| Rummy Park, 36 (There With You) It's a pastel neon tourist town
With turbulent oceans of emerald cream,
Vanilla white, willow lined beaches,
Silver starlings singing
In heliotrope peppered coral coves,
Frilled lavender geckoes
With tiger faces
Dancing in the hyacinth breeze.
Come, sodium night,
Voices washed in milky starlight.
Sweep away the snowy window
With your hands.
My darling,
I am there with you. Rummy Park, 37 (Novice) I was unbreakable before that night,
A kiss so unexpected and so kind.
I was safe, angelically certain
In the secret sanctuary of my
Criminal mind.
The universe spinning,
Stars raining down.
The green sea was a new voice calling.
You could not swim.
You crossed your arms.
My darling, I kept falling
Into the pedestrian green sea,
Calm, a silence that never spoke to me.
Or, is it that I could not hear
Until your wings thrashed so unwishingly near? Rummy Park, 38 (Jigsaw) You are an accidental angel
Caught in gold cathedral light,
Lily ringed holy candle glow
Painted in the silver sun glitter
On ocean waves,
Platinum sheet lightning
On unbreakable lakes.
You are magic,
Sawing my doubts in half
And halves again.
When you are
Inside me like this
Forgive me if I close my eyes
Against your luminous affection.
Just,
It worries me
To look at such a miracle
As lions watch
Behind serrated palm leaves
And crocodiles cruise
The billabong bottom
Puzzling to separate
The dreamer from the dream Rummy Park, 39 (Calla lily Dream) Everyone at the gallery comments
On the new copper highlights in my raven hair,
Wispy shag cut, barrettes of dragonflies,
Calla lilies.
I wear it as you see it in the dream
As I stand with my hands on my hips
In the glow of your cautious revelation
And the indiscreet Florida sun
Miles, maybe light years
Beyond the one I used to be
Before the tigers of your nights
Surrendered unblinkingly to me. Rummy Park, 40 (Incognito) I will camouflage myself
Inside the complexities of winter light
That plays against the sodium wind.
I'll make such a complication of my
Whereabouts,
Spreading rumors to throw you off,
Wearing Annie Hall hats
And Jackie O. sunglasses
And bulky Russian trench coats.
I'll wipe my fingerprints
Off
Brandy glasses and coffee cups
And you will never find me
Unless you understand
The smartest place to keep a secret
Is in the opponent's hiding place
Beneath his sweaty hands. Rummy Park, 41 (Validation) Champagne and blueberry pancakes at 3A.M.,
You read my poems on the internet.
Nothing good can come of this.
You say I want attention,
And I write like I'm spread-eagle naked
Daring strangers to say they see my pussy.
You say the old stuff is too angry,
The new stuff is haunting.
I don't know which makes me angrier,
You talking about me in ghost terms
As if I'm already gone,
Or as if you actually know me,
As if I were ever here at all
In this civil room of gossamer pastel blues,
Peaches in a Chinese bowl,
Heliotrope in a sea shell vase.
The obvious is never stated.
Bees get caught in my voice.
You keep throwing your jacket
Over my crotch,
But you want to eat it too
On the porch as the planes go by
Because it tastes like you. Rummy Park, 42 (New Clear Winter) The hanged man keeps swinging out of the tarot.
Mushroom clouds go floating by.
Everything is on fire now.
The sun is blotted out.
You
Can't see any of this
Waving from the ashes
Of our leafy green park
Of bent willows, honeysuckle, heliotrope.
You
Have barbecued chicken in a white wicker,
Your mother's platinum ring in a gold box.
You
Bought a periwinkle house near a quiet volcano.
Our dreams are fireproof now.
The bomb has vaporized all our fears.
She wasn't created for reassurance
To sit apologetically in underground chambers,
Pretty maidens all in a row.
Everything is so much clearer.
Radiation brings painted colors to fruition.
Is it safe to laugh about the autumn willows?
Bent haphazardly just above the breaking point
Over out picnic chatter on hand-to-hand combat
The november dusk you promised
Not to use the new information against me. Rummy Park, 43 (Spy Games) I like your flesh
Wet beneath mine,
Pastel forest irises
Begging me not to be unkind,
Your hands pawing frantically
At something just out of reach.
I like your sentences in fragments,
Your language unintelligible.
I like your breath shallow and fast.
I like the dog-mindedness
Of your unconditional love
Whimpering scenarios that cannot last.
I like the way your eyes dance
When you call from the war
As if you are so smugly sure
I'll be aching for your fingers on my spine
Should your country be defeated by mine. Rummy Park, 1 (Bee Season) Alcohol has not rendered me amnesiac
Of last night's shocking confession
Beneath bright Mars igniting Rummy Park
And artificial lights flashing cobalt
In the bent grey willows. I meant every breath of what I whispered
As I grabbed a fistful
Of your red faux anaconda shirt
And smelled your long chestnut hair
Beyond the pink Halloween moon
And the vigil of bronze angels from the fountain,
Straddling you on the bench,
Trying to be invisible
As we heard footsteps on the macadam,
My bumble bee dress
Propped over my erect nipples,
Crushed wings leaning sideways,
Antennae swaying in the frozen moment,
Lost in the uncontested surrender of your eyes,
Slayed by the innocence
Of the way you were biting
Your lower lip,
Coming without moving an inch. Rummy Park, 2 (Other Angels)
Is this love, the final sanctuary?
