The Artist’s Opening

“it is amazing how many people
volunteer to pose for my brush
but why bother ?
my own body is right here
always moves the way I want it to move
holds it’s hand up so like this
and we tire together,  hand and my body
and we understand this beauty
alone ours digging to the light
with brush strokes”

acrylic bees buzz around her head
she pinches a single honey maker between her fingers
and tells me
“it is a political statement”
and of course!
it must be

maps and compass points retrace her path
cover  breasts
heiress of the islands
feet bare to the wind
legs bare to the wind
the sign around her neck says
out will return

Ceramic Cat

First he turns his fears into a team of white sharks
and then he turns the sharks into snow.
Oh poet, fair poet, wherefor art thy metaphor?
Does it hide in the plastic garden beside the cat who plays the cello?

tonight my fear is a ceramic cat
he plays the cello on the widow’s shelf
if we screech down the scale it is by accident
among the scratched random chord and low vibe bass line
that hums me into calm sea
deep, my fear is white sharks
snapping at the cat on deck
praises be, she will never dive!
fiddle dee dee
shark, cats and me
pop in three more amino acid pressed powder pills
washed down with a capsule of fish oil
ah my fear slips through the glycerine sea
yes, yes
my fear
turns to snow on the ocean

500 word bio

understand: this poet
likes to write about herself
in case you were not impressed
with the witty-feministic-twisted
hollow doll referenced poem
perhaps you might like to see her photo?
here in Paris
in black
or one from when she was 23
straight from the march down dc
I have written a hundred books
since then
“I have a dream someday”
someone will want to make love
to my voluptuous bio
pay for pages
rape me as I doth protest
too
much

Medicine Woman

She tells me my people are not well then she
tells me I cannot buy her healing powers, that they
must be given. She tells me I am cursed. That we
are all murderers. That we do not understand how
to live from the land and assumes we never have but
she is wrong. She does not know me. She does not know
how we to were pulled away too quickly and with a violent hand
that shook the soil of native land from our roots
leaving us starved for the nutrients of the earth of our
forefathers. I want to tell her, woman, you are not so different.
My grandmothers too knew which plants would
heal, which would feed, my grandfather’s too prayed over
their kill with soft blessings and used every ounce
of their hunt and harvest. They too gathered with music
of their hands and voices with ancient chanting I hear
but cannot recreate. Yes, we too have lost our way.

Woman, I know how to teach my son to be kind and generous. I know
how to help him see the beauty and importance in the differences
within humankind. I know how to teach him to listen to the still small voice.
I know how to teach him a gentle touch. But I do not know
how to teach him how to be a white man. How to understand
why people will always see him as a master of slaves,
killer of native peoples, represser of women. I do not know how
to teach him to love himself in spite but not because of his skin,
his gender. How to help him understand why we still wear the sins
of the past and never allow them to be made again. Tell me,
wise woman, tell me how to walk in these shoes because I see,
I see you are wearing them too.

You dominate my thoughts

somehow we let Milan Kundera’s
lightness of being float off
as heaviness of reality
pulled lip corners low
we catch stars
only on the way down
down
down burned
into dust in the sky
can we believe his words

once

is

nonce

and pretend this never happened?
you have Ayn Rand on your side
I have Anais Nin on mine
did she give you permission
some kind of intellectualized reason
to snap me into non-existence
erase me, the one who no longer followed suit
in your pursuit of happiness

last I heard you were in an accident
and I wonder if your life tripped
through an accelerated slideshow
and could you reduce me into a
a single screen capture?

you answered with silence

and then more silence

leaving me to invent myself as in your dream
and wakeful memory until all goes black
except me and Anais and our colored notebooks
reporting and revising your fingertips
that strung down my ribs as you asked
“Fernie, when when are you going to open up to me?”
trying with half a heart to untie corset laces pulled tight
tight into forced breath

my scene: you in the white towel
our scents fresh erased
I watch from the bedroom
you forget to put on that famous smile
your face, fallen, sullen, shows your age
as you tuck in the remnants of the evening
and wonder how it moved so fast
you, already in tomorrow without me

and Anais tells me
no! don’t fret so! this is not our Henry
we were ready to let him go
don’t you remember?

