Cunning Stunts

[Cap'n Blackett]

I'll let this be the last Tori post for a while

"The Power Of Orange Knickers"

The power of orange knickers
The power of orange knickers
The power of orange knickers
Under my petty coat
The power of listening to what
You don't want me to know

Can somebody tell me now who is this terrorist
Those girls that smile kindly then rip your life to pieces?
Can somebody tell me now am I alone with this
This little pill in my hand and with this secret kiss
Am I alone in this...

A matter of complication
When you become a twist
For their latest drink
As they're transitioning

Can somebody tell me now who is this terrorist
This little pill in my hand that keeps the pain laughin'
Can somebody tell me now a way out of this -
That sacred pipe of red stone could blow me out of this kiss
Am I alone in this...

Shame shame time to leave me now
Shame shame you've had your fun
Shame shame for letting me think that I would be the one

Can somebody tell me now who is this terrorist
This little pill in my hand or this secret kiss
Am I alone in this kiss
Am I alone in this kiss

***************************************

"Bells For Her"

And through the life force and there goes her friend
On her Nishiki it's out of time
And through the portal they can make amends

He would you say whatever we're blanket frinds
Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on its way

And through the walls they made their mudpies
I've got your mind I said she siad I've your voice
I said you don't need my voice girl you have your own
But you never thought it was enough of
So they went years and years
Like sisters blanket girls
Always there through that and this
There's nothing we cannot ever fix I said

Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on it's way
Bells and footfalls and soliers and dolls
Brothers and lovers she and I were
Now she seems to be sand under his shoes
There's nothing I can do
Can't stop what's coming
Can't stop what is on it's way

And now I speak to you are you in there
You have her face and her eyes
But you are not her
And we go at each other
Like blank ettes who can't find
Their thread and their bare

Can't stop loving
Can't stop what is on its way
And I see it coming and It's on its way

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

I've been letting Tori say it for a while now. I suppose I felt like I needed her voice, but as she says--you don't need my voice, girl, you have your own.

So I started looking for a way back in. I have been really debating about which poems go in the book (I am planning on submitting as much as possible over the next few months). I have tried to let the collection reflect as many aspects of my life as possible, but there's always a reason to leave something out. I found out the hard way that when you write very truthful poetry in the personal narrative, people mostly assume the "I" character is you and often there are reprocussions. And some of those poems were written a whole lifetime ago, so they speak of things I used to believe and maybe I have changed my mind or softened my stance since they were fresh. I used to be very millitant. Then I was very into Taoism. Later I was seeking some kind of reconcilliation with the Christian god. And later still it became about nature. I have to keep reminding myself that all of these things are parts of me.

In some of my more feminist writings, I expressed thoughts and feelings that make me blush now. I have great affection for that bratty girrrrrrl I used to be, though, so I want to honour her--I just don't know if that stuff belongs in this collection.

I'll post one of the ones I'm not sure about here. I guess I'm not sure about it because it's pretty old and maybe i'm just sick of it. I was maybe 22 when I wrote it and it was in my first collection--a chapbook contest I won in '95-- called The Whetting Stone.



Round a Bonfire in the Park on Guy Fawkes Day, 1975

A heavy man with a mustache and brown tweed cap
dangles in the branches of a horse chestnut tree
to nail up a catherine wheel

My two sisters and I
tie string around prickly chestnut husks
and play a game called conks
in our matching white ponchos and navy skirts<O

I collect a heap of pine cones
my big sister throws them,
sweet crackle, into the fire
my little sister dances a plump-legged, white tights wiggle

The men come
stamping boots, whistling, cheering
We are holding hands,
passing a telegraph of squeezes between us

My big sister tries to keep me from skipping in place
the men carry Guy Fawkes,
an old suit, stuffed with straw,
on a pole high out of my reach

I want to run with the small boys behind them,
trade my weak sparkler
for their firecrackers
the smell of gunpowder, all the way from China

I take consolation in writing my name
with sizzling fire
and teach my little sister to make
rings and zigzags that hang in the air

I can only say “oh”
when Guy Fawkes is speared, traitor, into the bonfire
his arms curl up like a 370 year old apology
the Roman candles begin to flare

I cover my ears to the booms, then remember my little sister,
but she wriggles free of me,
clapping, jumping, pointing
I watch her fever face, rocket eyes, a body in four year old explosion

The catherine wheel is lit
it twirls a circle of sparks, high in chestnut branches
I try to see how many stars are being spit into the sky
but I am drawn inside the arc and forget to count

My spinning bed
I fall asleep
smell of bonfire in my hair
and dream a fiery circle of arms around my sisters and I

This is how
my sisters are burnt into me
with the fire embrace of childhood
and November catherine wheel stars


Please note that this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from author.
<O

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

On Joan....

