Sonnet Electronica

She's hunched over a screen

tracing a thousand dot trajectory.

A headphoned brunette music queen

in finger flying waving fury.

You're like a little mouse.

Not meek, but small. Quiet. Beige.

But not beige like a suburban house.

Tan and hinted russet. Heart encaged.

A frame that purses lips

and is drunk off one glass red,

kind and timid woven strips

of colored passion- and dread.

No, I haven't seen any watermelons here.

But it's okay that you can't steer.

De Sade

There are Americans singing

In the kitchen downstairs.

I’m eating cold chicken and staring at the bed-

I don’t remember changing the sheets,

But I’m glad I did.

Jose Cuervo is winking at me

Tipping his hat

“Hola, Senorita” he says.

I just ignore him.

I’ve been thinking about cause-and-effect.

I think it’s more circular than linear.

Fate is kind of a wobbly concept.

The Americans singing have started in on Stairway to Heaven.

God help us all.

I’m glad I’m not down there. Face a veneer of sisterhood,

Arms crossed in discomfort.

Friendly people bother me. They’re too easy,

And usually easily discarded of.

I like the tough sinewy ones,

The arguers, the abusers.

My first love was a sadist, I think.

I fell in love the first time he pushed my embrace away.

When I think back, I always smile.

I’ve been thinking about the smell of black coffee

And cleaning supplies,

And the first kiss I ever had,

From a boy under five feet tall,

On the Fourth of July.

He slobbered all over me then I cried.

Gloucester Arms

Two pints in and I guess I’m attracted to you after all
in some unusual way.

Not enough to be yours
But enough to experience the flutter
Of taking your hand in mine and enjoying
The warmth of the contact
Like hands stretched over a burning bin.

It’s nice to know that I have a voice
As I tipsily stumble over all the hurt and beauty of this world—
And you listen, and that’s enough for me.

Both of us from the same land,
And from different lands too.

And it’s so nice to feel the magnetic pull of- not happiness, i wouldn't call it that-

but a slow and steady leaking of christmas light warmth from my stomach

to my heart.

Two pints in and there's a smile from my face
Riddled with the cracks of a short but long life
Full of feelings
A big ladle of feelings
In a spoonful of matzoh ball soup kind of place.
Not home, but good enough. My legs are home.
My heart, my chest, my hands, my nose.

So this one’s for you,
Kind child. 1989 was a good year.
Today, a better day than most.

365 Bruises

To be worn like badges

Over my poet’s heart:

Bruises.

Blue, green, yellow and purple,

Like a flag at half-mast.

I tell the doctors I fell down the stairs.

And they sigh, and roll their eyes,

And hand me an ice pack and I’m off again.

They know, and I know,

That these bruises

Were given me

Like gifts, wrapped with love and care

Into fists and belts and paddles

Into words and eyes and tears

And kisses salty-sweet, and sticky pink palms,

And warm on a cold face.

But I tell the doctors I fell down the stairs again.

I wear them like a slip under my dress.

I cherish them.

365 bruises, one a day or more,

And everybody knows

I like it.

Packing Up.

In the back of an attic mind

Bookshelves and uncracked spines

And dusty bottles of claret

And boxes of old records

There is a single-beacon projector

Shoot shooting up

Recalling

A feeling, November two years ago.

And I want to describe it but there aren’t words,

Though there’s a chill in the air and the lights were bright

On the Boston commons and I cried

But I wasn’t sure I was sad.

There were teenaged gangs in the background,

Fucking around in the dark

And laughing over cigarette smoke-

I can still feel the night like a rueful carousel.

I can still feel the night like the traces of scars,

Cuts healed over. Bruises fading.

I want to describe it but there aren’t words,

I can smell it but cannot taste it fully

Like sweet rose hookah smoke.

And in my head

Someone is singing

About better to stop loving now.

I’m not sure I agree.

Thanksgiving

High and playing off a plastic keyboard piano

London, England-fingers flying,

I am living vicariously off of

This delicate, strong blond performer.

My own fingers are perpetually cold here.

Chords are dancing by like horses

Pulling a carriage

19^th century style

Trotting along, carrying the post.

The sun sets early

On the British empire

The car headlights speed by

Sixteen’o’clock,

Dragging by the last smells of summer,

Lying damp and tired

In the piles of leaves on every corner.

The swampish smell of indoors

A muddy sauna

Evaporates in the air.

I could go for a plate of something.

Maybe a hot glass of something or other.

My cheeks feel red and smooth with cold.

It won’t be Christmas for-

It’s thanksgiving-

And won’t be Christmas for weeks.

And yet I feel like

At any moment

I could be curled up back to a warm fire.

This piano sounds

Like electronic heaven.

My heels are warm beneath my legs.

I might be feeling something

For the first time in weeks.

With no dinner, and no drink, and no

Laying-of-the head down.

And I feel like I should preserve the time.

Redheads

I wonder if god’s existence is

Proven

In the fact that I am jealous

Of the talents of all redhaired people

More or less

The tall and freckled redheads with hollow cheekbones and

Collarbones

One playing a piano sumptuously

While another sings

And one strums a guitar

And one’s got the harmonica pressed to his lips.

This redheaded band of brand of people

Who are so overwhelmingly

Interesting

-Spiced with something

Mysterious and alluring -

Burns the tip of my tongue,

Leaving it feeling singed and rough for days after.

I wander around aimlessly in the musty rain

Searching for something to make a noise with

To throw to the paved streets with a crash

Anything.

But silent

Muted I take the restless slumber

Of a person

Who dreams of beautiful redhaired people

To betray me and leave me

Breathless, mostly.

