Category: Exhuming old stuff

Memory XXVIII

the boy’s knee-high socks are crushed about his ankles
he’s been crawling in drain-pipes again
tut-tut, what a naughty boy he’s been
why’s he twisting his fingers behind his back like a scared little thing?
little boy, little boy: you’d better behave
ratchet your paper-thin door shut against the goblins:
oh don’t you just see him jump!
the goblins gonna getcha, if you don’t behave.
when your windows rattle, those are ghosts:
rattling their slithering selves outside.
on full moons, they can slide right inside on moonbeams…
is it a full moon tonight? why! I just think it is…
ghost kisses will turn your face into nothing but wrinkles.
the darken sleeps under your bed at night, oh yes,
and when the sun goes down his alarm clock whistles.
he’s yawning and blinking when your nightlight comes on,
all ready to roam through the shadows in your room.
the darken likes perching on pillows, especially yours.
why? oh, well they have a weakness for towheaded boys.
and you, my lad, are a towheaded boy. yes. yes, you are.

***

Look, it’s clear I read too many fairy tales as a lad. 

Memory XXVI

that stupid egg story
got stuck in my head
again and again and
never before now.
the bird rising tall
from ashes and soot.

***

I have no idea. Guess it’s not stuck in my head anymore! :)

Memory XXIV

wheeeeee
cries that man
he cries
on the sidewalk
pigeons putting around and around
feather stench
these old buildings fly up and up and up
what’s that?
a glimmer of sun?
nah, that’s just a dirty old street lamp
it’s on by day
off by night
the wicked old man has rabies
or dysentery
or leprosy
whatever he has, people stay away
a little girl points
he tugs on his whiskers
blinks
she cries and grabs her mommy’s leg
the wicked old man speaks
he says “harumph tubbly tubbly”
no one understands
no one is close enough to hear
he has one dirty shoe
the sole is missing
he fills his shoe with newspaper clippings
sometimes he reads his sole
today his sole says this:
DOWNTOWN CONSUMED IN FIERY INFERNO
he is downtown, downtown is still here
he rips his sole to pieces
he puts the pieces in his mouth
he chews and chews and chews like a wasp
he swallows
he lies down on the curb
he goes to sleep
he has one dream
this is how his one dream goes:

the glitterbug doorway glashes into view and the know which is alternately a duck’s bill and a pink and yellow baseball bat hums as he draws near and his mother’s winking at him and he’s been a bad boy and she has that rolling pin in her hand and her gingham apron on her waist and the sea is blue gingham and he is astride the velveteen ship which plows through the glistening sand and with a siren shriek he tumbles down and down and down and bounces from the bed of nails and three is a clock with purple numbers and cherry-red-painted hands and the hands curl at him as though he’s been naughty and he is tied to a telephone booth that rings and rings and that dear woman sings in the distance and weeping tears wrap around him with their snaky curves and he shuffles his tap shoes on the ground tapping feebly with his hammer on the scattershot roof and a scrawny old cat yawns there arching her back and in a sudden burst of fury he hurls the hammer at the feline and tumbles head over head up up and up into…

***

I don’t even know. :)

Memory XXIII

there’s nothing so nice as a shattered glass of mustard on cornflower bread with a yellowing parchment sandwich

***

All that remains of a failed flirtation long ago. I don’t know. There was something about coming up with really interesting sounding sandwiches. I was young. Email seemed exciting. Boy, those were the days!

Memory XXII

what are we doing on the steppes of Calzara?
what are we playing with our mouths full of daggers?
what are we singing with our hands full of candy?
what are we dancing with our feet all a’buttered?

rusted and cranky, the gears all tumble down
chaff blows all round there and everywhere
someone sneezes in the silo
the windmill’s been tilted

why have we crawled through the loom of the furies?
why have we diced with our teeth crossed with silver?
why have we caroled with our mixed up days?
why have we waltzed with our boots stained with wine?

pushing through the door with a fist for a handle
windless light seeps in the crack at the floor
someone lights a beeswax wick
the temple’s been desecrated

***

That “all a’buttered” kills me. I think I wanted to write something that implied some kind of epic adventure, but didn’t go so far as to say it. Apart from a couple lines, I think this one did that pretty well.

Memory XXI

the mirror’s been sitting in my room for ages
“shatter it, shatter it!” I ignore the darker voice
we two struggle and strive and fight and kick
for this mirror, this symbol of failure
that I didn’t want to begin with
“It’s more mine than hers”
I didn’t beg for it, plead for it, grovel for it
yet, here it is, on our doorstep
looming woodenly in the sore place
that heartbaked musty memoir
yet we can’t rid ourselves of this memento
fucking postage is too high to send it back where it belongs…

***

I had this mirror I couldn’t get rid of for a long time, because how do you get rid of a mirror? I finally managed it though.

Memory XIX(a)

…and she made some grandiloquent remark:
Coelacanth in the Mediterranean?
Ducks with bright copper rings tight around their necks.
They can’t swallow the fish they catch
diving from skows in the Indian or Asian sea.
They can’t eat, poor ducks, but for the very smallest of morsels,
but just you wait, you ducks, just you wait!
Soon when no one is looking, I will give you teeth!
Teeth to chew the fish into the very smallest of morsels!
Teeth to bite the hand! To bite back for freedom from tyranny
for democracy, for a full meal!
Soon those skows and dinghys and schooners and whatnot will be yours!
And toothed ducks will sail the Seven Seas.
There will be terror upon the face of the deep.
Ducks with teeth will resurrect the spectre of communism!
Skulls-and-bones will snap once more in the wind.

***

I do remember this was a chunk of XIX that I liked well enough to keep, but didn’t fit there. These ducks are based on a children’s book I read when I was a kid. That stuck with me, I guess!

Memory XIX

so I was marlonbrandoing down the street,
in that way that he did—he doesn’t now.
there was a guy, a dingbat guy, who thought he could put a stop to it.
put a stop to my great mashing-hashing-blood-thumper.
thought he could put a slice in this strutting body o’ mine.
put a stop to his instead.

in her bloodblood silk dress that whisked and curled around
her body’s self like a delirious onion skin and glimpses—
buoys in the fog with their clanging bells and their quivering,
their flights of seagulls and winking, grinning otters—
scatters of her rose and sank from view and her breasts were round,
her hips were round and her eyes
were round and her lips were round
and her knocking knees were square as boxes.
that’s a geometrickal woman for you, I breathed, and the air
rose out from my lips in a great fog to conceal her from view:
I held my breath.

a loud air it was, and I—I with the broken-down hat and the
soiled-up shoes, the green-hornet pants and the garingaloo—
misperceived the truth of things, that dainty fulsome stuff
deceptified my eyes. my tongue sliced the basin of her neck:
she tasted of cinnabob and limisch and ochrey.
I stroked the twirling air around her ear with all my whispers
then—marlonbrandoing—in spite of myself,
because of myself, ripped the chain of pearls from her neck
and shoved her to the curb.
as her green mascara puddled down her face,
her boxy knees tommyknocking together,
I marlonbrandoed away, leaving her to read
yesterday’s newspaper in the gutter.

only,
she called my name:
I spun to find her long eyes blinking inches from my face…
green lines of sorrow stamped beneath her lids
and a wicked glint in her cheeks.
grabbing my ears with both her hands
she pressed her full lips and her body full to mine.
my heart betrayed me then, pearls scattered on the ground
and my green knees puddled to join them there.
She danced away forever.
I never saw her again.

that’s how I got them,
these scars that crawl dark below my eyes.

***

I’ve always been fond of this one, although now I think the tonal shift toward the end is kind of jarring. I do like turning people’s names into verbs.