I have been thinking a lot about my mother lately and her battles on this planet. I learned many things from her in the 16 years I knew her--some of them were gifts, many were disguised gifts, but there are plenty of things I wish I had not been endowed with.

Some of these poems are love songs to her, some not so much and some speak to the paradox of loving such a damaged lady. This poem definitely goes in the book:

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><O< p><O< i><O< i><O< i><O< p><O< i><O< i><O< i><O< i><O< i><O< i><O< b><O< b><O< p><O< p O<></O<>
Flour Sifting

1
Before I emerged from the womb
Traces of me
Were created and dispelled
Across hand-sewn sheets of Scottish linen
The grandmother of a grandmother made
Her stitches there to ensure
Even seems that lay down flat
And stayed there


2
My mother’s hands were like willows
Bending to fold and form
The sad mess of raw hamburger meat
My mother’s hands
Meant for the refined use
Of clay, the spread of paint

Never marry a man like your father
A Latin like him

She needed to warn us against ourselves
How our shape betrays a history
Traits we were served
And we know how to treat a man

3
One leg hooked on the sink
She used to wash herself
After he had her at night
Dipping the splashes up
With one hand, while the other
Fixed a Kool cigarette in her mouth

They gave you sex ed., huh?
Now you know why you don’t
Do nasties with boys

4
I only know seven stories about her entire life
She never did tell us where in Oregon she disappeared from
Nor why the act of sex is so disgusting
She never told us much
But I feel that her brothers and a stepfather
Let the cold into her room at night

5
She did not believe in a god
But enrolled our souls with the Protestants
When it was the best school around

You’re an American, don’t you ever forget it
I put us on a waiting list with NASA
To be one of the families
Who colonize a space station

She had true faith in the existence of UFOs,
The validity of Astrology
And the ability of witches to steal children’s souls,
But we left God behind
At morning prayer in England

6
Her leather coin purse
Held careful change
And snapped in Scottish
Like her left eyebrow
At the wisp of a lie

Don’t bullshit me, Sister

7
She taught me to read when I was two
She could remove all of her upper teeth
To my utter amazement
Her perfume was powdered laundry soap

She survived on advice from Better Homes and used a flour sifter
To make her salted biscuits

I’m gonna get my recipe into that
Who’s Who in Panama City, if that bitch
Yvonne Patino can, anyone can
Those snotty women may think they’re better,
But they will learn not to snub Joan Tulipano

She submitted from ‘77 to ‘81

8
In the jungle
The two seasons are wet and dry
A drought will draw creatures indoors
A flood will drive them in too

With those odds
No wonder my Panamanian father
Was a poor gambler

And I wish she was not dead
But she is ash
At the bottom of my stepmother’s
Cedar-lined closet, under her shoes

9
My father’s farm in the Interior
Brought the gigantic freezer
And the dead bodies of chickens
She bore the feathers and the blood and
The constant reminder of the
Woman he kept on the farm
Invading our lives like the steady buzz in that
Old, used freezer


This one also goes in the book. I wrote it in a workshop with Bob Haas while he was Poet Laureate--while I was at <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on">Squaw Valley</st1lace>. He taught me to loosen up--I was really uptight about structure and he didn't think I needed to worry so much. He was amazing to work with in the one-on-one setting. He wanted to make sure I had a community of writers that I felt like I belonged to--he kept stressing that it is essential to the process to share your work. I used to have a tendency to hole up and hate it all. After I worked one-on-one with him, I workshopped this with Sharon Olds and she told me to quit working on it (another thing I have a problem with--knowing when it's done).

Before the Escape

My mother was a monger’s wife
teapot crone
with flattened feet

My mother was a gypsy thief
beggar child
with blackened teeth


My mother was an eat flesh fly
thousand eyes
with acid tongue

My mother was a spider bite
thigh-back welt
with poisoned vein


My mother was a fractured stick
splinter arm
with peeling skin

My mother was a candlewick
flaming head
with praying chin


My mother was a rabbit foot
talisman
with old bat toes

My mother was a chessboard rook
moving piece
with battle rows


My mother was a cracked back crab
ruined shell
with blood raw spots

My mother was a broken dove
cat crawled nest
with eggs that rot




And this poem may or may not make it into the book, but it's fun to perform live, because I get to sing:

