30in30, DAY 30!!!!! "In the Time of the Zoloft, my Spirits Were Wired"

In the Time of the Zoloft, My Spirits Were Wired.

My plan for the summer is to land a helicopter on the lawn every morning at 7,

to flatten a crop circle into the grass I'll never mow and cause a nationwide conspiracy.

The experts from all over will congregate on the porch,

and I'll sneak out the back door with my pet ferret in a pouch on my chest

and buy us those little packs of powdered donuts to share,

and I won't care a wit about government involvement in the politics of my grass,

except maybe to laugh while licking sugar from my fingers.

T.A.B. 4-30-13

30in30, Day 29: "Local Color"

Local Color

There's a certain intimacy in the backsides of knees
No one notices, save for me and others like me
-- or am I like them? Who is who, and where, and when
Did it happen to you? And what was it, anyway?
Go ahead, friend, and have more coffee.
The bathroom here's a palace.

The sidewalks on Main
are made of brick;
fair warning.
You'll jar your kidneys
Up through your nose.

Some people have pretty ankles.
It's a thing you'll see come summer,
and everyone in sandals --
and there's something personal about
That, too. Like, thinking, I can almost see
Why long skirts are considered modest.
Care to share a cookie?
They'll carry it to us.

Oh, I meant to tell you about the library elevator --
hope you don't have any
Claustrophobic tendencies;
the things a moving cubbyhole.
Sometimes it makes this noise …
but never mind.
Just pull your feet back.
You'll be fine.

Have someone push you
Up on the dike sometime --
There's this slope down to the city beach;
it's fabulous.
Watch your stopping at the bottom, though.
Too far to the left
Means a face full of sand.

The bike shop will replace your tires,
if you take the new ones in.
You need air in the tubes,
there's a garage on the avenue
That'll fill 'em.
Just stick your head in the door and holler.

I think we see more violets than other people.
We are closer to the ground.
Today I counted 1,000 in 2 blocks,
and tulips, too. Yellow.

T.A.B. 4-29-13

30in30, Day 28: Mind's Eye

I will bathe in coconut
milk in the halfhearted
glow of a rainy
day through the skylight.
There will be the petals of a dozen orange
lilies f  l   o  a   t  i   n  g    in the water.
My legs will appear

long

and

finely

toned.

My hair will ^float around me.

I will feel queenly.

Just _lonely enough to savor the minutes ticking
slowly by on the clock in the hallway,
which I will traverse while still dRiPPiNg tiny
afterthoughts of white on the gleaming wood,
orange petals still stuck to my thighs.

And then I will dress in a purple caftan,
BILLow      ing like the wind against curtains,
and go and stand in the
garden under the trellis with the white roses.
I will pick one to tuck behind my ear.
I will untangle my wet hair with my
fingers while the rain blows a fine mist across my face.

Think of the picture it will make. 

T.A.B. 4-28-13

30in30, Day 27: Emotion Eats

 And temptation is everywhere.

 I could afford 3 of it with the Abe in my pocket right now.

Golden arches, red pigtails,

or powdery confections from the pink-and-orange?

(I could get 4 of those.)

What do you do with hunger,

after it slips its leash and doubles back to bite your heels?

It's not my body that's hungry, anymore.

It's the complicated circuitry that is my brain,

running on memories and a kind of sadness that circles with its hackles up,

looking for a break in the wiring.

(If my mouth is full of hamburger,
there's no room for the ashes I'll become when it finds one.)

T.A.B 4-27-13

30in30, Day 26: "Hugging the Beech"

