Your Philosophy
movie plot as object
lesson
boys find valuable
object
boys lose valuable
object
boys fight to get valuable
object back
I am woman born
no source of father's
pride
too early in my days,
they
track my aroma
I know not to hide
use me in some back
room
until my womb rises with a new
slave
for their
diversions
I am sacred mother
tit tied to feeding, always
feeding
(agonized bleeding in secret
shame)
No more than a tether, a trough,
and
tantalizer of the profane. I am
a wrecked
train, a vehicle left to rust,
blamed for
slatternly
stagnation,
never quite thrown
away.
Reject me; reject hard
truths,
long trod on diamonds, golden
geese brought
to slaughter.
Obscured like icebergs,
amphibious myths
kept subdued,
symbolic
work songs, prophetic
exaltation,
labyrinthine
gardens,
we who are only dreams in your
philosophy.
You may well be
better
stuck, your own
wheel of clay.
My lesson, when I am
ready,
is to leave you to your
way;
cleave to ecstasy
loose, fanciful,
subjective,
heroic.
Athena's Gift
Athena fair
stalwart daughter of
Zeus
graces her time and
place
with divine
knowledge.
Today unlined face,
silken hair,
robust yet fragile
form
are proclaimed as the
graces
of womanhood.
Athena, lost in the
pantheon,
whispers to the
nightears
of her faithful,
saying: "True woman's
mind
inclines to wisdom."
But Daddy's girl
wants more recompense
for loneliness.
Here at the bar again
Here at the bar again, bar nothing to
me.
Deepest Scorpio, gusts tinged
icy.
Onward toward Chumley's 2 pm Village poetry
reading.
Searching outside book stall for bargains,
found a Paul Goodman
with cat and dog and baby
photographs
to give to Cindy
a gift of love for a fragile
child
stranger/sister.
Still affright from last night's heavy
scene,
wherein the police took my man away
again,
this time with my blessing and
accomplicement.
. . . A man is a hard thing.
Also a drag on my developmental
aspirations.
When all he does is loom and
threaten
Big Brute Violence
to storm my sensibilities.
(What's frustrating is he doesn't hear me
plead for shelter.)
Laughing in the park we loved
Crying in the night we parted
Oh, beseech I, gods above:
Why must you leave me
broken-hearted?
(and I know he'll be returning with more
disregards
and diatribes and possibly pistol drawn to
fire)
So I sit here in the bar,
again.
Drinking sweet Kahlua and awaiting the
poetry.
Taking a respite, you see.
Oh, Goddess, for this while,
bar nothing to this troubled
child
(for child I feel, though woman
grown).
Let peace alone assail me.
Pink and Blue
(and red all over)
Fist shakes from rage
channeled, coursing,
flailing bloodlines.
Caught, snarled,
stagnant dying ocean
willing to be taken
down
from fear to violence.
Call wild arms,
breast, sinew, shame.
Chemistry surges,
overplays.
One mortal coup de
grace
burst sword to heart
that never lived
beyond desire.
If man is fire,
dissolved
into greater waves,
why does Woman weep?
Why does not the flood
of pain absolve and
succor? Why should
fate
deny blessings of
mortal
release in wash of
blood
to lady fair,
snakes and thistles to braid her
hair,
expose her tortured
face?
Eyes that kill in
silence,
stone lips, wrinkled
nose,
washed out in times of
stoic denial. Why
must
she kneel, vile,
victim
of violence, not its
cause?
Who makes these laws
of
natural selection?
Who takes the stone?
Who takes the stone's
projection?
cubicle woman
The moments slither by if you
forget they're there.
Sucking in sweetness,
hot sugared coffee, aroma of
memory.
It might be a sluggish, clammy
descent of summer afternoon. Hints
of autumn
like blackberry spicing the
air.
The people here are decent.
They smile to make conversation a
pleasant bit of business.
They want me to feel safe,
subdued.
It doesn't matter that we are
never more than strangers,
passing faces, complaisant.
They bring me coffee with sugar
and plastic sticks for stirring.
In this moment all of the world
turns so skillfully
I move along without pause for
acknowledgement,
stealthily aware.
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