Finally Autumn

I just remembered this is when my mother died
every year I forget the exact date
I only know it was mid-October
and when I see trees blowing
I am reminded of her bloated,
brain-dead body
the soft clack of her tongue
her sleep noise
so out of place in the stark ICU room,
but keeping perfect time
with the mechanical pumping of her chest
I stood watching over her like that

Now everywhere the coppers, browns,
and golds are liquid from the trees
so much the colours of my mother
with hair deep auburn
eyes hazel of brown and green, mottled with rust
the dark chocolate knee-high boots she wore
even the zippers chewed burnt umber teeth
up the inside of her calf
I have her legs and shape of body
and her sarcastic droopy-lidded eyes
only darker
the way winter comes along
and deepens what’s already there
Once we had the same dream
we were tied back-to-back
while tall children with terrible,
bright eyes made a ring around us
and spit hot cocoa in out faces
We used to do the bump while we sang:
Back to back – boom<o></o>

Belly to belly
I don’t give a damn ‘cause I done it already

Now I buy the same sleeveless, cotton dressed she did
printed with small brown flowers,
the same cardigan sweaters
we dressed alike when I was young
and now I’ve come around again
I look down at my knees, just like hers
only mine are spread apart
crossed at the ankles I tattooed
and I wonder if I’ll ever have a daughter to sing to
when seasons change cold
and we bake to warm up the house
Momma’s little baby loves shortnin, shortnin
Momma’s little baby loves shortnin bread




Please note that this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from author.</O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<></O<>

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

For some fucking reason, I can't get the italics to stop in that last post--sorry--there's only supposed to be a few lines in italics.

Whatever.

I also meant to write about how much I love and adore my Immortal Kombat class and the divine Ms. Julie Brister. What a talented group of folks--it is a pleasure to be a part of it.

And speaking of the divine Ms. B--I'm going to Laid Up this week if it kills me!

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

This next poem was the final one in my chapbook, but for some reason I didn't want to put it in the next collection. I am pretty fond of it, though, so I'm trying to find where it might fit. Did I mention that the new book is titled, Ni Aqui, Ni en Patagonia, which is a phrase you hear in South America, used to mean--they wouldn't believe that here, shit, they wouldn't even believe it in Patagonia. So essentially, it's a racist slur, but I love Patagonia and I'm such a Henry Miller-head that it has a different meaning for me. Still, I've thought a lot about changing it.


garden

(earth)
in the garden
the suckle and thistle
grow where they please
my knees press their shape
easily through the short thin grass
in the just soft mud

(hope)
in the garden
i let my weeds live
they, of the harsh sturdy stalks
sometimes flower such bright
the unexpected can bloom
a sudden purple or yellow
tiny perfections in the choking

(karma)
in the garden
i sow the bones of many lovers
thick strong rich the soil
and everywhere the growth
this fecund ground holds all history
accumulated deaths and endings
nourish life that comes after
so, green is my view

(genesis)
in the garden
i have led women and men
as both have always been
to plant with each other
one pale seed took root in me
those bones too, buried
and every spill is protein
and life births other life

(self)
in the garden
the laws and rules of the universe
mostly apply:
energy is never lost, only transferred
don’t spray poison – you only kill what you’re growing
wild roses smell like a lion roars
and tigerlillies are a lovely idea

(death)
in the garden
i saw the Buddha and my mother
sipping tea
he looked frazzled
but she did know how to arrange
the lavender and bluebells
and let the vines drip down
over the rock wall
later i showed him the burrow
behind the hedges
where the fox den was
and the creepy huge toadstools grew

(youth)
in the garden
i have played
amazon pirates, girl spies, Cleopatra
i climbed
monkeybars, trees, the fences and walls
i dove deep into the deep end
fished iguanas out of the chlorine
built a hut that did not stand one rainy season

(eden)
in the garden
i saw the world from the ground
on my belly squirming
from my hole in the windfall apple
that came from Knowledge
i, the worm who also ate forbidden,
yet was not cast out,
have no sex to be blamed
generations from now
cut me in half
and I become two of the same
we are still naked



Anyway, as usual, this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me (thank you, Anthony, for your legal advice in this and other matters--go on, get me that $$!!).
<O

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

And then there are the poems that make me cringe a little. I think I mentioned this earlier--while I have great affection for the militant young lady I used to be, I don't really think this way anymore. But this poem is part of the process for me and I learned a lot from performing it for audiences. I'm fairly certain that I won't be including this in Ni Aqui, but it was in The Whetting Stone. A lot can change in 10 years.