She palms salt, licking the sea from her hand.
The day spreads out golden over the hills,
but her head aches and she pulls the blinds against it.
The curtain billows in the April wind.
She lies on the floor,
breathing the scent of trees turning green.
She brings her arms up and hugs one to her body;
inhale to open, exhale to close the embrace.
The man in white taught her this.
She imagines the smooth bole of a beech alive beneath her fingers.
Soon she'll return to the woods,
and press her face against such a one,
and greet it as an old friend.
It was there when she was but ten,
her first night in the cabin bearing its name,
in sea green shorts and a braid that would swing when she walked,
the end just brushing her waistband.
She read Ben Hur to a blind girl in the next bunk. 
Then Sam with the red hair like fire loaned her a book by Roald Dahl.
She learned a little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane,
and that Noah built the ark but forgot the unicorn.
She learned the world from the back of a horse,
and the wet delight of making a piñata like a giant sun,
only to burst it later with a big stick and pounce on the candy raining down.
She ate chunks of cool, sweet watermelon by the pool,
her feet in the water and bleach in her hair,
the air scented with chlorine.
Giggling, she learned to kiss with borrowed lipstick and a piece of paper.
She let a counselor teach her the Catholic rosary,
holding it up in the orange glow of the overhead light so she could see Mary etched on the center bead. They played a game of wolf packs,
and she threw her head back and howled in delighted undulations.

The memories make her wild with joy.
She hugs the big tree and laughs into its trunk.

T.A.B. 4-26-13

30in30, Day 25: "Recall"

Recall

Mint gum mothballs motor oil Mop n Glo,
Vanilla Fields. Pine sap.
Body shops? Salted wounds,
hollow gut. Wood smoke?
Slightly sick.

Car horns cracking whips wind chimes,
wire hangers clanging. Old trucks idling,
particularly in wintertime.
Sun on snow? Blind with fear,
but early set? Sadness, tears.

Closets hide secrets;
darkness veils danger.
Do not turn on the box fan,
it steals away my ears.
Cover the clock;
the red numbers count up in blood.

Oh, oh God, absentee father,
come pay a visit, give me a present;
a one way ticket straight out of my mind. 

T.A.B. 4/25/13

30in30, Day 24: "Run"

Run

She has legs like 2 pylons, legs like marble sculptures,
mus-cu-la-ture rolling along finely tuned under her skin,
legs that should act as pistons, propelling her on-
ward and upward, all sprinting and dancing,
and jumping and plies, all climbing and conquering.

But.

This woman wasn't made to strut.
Or skate. No leaping, no racing,
no finish line in sight with her bear-
ing down the home stretch,
triumphant.

Spastic,

they call it.

Diplegic. Hypertonic.

What looks strong is actually weak,
and what looks weak …

well …

This woman was made merely to watch soccer,
admire from a distance how it looks like a dance.
This woman was made to sit outside the rink,
taking pictures of the skaters.
This woman was made to feel like an addendum,
a useless limb, an inconvenience to her friends,
who all sit at high tables and strand her with the grandfathers,
closer to the floor.

Silently, she chants:

Remain in the present.
Do not resent others.
Stop pitying yourself.

This woman was made to read a lot,
in lieu of other, more active pursuits.

This woman can quote Jamaica Kincaid,
Thomas Milton, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde,
Walt Whitman; this woman knows verse,
from Chaucer to Angelou, and back again;
she can debate about the na-
ture of original sin,
and discuss the inevitable death of the Sun --

But really,

all this woman wants to do?

is run.

T.A.B. 4-24-13

30in30, Day 23: "Passing the Murder Garden"

Passing the Murder Garden

All those wands of delphinium

Waving red in the wind,

Those poppies like bloodied kisses,

Tulips an army of girls

All dressed in red blouses;

Those pansies angry, eyeing me,

The Queen of Heart's roses

Gone wild on the vine,

Crocus in beds of flame

Eating up the ground;

Asia lilies sparking hot --

This garden's a raging inferno,

I thought.

So violent.

And then I saw the violets

Down among the coleus,

Cooling the edges of its leaves to green;

The bluebells curling daintily over,

And the bonnets in their shades of blue scattered through

Like rain that fell to tame the fire;

And there was beauty in it,

And then I stopped to savor.

T.A.B. 4-23-13

30in30, Day 22: "Stalker"

Stalker

One pearl on a strand
I hold between my teeth.
One charm on a bracelet.
One single facet of a diamond,
blinding me with light.
And these mere trinkets.
Paste-jewels in comparison
to the glittering,
glimmering mountain of my
feeling for you.

