call for "i don't give a shit".

{random poetry #82}


[stay gone] 

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell by Marty McConnell



the system is not affected by the heartbleed
everything is ok, 
everything is going to be ok.

{random poetry #81}


[ Love Like Salt ]

It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies
in secret wine-skins

At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.

[ A long way from hell ]

Two-tone motels and unlit lover's lanes,
the usual drinks, the stale, expected lines,
standard persuasions of the lips and hands,
the motions of delight, and all the time
the laughter of some demon in his ears.
Something is wrong; he blames the hour, the place,
forgetting that he was love's whipping boy
when rose-point fans were used as barricades,
before an age of women whose legs show
and who will answer simply yes or no.

To the lost dreamers, kissing in the woods
of their own legend, miracles are not new;
but he, bedroom agnostic, cannot see
with the clairvoyance of the faithful, who
blow on the spirit with the body's breath
and by that doubtless summoning of light
make good their heat. Shy of the test by fire,
he haunts the outskirts of the wilderness,
where charms, unblesses, are futile; in his brains
the tired demon sighs, try try again.

[ Night song ]

Among rocks, I am the loose one,
among arrows, I am the heart,
among daughters, I am the recluse,
among sons, the one who dies young.

Among answers, I am the question,
between lovers, I am the sword,
among scars, I am the fresh wound,
among confetti, the black flag.

Among shoes, I am the one with the pebble,
among days, the one that never comes,
among the bones you find on the beach
the one that sings was mine.

Mueller, L.