we cannot fold back into days of dominated thoughts
gobbling down each other’s words and fingers for breakfast
I didn’t think you would figure us out so quickly
and I do not suppose
it would be within your philosophy
to call goodbye
down from that straight and narrow path you walk
as you train for perfection
without a moment free to
kick down a sharp rock
break my circle
give me my laces back

I do not remember calling for you

but you heard me anyway, come
come meet me in the vacant lot down
down down where paper flowers
hang, sun-faded in latched windows
their insides facing, blue

working the room like royalty

something about crowns
and jewels
and the ease with which you place them
into our metal fingered settings

we touch hems
catch moondogs
we sway on heel spikes
wait our turn

this artist, empty plates

she swallowed Wallace Stevens
but could only cough up seven blackbirds

pie or no pie
we still count gold
teased with honey
pull feathers for the tar baby decoy
she said she said she said
this will only hurt
if you can feel it

cabin 2
secret get-away
for those like us
who need to get a
way to forget

dearest Three, I am sorry
but Two cannot come to the phone
please try again later

she paints four boat tail grackles
they strut by, eye us up
looking for the one who is going to pay:
he is she is they are
always the next in line
for the crown

our five year old reveals:
the legend of how crow got her rainbow feathers
is actually the legend
of how she lost them

VI.
because you are a perfect number
I will give you this verse properly labeled

you who divides by two or three
with equal ease
what is better
than a table
set for six?

seven, seven
seventy-seven
your extra syllables
tripped up our elementary rhythms
like January and February
like the step you missed
at the bottom of the landing
expecting something more

Yarn Puppet

The saleswoman shows me where
the clear fishing wire
comes unattached here
and here for when the lines become tangled.

Funny, I have been pulling our wires
for years, unable to find a loose end.
I do not even remember how we started
but I do remember the shirt I bought
when we first met. The black clingy one
with a silver ring at the neck.
In the dressing room
I felt sexy again
as I slid my hands
down my waist as if they were yours,
over my hips, up across my breasts.

We promised: no edges,
let the weeds grow
over the walk. We promised:
no ties or knots. No wonder
I have yet to be able to weave our story.
Unpackaged, without instructions,
without a marketing plot, no tangle free dancing,
some kind of endless braid.

into wind

It was a matter of having to pee somewhere
so I cut up the logger’s trail
hold onto the red bud trunk
squat and piss there among the deer turds.

Of course I should have known I would not find you
along the paved trail. You told me two years ago
“Follow the deer path“
but I have always been slow to learn
fast to forget. I find your jawbone
teeth intact sun bleach white
where their feet step
over their own dead’s split
ribs with vertebrae on the north side
ball and socket joint to the south
the lower jaw in my bag.

A bird that looks like
our chickadee but smaller
and with a longer call cries
to me from the Live Oak. I
pretend it is you but it is just a bird.
I look for you as dragon fly and high root stair
and wonder how it came to this?
Looking for you in these stupid bird and bone songs
when I used to find you in my panties
adult store shelves, you would be disappointed
in these stories of moths sucking mud,
how here wildflowers still bloom in November
an what about the time you almost made me come
with nipples and a wish alone?

Your sugar deep cut and crystal
scratch cap nightmare grabbing my thigh
up over and god your homemade tie backs
catching the bloodflow yes
yes you scold you scold me down down
to where the river splits, say

Baby don’t you remember you used to ask my permission
to invite men into your fantasies
how you used to dress them in my barn coat,
red shirt, high string hiking boots
just to warm you up enough to even think about fucking
someone else still it was always me there admit it
how you posed them up in my language can you hear
that rhythm of my voice?
Can you move to my sounds
in anticipation god the anticipation
of the prayers do you still
respond to my suggestion or is it just tear
shallow sentiment that follow the two deer
as they leap across the path in front of you
crash through your laughter as you think
of the piss how I must have caught
the scent and
found you with blood rushed headward
dizzy
standing too fast
bare ass in the breeze
nature girl trying to zen me back home?
Damn it baby you know where I live bare back
cave painting palms pressed into the moss next time baby
keep the jeans at your ankles let the wind bring you here
where you left me cock in hand wondering where the hell
you were last night.