Were you to die,
I would unwind my
own veins and wire them,
blue and pulsing,
into your arms.
Call me mad scientist, my love,
call me Dr. Frankenstein;
it matters not, so long as there is hot
blood in you,
living viscosity sweet as vin rouge
vicariously tasted;
Waste not, want not; I've enough
love for both of us and I will gladly share,
so long as you stay near me and free of any other.

Though should you wander, I've  a plan --
for even given that I'd rush
to save you from the burning
sands of a thousand deserts and snatch you
from the mouths of dragons,
I'll not bear another's hand upon your full-moon skin.

If I can't have you,
no one can.

T.A.B. 4-22-13

30in30, Day 21: "Unexpected Irises"

Unexpected Irises

Unexpected irises

BURST!

out of the gray earth,

so blue they hurt,

so bright my eyes narrow;

but oh! When I spot them,

I stop.

What bird dropped them there,

in the lee of the streetlamp?

I stare, arrested by the

POP!

of lavender tongues tasting the air,

which smells of thunder,

lichen, river,

mushrooms, moss,

and Spring.

T.A.B. 4-21-13

30in30, Day 20: "Company"

Company

I wonder if they sense danger in an April breeze,
these others. If they distrust the way the sun
flings out its light as it sets behind the high hills
like mountains all around,
and pull their shades against it.

If the sound of a wind chime fractures
their peace -- what little they've scrounged up,
that is -- and sets their teeth on edge.

Does passing a garage, with its odor of old oil
and dust and grease, punch them in the chest
the way it does me? Does a dove, cooing
from the oleander, provoke a primal urge to curl,
crying, under the smothering hand of the sky?

How many lie awake at night with all the lights on,
baking their brains in their heads like bread, and call
themselves devils?  I know we stoke our own fires.
It's less terrifying, somehow, holding the poker
ourselves, pumping the bellows and blowing
on the tinder, chanting hope as it catches.
Better than letting some other demon
tease the flames, control the height of the sparks
and the heat of the burn. 

We know the darkness; we children
familiar with what happens under its cover.
There is a corner of night in us all,
no moon.
No stars.
We spend a lot of time in ours,
extinguishing the torches as quickly
as we light them.

T.A.B. 4-20-13

30in30, Day 19: "Behind The Desk, Late Morning"

Another headache under the bright white light.
Your eyes are grit. Throat gravel.
Nausea sits in your gut, churning the contents with a stick,
making you think of porcelain and tile floors.

Your knees ache at the joints; your elbows;
your wrists and fingers throb. You ignore it.
You make the pencil scritch, scratch across the page;
It's a nice sound.

You are watching for patrons.
One eye on the elevator.
One on the stairs.
Write a line and scan again for
May I help you?
How many?
Payment up-front, please.

Down comes a tall man, bald head shining,
taking the stairs two at a time;
It's their way, all the people with 2 good legs,
always bounding around and frowning about it:
ability's an imposition.

He sees your chair, shining red.
He says, "Wish I had one of those! My life would be so much easier!"
It's expected; that's also their way;
they long for batteries and throttles;
you want their 2 good legs, and to go bounding down the stairs.

You would smile.

T.A.B. 4-19-13

30in30, Day 18: "Ferryman"

The driver            of the hearse      smokes a cigarette

and looks out the window at the empty street.

He doesn't           give a shit            anymore.

It's hard to sustain caring,

when you make                your living           from dying

in a town of 8000.

Too few degrees              of separation.

He thinks how he'd have asked off work,

if he cared

'coz        he knows the guy             or knew him.

And same last week.

He could              he supposes        sit in the church

and hear the Mass,

but the priest has a lisp                  and it makes him laugh

and the families                look sideways at him.

And so does everyone else,

because he's the guy       with the bodies in back.

Everyone pays the ferryman,

but         no one                 cares for him.

T.A.B. 4-18-13

30in30, Day17: "Single Bi Female"

If you like

Red flowers,

yellow shoes,

or blue dresses,

1000-watt smiles and eyes
That crinkle at the edges.

If you'll abandon the dishes
In favor of a rain dance, and jump in all the puddles.

If you don't mind a girlfriend who falls asleep at the drive-in
And never shares a funnel cake.

