

words

declaration of

rip

crack

break

space

state-wide

might as well be Michigan forever

Im working it out

no ill will/allowed tantrum

out of the canal anyway

out of earshot freezeframe junkie gun run

precious babies are so safe

toxic behavior saving grace for wine snobs

a drunks a drunks a drunks a

heart A says to heart B he, he should be enough

oh daddy, I’m hurting now

what a vicious removal, what a shocking predicament

foreshadowed

by words words words

shot in

but trickle out.

the temporary filling of