Thinking With My Dick

If I had a penis, I suppose I might want God to have one, too.
I might build churches and praise the glory of His holy testicles.

It says in the Bible (in Deuteronomy): If two men are fighting,<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O></O>
and the wife of one comes to the aid of her husband and<O></O>
touches the private parts of his enemy, cut off her hand.<O></O>
You must show her no mercy.>

And since God has a penis,
He has to make sure that’s covered in the rules.

If I did have one,
I might reap the benefits
<O< p face="Times New Roman" the reap probably would I one, have did OIf benefits<>of that Book without much thought;
I watch men pray with big-engined cars,
bedpost notches, panty collections, polaroids,
and codes of stars in their little black books.

I want a life where we all dabble in the Milky Way of sexuality
<O< p face="Times New Roman" the of Way Milky in dabble all we where life a want OI sexuality,<>bathed in light.

And because I am true to my own evolution
I am not obliged to be what a conglomeration of penises
deems natural.

So I meet fear in the alleys of men’s minds,
like I’m gonna strap on nine inches of solid silicon,
and teach them what it’s like to be pretty,
like I might rob them of their maidenhood
and sometimes I would…

But I don’t want a penis
just the power it entitles you to

I wouldn’t mind a world where men bled from their dicks
once a month, and had to insert masculine hygiene products
(invented by women) to plug their curse.

Why would I trade my sweet and prolonged waves
for one short, furious, debilitating spurt,
followed by another
in an hour
if I’m lucky and haven’t had a few beers?

Would the power of the penis warp me if I did have it?
Would I use a woman to feed me, clean up after me,
to fuck me?

Would I hit because I am stronger?

I can’t imagine how a flopping appendage
could make me do any act against the truth I want to live.
So I will remove my thinking cock,
wipe it off carefully,
and feel lucky to be able to think without it.




Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.
</O<></O<>

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

I am determined to post every single one of these poems, whether I feel embarrassed by them, or tired of them, or unsure of them. All of those feelings apply about this next one, but it used to be Nolette's favourite, so there has to be something to it. I probably wrote it when I was 22 or 23.



The loss of my virginity was not poetry

I remember cutting class
seeing Allen as I left the football field
telling him to meet me at my house
I got wine coolers and a pizza and
we watched the Big Chill on video
He kissed me when Kevin Kline
got on top of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com /><st1:Street w:st=<st1:address w:st="on">Mary Kay Place</st1:address></st1:Street>
and I thought, Let’s go, I’m sick
of this virginity I carry around
like a birth defect
I took him to my bed
and he laid me down on the
pale cream sheets

My awkward fear
my blunt passion
his battle to take from me
my struggle to give it away

He didn’t care about my period and when
he looked up with a vampire’s sated face
I said, Oh shit, the sheets!
He said, You have to learn not to care
about that sort of thing when you make love
I knew that wasn’t what we were doing
but I let him lick me
push parts of himself into me
I kept thinking, Someday I will learn this
the right ways to move and touch
and I tried to weave my ass around
in unsteady twists of pleasure

I wanted perfect sex
a multiple orgasm
didn’t know how fucking can lack
I didn’t care about love

because 16 was too old in <ST1<st1:City w:st="on">Miami</st1:City></ST1
in 1986 to still be a cherry
because I had never known love
maybe I still have not
I left a smeary butt-print
in my own blood on the sheets
he was as tender as he could muster
while he splashed water
across my blood-splotched stomach
I remember watching part of myself
being sluiced down the drain
thinking, How easy it is to rid yourself
of things that have no value


Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.

<O

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

This is another pretty old one from Whetting Stone. My first book had many poems about Myles. He and I had an incredibly bizarre relationship that lived in its own sort of limbo for a couple of years. He was (and probably still is) an amazingly gifted painter and we made a lot of art together, including the project that I describe in the poem below. This is another one which I feel a mix of cringing/beaming about. Actually, I think that pretty much describes my response to most of the poems I've written.

Bugging Out

When you lay there, Christ-figure
and I covered your naked body with
swarms of plastic insects
(ants, huge and small in chest hair,
flies with thick, opaque wings, a giant one
on your balls, another on your mouth,
centipede and tarantula hips and thighs,
dragonfly necklace, beetle navel,
scorpion heart, praying mantis nipple,
giant locust penis, black spider eyes)
I tried to separate the sex from the art
but disturbingly vivid lust crawled over me
as the menagerie of creatures was assembling on you.