(Not even one bite);

who has certain fondness for tunnels,

--particularly
Of the secret sort--

But a peculiar fear of the dark.

If you can handle solitude,
and being apart awhile
Without getting too needy,

Here's my cell. Call me.

T.A.B. 4-17-13

30in30, Day 16: "In the Secret"

I would like to bed this tiny kernel of solitude
curled in my soul comfortable
as an embryo in the womb,
slowly discovering itself.
I would like to carry it off
by moonlight and snuggle with it under the covers,
my chin notched below its shoulder and no sound
but the cat's soft breath and the cars
slicking by in the rain just there,
beneath the window.
I would like to get to know it better:
how it settles, how it sighs,
if it murmurs in its sleep or reaches for a lover.
I would like to invite it to seep
through my skin and kiss my muscles into submission,
open the door to my deepest thoughts and shush them with a touch.

I would like to take this quiet place and draw out its circumference,
a series of circles each wider than itself,
crawl into the largest ripple, and make myself a home.

T.A.B. 4-16-13

30in30, Day 15: "Boston"

Creation's an addiction
Heaven can't tame:

Rain
  To floods,
wind
  To hurricanes,
sparks
  To fire,
Clay
  To man.

Man to dominion,
destruction,

and death.

The leaven is gone
From all the bread,

which lies cold
Beneath ashes.

Our sackcloth's just another act
In a tragicomedy that will not consent to

End.

T.A.B. 4-15-13

30in30, Day 14: "Your Bio Makes You Sound Like an Ass"

This little ditty makes me sound like a bitch, but the other one I wrote today made me sound like a clinically depressed fat kid (wait ... never mind ...) so it was a toss-up.

Like those actors at the Grammys,
thanking God for their success.

Oh poet, the first thing you did when your ship
came in was fill the hold with beer.
We all know it. We were in the line behind you,
eyeing up the wine.

(Last time I was published, I drank mine from the bottle and toasted
my genius as if it were alive and celebrating with me. Then I put on a ball cap
and sang made-up adagios in the shower. Published is power. Power can be dizzying.)

Poet, get with it! Don't be so pretentious.
If you must plan obeisance, do it in private,
someplace where there's less chance you'll irritate the rest of us. 

T.A.B. 4-14-13

30in30, Day 13: "You Have to Write This Poem"

It isn't going to fall on your head like confetti,

letter
       by
glittering
        letter
vowels catching in your hair,

t
u
m
b
l
i
n
g

to the floor, consonants dusting your shoulders like glitter.

It won't simply
APPEAR
in your lap, ooey-gooey cooing and sucking its thumb.
or walk up to you standing on the corner and bum a cigarette,
or come in the door and hang up its hat --

(Poems don't just happen like that.)

It won't take the red-eye and show up in your bed,
or show up like a miracle, right there in your head.

--Yes, I know your excuses, you've said--
but it does no good to fight it:

This poem ain't gonna write itself. You're gonna hafta write it.

T.A.B 4-13-13

For Anybody Who Read "The Dark Side"

I find it important to emphasize that I'm not actually a potential psycho killer. I was more exploring the idea that everyone has a dark side, and that coming to terms with that is important.

Just to clear things up.

30in30, Day 12: "Mount Olympus Girls"

Here, all the soldiers wear flowered jumpers and have their hair in braids.

They are armed only with squirt guns and Stretch Armstrong souls that can bend

1000 ways and never come apart – they can be permanently distorted, maybe;

stretched beyond recognition, yes – but they never break.

You can set the world on their shoulders like a boulder,

and they will not shrug.

When you knock them over, they simply shift the load

and begin to climb again. 

T.A.B. 4-12-13

30in30, Day 11: Asleep on the Job

Asleep on the Job (Or, Misadventures in Pain Management)

My bones have begun to fissure, and someone has taken a hammer to my knees.

My eyes are heavy in their sockets. Even my socks ache, where they smother my feet.

The atmospheric pressure is slowly crushing me to the floor;

Several inches have been subtracted from my height, with more to follow.

I need a nap now.

I'll just put my head on the desk for a moment that'll become half an hour.