This abandoned house, vacant of shadows,
Eggshell walls begging for a painting,
The chipped frieze, perhaps, from Martha's Vineyard,
Thick marigold carpet aching for
The tender dance of feet,
Fireplace longing for a lingering glance,
Turquoise and crystal chandelier
In the bedroom
Waiting to finger our flushed faces. I have seen this house before
But never dreamed I would touch its
Horse shoe-wreathed door.
All that time I was living with the man of steel
(And I don't mean Superman),
If you even call that living,
You were waiting alone in Rummy Park,
Warming your hands in your corduroy pockets,
X-ing the calendar until the day
I would walk
Clean
Into this beautiful dream. Will you be my winter love?
Will you stay through spring?
Will you tell the other angels goodbye
And thanks for everything? Rummy Park, 3 (Scarecrow) I saw an old lover in Wal-Mart.
He looked like he hadn't showered in days.
There was a time
When I thought it would kill me
To see him again.
I didn't want to see his curvy signature
On a card,
Or come home and see the red light
Blinking slow words of apology.
I didn't want to hear
He made a crazy mistake,
Or fell and hit his head,
And couldn't we meet at McGuire's for a cocktail?
At Dewey's for some fried red snapper?
Or in our old bed
So he could go down on me one last time,
Right the wrong
Of not being able to make me come
Our last night together?
I thought I would erase
If ever I saw his face.
No more.
I don't even want
To draw an X through the past
And get on with my
Lie.
He took me to Rummy Park three times
Leading me straight to you.
In his sleep he confessed
His whole life was a lie.
He showed me the ugliness
Of being such a master of deception,
If only by crimes of omission,
And in this shallow darkness,
Washed me clean
To give myself
Uncamouflaged to you
Beneath the naked jury of these trees
And the laughter of starlings
Who saw me here before
Begging a scarecrow
To retrace his steps
And find his love for me. Combat Psychology He reaches for my face
Through the blur of three martinis.
Is there anything not made of
Neon and shadow in this room? He is a fighter pilot
With the kindest eyes
I have ever undressed for.
Nothing dark
(At my hands)
In this man
Who has killed and will kill again. I know things I never imagined in my old life,
Escape velocity is 6.96 miles per second,
How to convert light years to miles,
Navigation by the stars. My fingers in his wavy black hair,
He is awash with calm.
We whisper to each other over violin music
As the names of safe cities are called out
On the way to the target. I know things about combat psychology
I wish I could forget.
The reluctance of Western civilization
To stab with a knife,
Not because of an aversion to violence,
But because it is too personal,
And mimics the penetration of sex. He kisses my forehead
Like Jesus will.
I take a mental picture, these pale green eyes,
The smile that sets the room ablaze,
The way he bows his head, as if in prayer,
Leaning down to catch every morsel of my words,
Closing his eyes through the
Razory wreckage of my language,
Sifting through to detect what's missing.
How long do I have till he knows? He looks up to the stained glass sky light,
Letting go of one world,
Embracing the other.
He rakes my hair behind my ears,
Moved in on the trajectory of a faint whisper.
My chafed nipples stand erect
When I feel his breath on me,
Anticipating the long stretch
In his masterful lips. I blink and we are in the marigold bed.
I deep-throat him out of spite,
Gently robbery of the old lover.
He turns me upside-down and backwards,
All spread out with the lights on,
Makes me come on his face.
Then, when he is inside me,
He says that thing I cannot hear
And asks what I will do while he is gone,
And what will I do if he doesn't return. Answer is the same for each.
I'll be on a ship he's never seen
Diving into the otherworld I keep
In case the day erases,
In case the hands in my life
No longer have faces.
I close my eyes on the rhythm of his words.
I smell the clouds of the final day.
I call out the names of safe cities.
Mine is not one of them. He rises from the wet tangle of sheets,
His long limbs casting slow motion shadows
Between an abandoned Earth
And the forgotten curse of moon,
Beyond the laughter of the stars.
He reaches for my hand.
We dance, perhaps for the last time.
The tick of the clock
Makes me want to scream. There are things much worse than death
That could come between us,
And if I were to confess to loving him,
It would simply be
Because these ambivalences
And street-level slurs
Are to him, unfathomable. I touch the magician's sleeve
Who taught me how to disappear.
I muzzle the wolf's mouth with a kiss.
I squeeze the gray fingers of the ghost who taught me
I am made of such beautiful light
That I can pass through anything,
Even, perhaps this night. —TOP OF PAGE— |