The tension was ticklish and brutal
felt like a sticky web
it held me back from even a slight caress
made the placing of each bug
delicate, daring, a ritual, balance
I bade them creep slowly down your torso
army of ants, squadron of flies
battery of boll weevils
I let them pin your body to the floor
as I led the troops closer to your groin
then avoided it, moved to your face, your legs
I let myself graze briefly the skin
about your hips and my hair hung
the tips brushing your hairy thorax
I was aware of your erection and felt no qualms
about looking at it, but my interest was now
in the thrill of arrangement and proximity.

Therefore I did not bury my nose in the jungle smell
of your armpits where a grasshopper nested
I did not use beetle pinchers on your nipples
I did not sweep you clear and plunge hands over skin
I did not undress, my wet against your stiff
bugs between us, in my hair, making impressions in my skin
did not even give any of it much conscious thought
but it was so necessary to the process
without it I would have used way less ants



Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

This one is going in the next book--I can't remember if it was in the first book--I don't think it's quite that old. I recall that I wrote it while I was in Susan Browne's workshop. Most of these were written while I was with her, or the spin-off workshop group that formed after years of classes with her, or they were written at Squaw Valley. I pretty much loathe most of the stuff I wrote while I was dating Bill, so none of it is likely to go in the book.


These Are the Terms

I recognize the thrust of my body
push of my breasts
crust of my skin
boot of my nose
scoop of my eyes
glove of my lids
ransom of my voice
pinch of my chin
gamble of my eyebrows
wedge of my elbows
hood of my frown
cradle of my hips
bison of my stomach
crane of my hands
spin of my hair
skull of my knee
cusp of my ear
spill of my smile
fold of my knuckle
wing of my ankle
urn of my wrists
ditch of my back
swerve of my ass
silt of my laugh
split of my lips
slit of my slit

I negotiate nothing



Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

I wrote this after a year of re-translating the works of Pablo Neruda with my friend Jeff because we both hated the poetic license other translators had taken with his work. That clearly had a huge influence on the way the poem was written. I wrote it for Darren. I still miss him sometimes, we had so much fun together. But at the end of the day, he's a born-again Christian stoner who chose to live in his van, so that he wasn't conforming to what society dictated, and that didn't work out so well for dating. I'm pretty fond of this one--I haven't written many love poems and this one feels like I came really close to getting it right.

Boy

How clear your beauty in moon or sun
How heroic and broad your span of me
and your chest
darkly haired, hovering
like a treeline over me
Boy, and your
sudden nostrils which flair in wind
which let you smell
my wild sweat
my sexual flight

Then what divine tools
my fingers are
they earn their scale
and worn and chip of nail
which cup my face
and translate my secrets
and seat me in the universe
How brave my stare
protected by the dark of my eyes
which fall in fierce impulse
My two sides are not perfectly even
and my silenced lips that mouth melon
my wide hips
my generous veins
which channel heat to my loose heart
my brow a crook in the road
my hair like a cockfight
my legs are wondrous slabs of sinew and muscle
which skip me through streets
spreading under my feet

And you like a bridge of stars
like a fig stain
or dreaming in Spanish
Boy, my sanctuary
green drifts through your eyes
pale as sage sometimes
and the dark spot
which hangs below the left pupil
like an apple with the moon behind
Made of grace and sport
your body
the satisfied swell of your stomach
your hands veiled with hair and tan
twin explorers of my body’s archipelago

How like you are to the ocean
surprised by your own splash
and subsequent wash of me
the rush of wet and abrupt wave
which streams to your caverns under sand
and fills
and then your shell ears
which listen to my bird calls
as I nest like bonfire heaps
along the length of your shore



Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

This next one never felt finished to me--I had this stanza tacked on to the end, because it felt like it needed SOMETHING, but I always hated it. As I was looking at it to decide whether or not to post it here, I removed the offending stanza and added that last line, but I'm tempted to leave it off, after all. Again, I don't always know when the poem is finished. Those of you who have been giving me feedback on these, please tell me what you think.