It's the medication.

I ration it, but sometimes my fortitude fails me;

the little yellow pill siphons my energy away and fills my head with gravel.

This is preferable, considering the alternatives:

A sack of cement in my gut, for instance.

A dagger to the collarbone, maybe.

Or would you rather I fill the office with the lovely scent of vomit?

Perhaps I should've stayed home today.

Perhaps I should stay home tomorrow, and the day after that

And the day after that.

T.A.B 4-11-13

30in30, Day 10: "Pickup"

Pickup

The road before us was a gray umbilicus
Connecting us to Mother Earth.
My lips were stained
The color of Hester's shame,
but it was only juice --
cherry, and strawberry fruit pie,
in the bed of a red truck
With one green door,
like Christmas in July.

And the sun spilled orange
Into our eyes,
and cornfields stretched out
On each side,
reverie after daydream
Painted in viridian and jade.

We licked sugar from our fingers
And let our hair blow wild as sin

In the Indiana wind.

T.A.B. 4-10-13

30in30, Day 9: "Drive"

Hard labor these days is doing the dishes up.
What approximates standing on these palsied pegs
is not kind to the spine, low down,
between the uneven cradle of these hips.
These hips that will likely never serve their purpose,
parting to let slick life slide
screaming into being.
And yet this body continues the motions
of potential motherhood, ripening, shedding,
each month preparing itself for two cells
to make four,
to make toes and fingers and eyes
and legs kicking and finally breath,

at last, at last

I have watched others wax full
one by one,
like harvest moons.
I have prodded tiny feet
through the walls of wombs,
have cradled child after child
in my arms, their limbs drawn up reflexively,
perfect sculptures in miniature,

alive, alive.

I say I am a liberated woman,
modern, not too incredibly
desirous of children.
This was the truth,
once upon a time.
Would that it still were;
this longing is ruthless.
I cannot box it up
and send it back to the factory.
It is programmed in me,
a drive in a car with no brakes or mirrors.
I see the cliff coming at me,
and even given the danger,
I keep my hands on the wheel

 and consider, consider.

30in30, Day 8: "The Dark Side"

The Dark Side

I became a revolutionary because I missed the bus
the anarchists were on,
and I've always been rebellious.

If I could, I'd break windows and steal.
I'd set fires and start fights.
Maybe I'd  kill,
just for the thrill of pulling the trigger.

But you can't commit crimes of that caliber
if you're too crippled to run,
too conspicuous to hide.

How many fugitives have permanent limps,
this particular set of disfigurements?

That's why I gather I'm stuck like this:
to contain my forays to the dark side.
To muzzle the man eater.

If God were wiser, we'd all be hobbled.

T.A.B. 4-8-13

"Psycopathia Sexualis" Inspired by "Riven Rock", a Novel by T.C. Boyle.)

Psycopathia Sexualis (Inspired by T.C. Boyle's Riven Rock)

I couldn't make you love me

But

I saw you bleeding on the floor
after you thought I'd gone

Want leeching from your pores,

eyes,

lips,

nose.

A garden of rust roses

And scarlet delphiniums
spreading their blossoms at your feet.

Sweet

Baby Lord,
I wanted to lick you up

like spilled milk.

I wanted to inhale you,
skin white as blow,
veins a pencil sketch.

One day I'll have you.

One day I'll

S t r e t c h

You out
in your garden of blood
and gnaw the marrow from your bones.

Replace your eyes with shining mirrors
and watch as I kiss you.

T.A.B. 4-7-13

30in30, Day 6: Trigger

Trigger

My gut is two-thirds bile and the rest penicillin and wine.

Outside, a truck backfires. I don't jump this time.

This was not my best idea; I'll give you that,

but it could've been worse.

I could be my father,

with a taste for rotgut beer

and a temper,

and a gun.

Lock, stock, and barrel.

About this time of year, I guess.

Daddy crawled out the bottle,

and then crawled all over with fevers and bugs.

Took out a rifle.

Put it in my hands.

About this time of year,

I crawl into my own bottle.

I lie at the bottom and wonder:

What if I had pulled the trigger?

