Inconceivable

Circa 2000: another of the prompts where you use words given to you, and another of the prompts for which I've forgotten the words...

He can’t be deceptive:

she knows

his taste, touch, smell, sight,

and sound by heart;

she knows his heart by sound:

by pressing her ear

to the left side of his chest, listening

for the eruption.

She can’t be deceptive:

he can read her heart,

her mind, find and unwind

every word, every thought

until it completely unravels

her thread bare

and him ready

to erupt.

No, it’s not the sex:

sex is deceptive;

it promises eternity,

but eternity lies

in conception;

it lies

in the desire

to abstract only his sound

from her silence:

it lies

in the deception

about to

erupt.

The Comfort of Bleeding

Circa 2007. Self-explanatory.

Every twenty eight days,

belly bloated,   eyes red,

body soul exhausted

I confess my ritual wish

to my partner

With any luck,

I will start bleeding today

Every twenty eight days,

my partner nods, shakes

his head, eases me

into his arms, confesses

he still has trouble

getting used to the sound

of that

Solitaire

Too hard to put a date on this one. I started a version of it in 1993, the year my ex and I probably should have gotten divorced, and finally finished it in 2003, the year we actually got divorced. 

I sacrificed

twenty years

to be with you

At first I was captured

by the solitaire surrounding

my finger, sparkling so fiercely

I was blinded by the physical

beauty, blinded by

the promise I believed

it held

I thought we would become

One

And your love would fill

all the empty spaces

It hurt us both

when you realized

you didn’t want the life

I’d forfeited for you

when I realized

I wanted back the life

I’d surrendered to you

But after too many years of playing

solitaire in the dark ‘till 3 a.m.

then crying myself to sleep

I finally decided

to escape

the kind of solitary confinement

your love put me in

I was terrified:

I thought we would become one

Writer's Block

Circa 2000: I was trying for humor :-)

Under the desk,

still warm, hides

a mechanical pencil,

the point lost

inside the barrel, the

eraser rubbed flat.

Next to the desk,

still cold, spills

a stockpile of

crumpled white paper:

cannibalistic snowballs

eager to feed

on the next litter.

On the desk,

still ambivalent, rests

a single sheet of

lined white paper,

blue lines creating

row after row

of tiny, empty

shelves waiting

to be filled like Old

Mother Hubbard’s

cupboard.

“The children are hungry,”

cries the paper

to the pencil,

“But Mother is too poor

to feed them,” answer

the gluttonous snowballs,

mockingly.

Revelations

Circa 2002: The result of navel gazing, not a formal writing prompt.

One linguistics course

and one manic summer

later I discovered God

is Universal

Grammar and

I am

just one more

imperfect speaker,

uttering one more religion,

one more dialect, one more creole,

at home only in my own vernacular.

Returned to Sender

Circa 2001: I was asked to write a found poem. I supplemented instructions from a packing label.

No strapping tape allowed.

There is no standard 
conventionalacceptablenormal

Form    for this            content.

Inspect and ensure the shipping label is addressed properly.

Why               do we              try        to put _____ in            a

box?    Is there            only one                      variety of _____?

Why                are there          so         few      boxes

from    which to         choose?

Use bubble wrap or foam peanuts and secure properly to prevent damage or loss.

How much      will I    have to pay  to            deliver

this?     where has it                delivered

me?                             

Oh,      no,       did I    forget

to use the foam pea-

nuts?

My Child's Eyes

Circa 1999: I was asked to write a haiku.

Two brown suns rising
slowly above my kneecaps,
my waist, my own eyes

Fine Tuning

Circa 2005: I assigned a name acrostic poem exercise in a creative writing class I was teaching and had fun creating one of my own.

Just don’t call me Dee Dee— or beware the

Anger buried beneath layers of lace and laughter

Nearly purple but not too blue, my rainbow, an

Inch or two too short, heavy with candles,

Cosmetics, compound sentences, Coca-Cola with crushed ice and a straw

Easily too much chocolate, but never enough when

Cats escape and turn into tigers, questions escape and turn into

Avalanches. The answer, I discovered, decked out in

Renaissance-style Stevie-esque handkerchief hems and high-heeled boots:  

Everyone suffers—even Eric, my

Love, whose Tibetan singing bowl I covet. Some days he finds me

Lingering in the aisles in Barnes and Noble,

Ogling books instead of grading, imagining possibilities.

[Extinguishing] The Lamp on the Stand (Luke 8:16-18)

Circa 2001: the year of the mid-life crisis and bout of depression. Though I was only 31 at the time, and I plan to live past 62, so I suppose "life crisis" is more accurate than "mid-life crisis."