Ode to the Tenderloin

Used condoms shed like spent worm casings along the
piss-stained doorways and vomit-encrusted sidewalk cracks
Blunted syringe. Cracked glass crack pipe. Empty $1.75 pint bottles of paint-thinner hooch

Step around the sun-scorched bundles of flesh
passed out in whatever has seeped from them
Merciful men who come in the evening to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com /><st1:Street w:st=<st1:address w:st=" /><st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Polk Street</st1:address></st1:Street> and wake the half-dead
with paper bowls of soup and bread for sopping

I walk the stretch of massage parlors, sex prop shops, strip clubs and tranny bars
pass the homeless shelter where I’m afraid to make eye-contact

I thank the graffiti artists who give me colors to gaze upon
who took over the abandoned Clean Xpress building
tagging their names for brief posterity

All praise the tranny hooker, Girl that wig!
You work the size 13 platforms and them Daisy Dukes!
She’s tricking so she can afford the tits and the rest of it

I get to know the girls and the “girls” as they walk under my window
heels clicking and whiny voices talking shit at four a.m.
When a cop car is spotted, one after another, the girls yell “sit”
and squat in stiletto heels behind cars until the cruiser’s gone

The early morning hours bring the singers,
Lionel Richie’s mellow hits, “Easy” and “3 Times a Lady”
echoing for blocks after they pass

During the day, shop keepers scrub the sidewalk in front of their stores
Pigeons are jaded and bloated and gather in the morning for bags of crumbs
Scattered by the aged Chinese men who scrape along the sidewalk

Angry pimps and well-lit alleys, easily you coexist
Junkie teenager, your tender veins and bathroom jerk-jobs
Middle-aged woman you shake a broom and mutter angrily to yourself
Pan-handling drunk, who are so bold, you criticize how much you get
Crack-whore mother with your three begging babies outside the liquor store
Amputee veteran, your hand-markered “smile” sign and your rag-padded crutches
Monosyllabic man, your legs sprawled out on the concrete, announcing “fuck!” at random intervals
2 a.m. street-cleaner gathering broken toys along with shattered glass in paper bags

I’ll be coming home to take you in my arms



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[Cap'n Blackett]

I wrote this one after Squaw Valley, but during a retreat in Cambria with a bunch of the west coast folks who attended Squaw that year with me. I have a lot of poems that take ideas from fairy tales and mix them with random daily details, but I like this one the best. I was seeing Ray back then and the language in this poem reflects the wistful, sad stuff I was going through about him at the time.

Long’s Drugs

I bought the yellow tablets and fine tip pens
like ingredients to an incantation
as if I could grip poetry in my fist
along with my change and receipt
and get it home behind a locked door
to sway over the cauldron of paper, ink and fingers

all the necessary components except
I dropped the empty cigar box
when I found out it was five bucks
and to gather my bags was to leave behind
the boy, his soft young beard, his extra smile
at the cash register drawer that stuck
I let him stay there in his royal blue smock
and ring the next woman, her tired hair
wisping at the temples, tethered
to three blond grandchildren
with overly open eyes and large front teeth

I knew I was forgetting something and scanned
the last-chance-for-a-sale aisle with its
rolls of antacids under pre-school scissors
thumb tacks, single blank tapes and double A batteries
my eyes hurt from the fluorescent lights
and I kept returning to the cracked plastic egg
which spilled two pale, misshapen nylon legs
onto the magazine rack, across dead princesses
slain comedians and star diets

I was overwhelmed by the feeling of clues
scattered among the discarded items
the broken Hershey bar and torn bag of green army men
the hideously small battery-operated fan
one flimsy blade slipped from the gaping box
but I couldn’t connect anything
and he didn’t smile again before I left

now I scribble and scratch to create
to make anything live on the page
I invoke magic, but maybe I left it in the store
behind the counter with unbought cigar boxes
All my life I’ve practiced the witchcraft of writing
but whenever the spell doesn’t work I fear
it’s nothing without the boy


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[Cap'n Blackett]

It's been really useful for me to post these poems. I really appreciate the kind things people have written to me about them. Thanks for indulging me while I try to figure this book out.

This next one was written when I was hanging out at SF State. There's stuff I like about it, but my urge is to dump it from the collection--it just doesn't feel complete and I'm not at all able to put myself back into that mind-set and try to re-write it. I like the place it gets to, just not too sure about the road it takes to get there.

Wax

I want to write the story of a girl
who sews beads of wax into the hem of her skirt
so she can become a human wick
to her candle clothing
and when her life gets too hot
or what’s under her skirt
has flames licking down her legs
or some man has burnt her bad
she can combust--curls aflame
burning bright face
waxy and red like a fat apple candle
melting down to her very hem

I broke a crucible
melting wax to make candles with
lethal if I’d been closer
the glass just flew apart
at some invisible fissure
smashed from the inside out
like it was repelled
by the pieces of itself
suddenly and utterly

When I die cremate me
in some eucalyptus
so that I am sweet to smell
watch me burn, melt and break apart
then take what’s left and let go a fistful
in the rippling hem Big Sur's coastline
and smash a plate of me on the <ST1<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com /><st1:PlaceType w:st=island</st1laceType> of <st1laceName w:st="on">Korfu</st1laceName></ST1
then journey before you age
to scatter the rest in <ST1<st1:State w:st="on">Tasmania</st1:State></ST1
so the eucalyptus may rest at home
so I needn’t spend eternity
trapped with all the pieces of myself
so the fire that’s moved through me
has burned all clean


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[Cap'n Blackett]

These poems were also written at the Cambria retreat--the first one is about me. The second is another about Ray. I'm surprised I wrote so much about him--we were always such a temporary thing--but a lot of the ones I'm considering for the book have to do with him.