T.A.B. 4-6-13

30in30, Day 5: "Wanderer"

I could leave here.

The thought expands in my chest like a bubble;

it rumbles in my mind. 4 tires on gravel.

Highway unspooling behind me;

a filling station at 2 in the morning,

bad coffee and white like epiphanies blinding me.

I have a certain affinity for leaving things behind,

see.

I have left pieces of myself in churches in Kentucky,

just laying around for anyone to find.

Bus stations, train depots:

Indianapolis, Minneapolis,

Chicago.

Airports in Atlanta, Philadelphia,

Detroit.

Spare rooms. Even a S'barro once,

in a plate of cold spaghetti.

There is not enough map to contain me.

I am not so much a woman as a restless creature,

sleeping with one eye open.

One night I'll eat the zookeeper,

and break apart the cage.

--T.A.B. 4-5-13

30in30, Day 4: "Nebulous"

I am merely nebulous.

Unformed, and floating

Around and around my own head like particles of dust.

I used to see myself at night.

I fell over my body

Softly,

confetti,

snow.

My soul was glitter in the air;

it floated away from me

When I tried to catch it.

--T. A. B. 4-4-13

30in30, Day 3: "I Have A Bad Case Of Missing You"

I Have A Bad Case of Missing You

And that pink blouse you bought me;
I have that too.
It no longer fits. There's a hole.
Pink's not my color.

I don't care.

I don't wear it.
I just hold it sometimes,
like a bandage for the bruise
of not having you here.

Sometimes I see someone with your hair.
She tilts her head to one side;
She's a bird, like you were!

But when she opens up and sings,
I never know the song.

T.A.B. 4-3-13

30in30: Day 2. "Song of the Midsummer Sprite"

I slaved over this piece for going on 2 hours last night. It doesn't have the epic sweep I was going for, but at least I finally hammered out the rhyme scheme. (I don't usually do heavily structured pieces; it was a challenge.)

A At 7 of an 'even, when the sky is yet light
B And the sun sinks low in the west;
A As the owl in his hollow prepares for flight
B And the otter and deer welcome rest;

A As the poplar and birch whisper songs of the night
B And the shadows begin to grow deep;
A Then comes she forth, Midsummer's sprite
B On silent and capable feet.

A She wears a cloak of gloaming hue
B And hood cut from the same;
A From 'neath it looks an eye of blue
B And one as gray as rain.

A She turns her head this way and that
B And looks, and then she goes;
A She leaps as graceful as a cat
B And lands upon her toes.

A Through the trees she makes her way
B Over root and stone;
A Where she's to, no one can say
B And always she's alone.

A Do not try to train your eye
B To trace her 'long the trail;
A You'll join the throng, with maddened cry
B Of others who have failed.

A Midsummer's sprite  is rare to see
B And seems a matchless jewel;
A But he who tries to Squire be
B Is just a witless fool.

A He who follows in her tread
B Won't catch her by surprise;
A She hears thoughts before they're said
B And sees through ev'ry guise.

A There's Magick in that mismatched gaze
A One eye watchet, one eye haze;
B And he who takes its measure in
B Will never see the sun again. 

I had some serious fun with this. The challenge was great -- it's been a long time since I've marked the beat of a piece by snapping my fingers! And I learned a new word, watchet, synonymous to blue.

30in30: 30 Poems in 30 Days for National Poetry Month. DAY 1.

After Watching Neil Marcus Dance "Water Burns Sun"

Only the cripple can tell you why he dances. Watch closely once, twice: see the way his wrists curve in, fingers pointed toward his palms? Who is to say the small, unusual birds he makes are not beautiful? A thousand folded cranes are art, and so is this.

He redefines fluidity. He is no gentle stream, no tame flow of water from a spout: this man is Kegon-no-taki, hurtling deliriously through space, sending up spray for miles as he dives down to meet himself; he is Urami Falls, hiding and then crashing out to meet you. He can do all this without leaving the floor.

Every twist of his body is a line God painted without lifting the brush, every blemish a hidden psalm, every knot a perfect imperfection. Only the cripple can tell you why he dances: because his every vein contains a river, and Water Burns Sun.