An Experiment in Humanity

I wish I was a rhythm builder

A dream-house bricking flower picker

Building up building up

And breaking down

This is a poem

Without a steady rhythm

Made of long nights and cold coffee

And it’s got a beat

That’s fleeting

It’s a body of words

Still warm and pulsing

That walks about in the cold

Winter air

Wearing just a slip and a trenchcoat.

With slick and wet hair

And a scarf of fluid wool

This is the wool

Over the eyes of the warm body

I tether to the bedposts,

Not gentle but a scattered rhythm like

A cantering train

Whistling occasionally

Poem.

So I’m not political

And I’m not satirical

So I’m not fantasia in perfect

Cartoon pastel detail

And I won’t sugar coat hope

On the outside of bitter pills,

Just chew,

And swallow.

Down it with mineral water and gin.

Don’t keep the powdered pain of today

Crushed up in the back of your throat

Do you understand?

Because I do daily

Think of why this is the world I live in- a world

Where nothing is ever certain or infinite.

I’m not a rhythm builder,

Not a carpenter of words and silences-

They’re often awkward and

They stick

Like cricks in the neck of a giraffe, colorful and

Swaying in the African breeze.

I’m not a sugar-coater

I drink my coffee black

And take my whiskey straight and my women

Curvy.

I’d rather see you cry than laugh.

But I’d rather see blood than that,

After all,

I’m only human.

Ginger

I am climbing down

The neck of a bottle of, green bottle of

Red wine,

Thursday night and cold chicken and

Crime television

And thinking of a warm mass of flesh

Next to mine, to stroke my skin and kiss my lips softly.

And tear me open.

Bottles and cans cover the

Surface of my desk.

watching doing drugs the wine is flowing

and i watch people do heroin on the

tv

and just tonight I get to be

destroyer of innocence

in the form of a redheaded girl

with soft feet and rabbit eyes.

We all have wicked souls.

And like the idea of burning things

And drinking whiskey

And smoking cigars.

We can’t all be James Bond,

And least of all this villain with the blue eyes and the

Open mouth, still tasting of wine and of

You.

When Her Heart is Sober

Lying on a bed

Of soiled lace panties

The heart is char-blackened,

The veins twisted, entwined like

A snarl of electrical cord.

Her ten-sided, double-stick soul

Has taken beatings

That would bruise

A brute of a man that yet trudges on.

Sometimes I am calmer

When I smell my own smells—

My skin, my hair, the dirt under my

Fingernails,

The unkempt mane ever tossed to the side,

I love to hide behind it. I love to hide in the dark.

Her ink-splotched smile

Is hollowed out.

Her wide pond-eyes,

Bleeding, never shut…

I love to hide in the dark.

Hibernate like a bear,

Curled up in my bed,

And catch my constantly out-of breath,

And still my skipping heartbeats.

That Time I Didn't Cry

Life is colorful.

I’m not saying it’s good—how would I know.

But there are colors.

The deep blood red

And the faded pinks and blue of old houses out the window

The grey of London and rain and November

Oranges and yellows of late summer in my mind’s eye.

When I was sixteen

I fell in love with a street musician

Who I only saw out of the corner of my eye

For two minutes

Walking

In upstate New York somewhere unmemorable.

He was singing a Beatles song, and playing an

Aging tan guitar.

From time to time I think of him

And remember

That first feeling

I’d never felt before

The free falling, the color all around me-

That’s the first time I can remember really feeling

All the colors of life.

I was sadder than I’d ever been before.

And happier.

And it was blue and red and grey.

And I didn’t cry, because I was standing on a street

Watching the older people walk by

Unaware.

Hats Off to Hank

if i could handle life like bukowski

i'd be okay

cause he wasn't happy

but he just drank and fucked and typed that away

and made it mean something

but i can't do that--

not the drinking

or the fucking

or the typing

I can do all three.

but i can't find the recipe of all three that makes it all seem a little easier

or at least i can't seem to do it without throwing up.

Because It's Easier This Way

I don’t care if I love you, little girl.

I probably won’t.

I hope to god I’ll never love again.

It burns like a piercing needle, anyway.

Let the sun go down before six p.m.

Like nightfall is the only thing I ever see

(which it might be, if I keep on waking up

at dusk)

Let the sun go down before six p.m.

And a pretty girl braid my hair

And nose to nose kiss me—

If she’ll spit on my face.

Don’t tell me I’m beautiful.

Don’t tell me I’m perfect.

And most of all, don’t tell me I’m flawed

(I already know)

Just braid my hair

And kiss my neck

And trace the scars

That you’ll find like needlework.

And don’t ask me how I got them

(Because you already know)

I probably don’t love you, little girl.

But you’re the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen

Half-dressed and lips parted.

So crack open that bottle of red wine

And stain the sheets dark crimson

As my hair comes unbraided

And the night falls.

**GUEST POEM BY MS. ANNA O'CONNELL**

The Love Pickle

I wanted to tell you
when I spent that evening looking at your eyes
and at your hair
That we would be awesome together
but you just played my guitar
and sang
and questioned nothing

And I wondered
How did I get into
This tight little corner, this saturated vegetable state
Where everything i say somehow becomes tart and acidic on my tongue
its not you, you're wonderful, with your auburn hair
flying away though static still
No I think it's me

Your Whiskey's Mine Now

I’m drinking your whiskey

The whiskey I bought you

In Ireland.

I’ve been letting you peel

Layers off my skin

And leave me

Exposed

Raw

And slowly infecting

And I think I could have loved you

And I think I could have deserved better

And I think I’m going to drink

Your

Whiskey

Your Irish whiskey

And cry big wet stinging alcohol tears.

And wish I could

Disappear into a quiet room with a window

That looks out

Over a grey day

And smoke a joint out the window

And put it out in a beer bottle.

And never put on pants.

And eat crisps.

So fuck you too.