Pulling the Tranny

I’m never good at leaving things behind
even getting out of my car at the magnificent ocean
with breakers on one side
and a bent rim of cypress on the other
I’m worried about repairs
I want to junk the starter
that takes three tries to turn over
the sparks, their gaps set wrong
misfire, drain my power
the tires, too weary to hold their air
and averse to change
because of stripped lug nuts
I walk with what I can’t fix
buzzing through me
I kick flies out in swarms ahead of me
from the broken-down heaps of seaweed
that rust on the beach
I steer towards a shape
the wreck of a sun-bleached log
giant and cracked, half-buried in sand
except it’s not so much sand
as smooth gravel--it’s younger
I think about choices and chances
I want to dig a pit right here
pile up a whole life’s worth of lifeless engines
stack the stripped-down bodies
I want to burn it all into a molten lump
and anything I can salvage from the ash
will travel away with me
the rest I’m ready to dump
The way I used to get around
took me some places
so I figure
there are worse graveyards than the sea

***************************************

On Our Own

Deer droppings under the balcony
remind me of a dream
that I was a jackrabbit
and you were a doe
and we had to band together
with six javelina pigs and their six piglets
that dwelled between cactus spikes
in Upton's Painted Desert
so we could protect ourselves
when coyotes left the hills to raid
I saved you again and again
risking myself and the pigs before you
occasionally losing a piglet

I was sweet on you when I dreamt that
still trying to make it work
I think of you right now
on the Big <ST1Island
an umbrella’ed drink in your fist
your eye on an ass or ten asses
making up a song
about respecting women
I think of myself in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com /><st1:City w:st=Upton</st1:City>’s <ST1 /><st1:PlaceName w:st=Living</st1laceName> <st1laceType w:st=" /><st1:State w:st="on"><ST1California</st1:State>
the second red wine in my belly
worrying about my fat ass
writing about separation

I won’t sacrifice myself for you anymore
I guess it doesn’t matter that
you have palms, while I have cypress
or if your sand is powdery to my pebbly
I don’t mind if the big one comes
and I drop off into the Pacific cold
because I hear there’s a volcano
erupting near your hotel
and your feet should be encased in hot lava
as I write this


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[Cap'n Blackett]

I wrote this one after trusting some folks I shouldn't have and not trusting the ones I should have. I'll get it right some day. This is staying in the book.

Goose

I haven’t got the sense god gave a goose
I haven’t got the grace god sent a seal
I haven’t got the salt god graced a mouse
I haven’t got the soul god set in soup
I’m fucked



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[Cap'n Blackett]

I meant to post this next one on my father's birthday last week, but work has been nuts. It is the only poem I've ever written about my father.


Did I Say He Never Did Anything For Me?

I remember one dinner soon after Mommy died
I couldn’t cook
not even decent spaghetti
not one unburnt strip of bacon
I made his tea and scotches so strong
he winced after every sip
and I stood in the kitchen
waiting for it to be over
the part when I was mommy, maid and cook

he must have known somehow, because
he walked through the sliding cedar doors
and put the soggy pasta into a frying pan
cracked two eggs over it
mashed and flipped
until heat denatured all the liquid
he used the blue spatula
to cut the mass into three even portions
and transfer them to slices of toast
he squirted ketchup and topped them
with their toast mates

