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 July the 27th @ 09:27pm
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What Do Women Want?
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
-Kim Addonizio
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July the 27th @ 09:26pm
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anyone lived in a pretty how town
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did.
Women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed (but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then) they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men (both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
-- e e cummings
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July the 27th @ 09:21pm
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Words For It
I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead
I would wrap words on your wrists.
"There, there," my words would say--
Or something better.
I would ask them to murmur,
"Hush" and "Shhh, shhh, it's all right."
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and soothe and cool
Where fever blisters and burns
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.
--Julia Cameron
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July the 27th @ 09:05pm
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Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
--William Shakespeare
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July the 27th @ 09:05pm
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The Literary Tree
Poets tease out
intimate details of language
The Literary tree arranges
a haiku of petals.
Sleep deprived authors
shut out the sun
The Literary Tree plays
shadow puppets behind the blinds.
Dark tea
cools in Pyrex mugs
The Literary Tree
taps against the window.
Words leave
indentations in the air
The Literary Tree
turns over new leaves.
--Fionaigh McKenzie
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July the 27th @ 09:04pm
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Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
--Langston Hughes
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July the 27th @ 09:00pm
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Nicholas Cricket
Nicholas Cricket plays every night
in the Bug-a-Wug Cricket Band.
Moonlight glows and summer wind blows,
rabbits come dancing on tip-tippy toes.
The music is just so grand!
Nicholas Cricket plays with all his might
in the Bug-a-Wug Cricket Band.
Little Lake shines and Little Stream winds,
peep-peep-peepers come dancing through the vines.
The music is just so grand!
Nicholas Cricket is a banjo picker
in the Bug-a-Wug Cricket Band.
Crickets play fiddles and guitars with middles
curvy and round as a rantum riddle
and ducks come dancing
ducky-hey-ducky-diddle.
The music is just so grand!
In the blue blue night
when the moon is bright
underneath the leaves of summer
if we're quiet and quick
we can find Cricket Nick
and the washboard strummers
and the slap-a-spoon drummers
and the crick-crick-crickety kazoo hummers.
We can dance all night
'til the rosy dawn comes.
The music is just so grand!
Ladybugs strut and toads sashay,
moths and mantises wing their way,
snap-turtles swing and grasshoppers sway
while Nick and the crickets
just
play
and
play.
The music is just so grand!
All the Bug-a-Wugs grow sleepy and still
and go back with the moonlight under the hill.
Back to the trees the peepers pop,
back to the hollow the rabbits hop,
back to the willows the weary ducks waddle
and back to our beds our tired legs toddle
to dream as Little Stream
winds
its way
into tomorrow.
The music was just so grand!
The music was just so grand!
The music was
just
so
grand!
-- Joyce Maxner
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| A Good Year Down |
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July the 27th @ 08:43pm
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A Good Year Down
New York will not accept me at this weight &
Mothers of the disappeared don’t come ‘round
Here anymore. I said you’re housekeeping aren’t you
With Lipton tea stains & the Establishment
Seriously attracted. He said: No
I’m turning down the beds. Now it’s my turn
In bed with a beautiful American rage
Like brunettes with night sweats. My love
Semiprecious & stoned
In the shoulder season we hold on
Though I am dismal & have no dope
Siphoned off behind pink Easter
I fake an optimism
Just to breathe—Just thinking of him for once &
The Wandering Jew that ate my sunshine
But I know flowers like Zorro was my dad
Those garlands of thin hissing lasers
So with the “sexy isotherms
Of semiotics” we meet again at the Kiev
To check chemistry. They bring the lights
Down on those cherry pies & like cryogenics
It sorta works. This time my love
The salt doll of night egging us on
Straight to the zeppelin mooring
With she-has-a-bit-of-the-neardamned-in-her-
Like-when-a-cloud-dies construed as
Well, all right, I’ve seen worse.
--by Jeni Olin
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