“No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed.”

You keep the anti-Christs

in your make-up case,

swallow eight pink pills

twice a day

as directed:

Take and eat. This is your body.

“Instead, [s]he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.”

You forage to find

the right shade of red

lipstick that will make flesh desirable

to flesh, to find the perfect flesh-

colored concealer to shade

the scars and blemishes.

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed

 that will not be known or brought out into the open.”

Prescriptions are spiritual

cosmetics: FDA approved faith

healers/ concealers/ stealers

pitching a sale

you can’t refuse.

“Therefore consider carefully how you listen.”

Listen carefully: the script

calls for cosmetic sponges,

but instead of applying

they’re trying to absorb

an insatiable desire.

“Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what [s]he thinks

[s]he has will be taken from [her].”

I had the light of God in me,

you said. Refuse the wine,

refuse the bread, they said:

This is the only communion

you need now:

A bit of Lithium, a dram of Amitryptiline,

and a pinch of Valproic acid too—

a custom pharmaceutical brew 

to conceal the witch in you— 

burned at the State,

if you don’t swallow

as directed:

Take and eat. This is your body. 

Engendered Pyrotechnics

Circa 2000: I have no memory of what inspired this poem, just a memory that one of my female profs avoided making any comment on it. 

His anger

like a wildfire

ignited

consumes

every convenient combustible contiguous object

violent flames

reach reach

resist yet invite

bodies to quench the rage

Her anger

like a fireplace

fueled

savors

every twig branch marshmallow

smoldering embers

linger linger

resist yet invite

fire irons to tend the flame

Their anger

like a firebug

growing

greedy feeding on

every firecracker firework, firing line

powerful pyrotechnics

play play

resist yet invite

rhetoric to raise the blaze

Cleaving

Circa 2000: In response to a writing prompt that challenged me to use the structure of a published poem to create my own poem. I used Etheridge Knight's "My Life the Quality of Which" as inspiration.

Two strangers

whose fervor

from their first

spoken syllables

created a desire

to marry two pasts

two presents

two futures

whose words have made them

ONE

cleave in Silence

but you have to listen for it 

Answer

Circa 1999: Based on an exchange I had with another student while I was working as a writing tutor at SUNY Brockport

 “Two kids,” I say

and you, unable to see

the wrinkles in my face,

suggest a poem about

dirty diapers.

“Nine and Twelve,” I say

and you, unable to see

my face in their faces,

require proof.

But I say nothing

Sestina for Sixteen

Circa 2000. Marks the beginning of the end of my obsession with Stevie Nicks

“I’ll follow you down till the sound of my voice will haunt you . . .

You are the sound of my voice . . .”  --Stevie Nicks

Come in out of the darkness,                                                                      

came the melodic invitation,

wrapped in ribbons and lace:

a raspy-voiced woman

dancing out of my radio

like a genie from a magic lamp.

Enraptured, I began rubbing the lamp,

surrounded by darkness, 

and responded to the radio,

I accept the invitation;

I wish to become a woman:

a woman like you, arranged in lace.

As if any measure of lace

could cast my rusty voice into a lamp,

make me that kind of woman,

illuminating darkness,

issuing invitations,

working magic through the radio.

               

There was no reply from the radio,

so I amplified the lace.

Repeat the invitation,

I cried, lacing into the dimming lamp,

but the voice became darkness.

Finally I recognized the woman.

She was searching for another woman

who would free her from the radio:

a woman unafraid of the darkness

unveiled when you lift the lace

from the face of a burning lamp–

I had misread the invitation.

It’s just a feeling, the invitation:

the kind a woman

can forge into a lamp,

a two-way radio

possessing magic that can unlace

a woman with darkness.

Undoing the laces, sings the woman

with the woman on the radio, inviting

the darkness that has become her lamp.

The Nymph’s Reply to the Writing Prompt

Circa 2008. I wrote this while participating in an online writing group I'd started with a few friends. 

“Imagine what advice one of your favorite deceased authors would offer you.”

The dead don’t speak

to me.

Sherrie channels May Sarton

and prompts me

to tune into my muse.

So I fiddle with my receiver,

battle the static.

For a moment I feel

like I am at Faith Lutheran again,

surrounded by the stained glass,

the thrumming organ.

I want to merge with the pastor’s words;

I want them to penetrate, to pierce my side.

Instead

I am at home writing

at midnight,

pilfering phrases from my friends

and adjectives from my husband, an atheist

who feels more real

to me

than Jesus.