my sister and I sat at the wooden table
with our diet cokes
I didn’t know what to do with my hands
he said I’ve never heard of eating this before<O</O
maybe we just invented a new sandwich
I forced myself to smile
</O
after I cleared the plates
-Tricia left most of hers
he got his can of Planter’s Salted Peanuts
and turned the TV on
Trish went straight to her room
like she had for weeks
I heard the lock turn
</O
I had to find out why the laundry powder
was clumping up on all our clothes
I had to iron a week’s worth of shirts for him
I had to get Tricia to cheerleading the next day
and somehow make my rehearsal
I had to start sleeping again the whole night through
I left him watching the A-Team
and noticed spots on the toilet as the bath water ran
</O
I kept my head under the hot water for a really long time
looked up at the wavering lights then closed my eyes
I let some of my air out in bubbles
I thought of our signs, mine Aquarius
imagined the ocean’s weight in that tub
Mommy was a Cancer
in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com /><st1:City w:st=Upton</st1:City>’s <ST1 /><st1:PlaceName w:st=Living</st1laceName> <st1laceType w:st=" /><st1:State w:st="on">Hawaii</st1:State></ST1 she took me wading at a volcanic rock beach
we screamed and hugged each other
when a crab ran across our feet
then we followed
watched it scramble down a hole
our fear gone in the act of discovery

just as I’d decided I could fit
any hole she’d ventured through
just as I’d seen how to follow
my father’s voice bellowed
over the filling sound of water in my ears
without thinking I let it pull me up to the air
I gasped to still be alive
he needed some tea
and wondered if we had any cake

I brought it to him wearing Mommy’s white terrycloth robe
my hair wrung in a towel above my head
and sat opposite him on the loveseat
I pretended to watch Miami Vice
until he went to bed
then I sat a long quiet time in the dark
and when his snores started
I could finally let pour


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[Cap'n Blackett]

This is one of my favourites I've ever written. I feel like I really found my voice here and I love where it ends up. I think I was back in one of Susan Browne's workshops when I wrote this. It was a gift. It came so quickly that it was hard to get it all down. Sometimes it's all you can do to just get out of the way when the muse decides to stop by and hang out for a while. That reminds me that I used to try to woo the muse to come visit--I am a dork.




discovery
to Richard Brautigan

if you were a time you’d be 4:37 a.m.
between sweat soaked sheets
and over ripe gardenias hung naked
in the moon breasted morning

if i were a time i’d be ripple on water
speaking myself in circumference
lipping quietly at the surface
disturbing your mirror
</O


if i were a direction i’d be due south
nimble lifting my wind chipped boots
over the iris equator while my pit black skirt
drug the panama canal all the way to antarctica</ST1

if you were a direction you’d be the foreign legion
the collector’s panoramic letterbox version
of conquest adventure and redemption
troops galloping across endless sand

</O

if you were a weekday you’d be thursday
in the jungle of tangled hair garlands
where glamorous she beasts rut and grunt
before splayed palm fronds and garnets

if i were a weekday i’d be pale green curtains
every window covered but with shear
encasing the house in amazon shade
that smells like new rain on soil


if i were a month i’d be january
every branch frost gripped but underneath
alive because molasses capillaries
promise a drifting course to the twigs

if you were a month you’d be India<ST1
jeweling fat fingers with rubies
quietly starving faithful while
cows luxuriate in the shade
</O


if you were a star you’d be the sun
exploding thousands of ways
growing vast the wings of dragonflies
oblivious to all you affect

if i were a star i’d be black satin straps
over the toes of a high stepping woman
in her closet for the thrill of purchase
and the rare nude except for me nights


if i were a color i’d be navy
as strips of ripples in the ocean
the same hue of the spinster’s dress
that sails her madly across the deck

if you were a color you’d be fish refinery
unhappy men can’t remove the smell at night
their wives buy soaps perfume and incense
which don’t work but they lay together anyway
</O


if you were a flower, baby, you’d be honeysuckle
driving the bees wild with pollen jazz
so they buzz you drunkenly and stagger home
to dream of drowning in a petal cup

if i were a flower i’d be a five year old cowgirl
wearing my fringed vest and holsters
leading my baby sister to shoot caps over the fence
of the boys next door twirling my guns and cussing


Please note this is copyrighted material and may not be duplicated in any manner without prior written consent from me.<O</O

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

This post wasn't working. Something wrong with the fonts. I'll try again later.<O

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

Boogie bat

 

[Cap'n Blackett]

<CENTER>The Fox and the Grapes

<TABLE cellPadding=10 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=300><CENTER>

</CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD width=300>One afternoon a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he.

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=300><CENTER>

</CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD width=300><CENTER>Taking a few steps back, the fox jumped and just missed the hanging grapes. Again the fox took a few paces back and tried to reach them but still failed. </CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD width=300>

</TD></TR><TR><TD width=300>Finally, giving up, the fox turned up his nose and said, "They're probably sour anyway," and proceeded to walk away. </TD></TR><TR><TD width=300><CENTER>

</CENTER></TD></TR><TR><TD width=300>It's easy to despise what you cannot have. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></CENTER>