pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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POETRY POSTING 3

Here's a poem I wrote back when I lived n DC. Another personal one. I like the sexy beat of it, with its interwoven violence and musical lines. This one was also published in an earlier form. I don't miss trying to sleep beside a loud laundromat, and suppose the drug dealers don't even use corner phones anymore.

THE WILL TO CRY/TO DANCE

for Tree

Tonight sirens along the window bars
in corners of my room
I wouldn't say I'm used to it
wouldn't say adjusted to the sound
of another bottle breaking on the wall

Over your shoulder by you by me
peach light on painted brick
juts from all sides
the spinning dryers hum corner phones
hum dealers into echoes far away

I sing Where is the darkness
in this town Where are the stars
at night Why is it dark here
but never dark Where are the stars
at night? but

I wouldn't say I slept there
wouldn't say the crickets gave it peace

I thought I knew I'd die there
thought Jesus on the cross
would come down as All-Father
through the screen
and kill me
while my sisters lay there sleeping

White neon cross a block away
sucking up the darkness
lace curtains blocked the trailers
faded clothes hung out to dry

Was said to dance is sin
so I held stiff
old rugged cross held stiff
in patent leather

stiffened
play piano turn the pages
play the notes
the choir sings out the words
just play along

That first night
when we knew our bodies fit
knew beyond our knowing
what was there
we held on
till our fear of knowledge waned
then danced around it

I thought I'd die before I left there
thought that I could take it
gripped the bench
pushed pedal down to floor
and played the written lines
but held the end

Held
against the walls
above the floor
choking
would not cry
would not could not would not
and I'd be safe
I'd win control
not feel

be stiff
be stiffened
be

Outside

six shots fast tires
I look you say Just Stay Here
but there's young blood on the street

Cigarettes on porches
dance like sirens
dance in rows
dance in time above
the wrought iron rails

Somehow
tonight we fit
form a bass clef sign
on my old mattress
I cry into your hair
know more than sleeping

I wouldn't say I slept t/here
wouldn't say a place is anything
just blood that dries on rusted panes
opened open opening
to drop away
small drop by drop
to dance in altered time

to dance is sin

Tonight
we dance to sirens

© 2001

•

Well, anyone who knows me knows that I took that as a challenge. Plus, if you've ever noticed my planisphere watch, then you know how much I love the moon and it's nearby twinkling stars.

ALMOST MOONLIGHT
for Tree

I want to compare you to the moon
but it's been done
and clichés are so commonplace
that we overlook them—

not like the moon
which waxes and wanes
and is different every night.

I should be exact though
say it's me.
It's always different to me.

A shift in angle
a streetlight
some cloud
and it's new again—
something else I've known
but never know.

Here in my room
with the blue sheet across us
I don't even look to feel you here.
Your leg's across my thigh
in easy sleep
and the moment stops its motion
stops to sit.

Then I believe this shining
hold to something fragile I can't see

that goes beyond your breasts
gone soft in sleep
your measured breathing
filling in the dark.

But there's the morning looming—
all your stops.
The seas of gaps between us that remain

and that damn moon again
showing half her face
but hiding half.
The constant line between them
that holds firm.

I am stubborn, too
know I could cross it—
spread my body like a blanket on her face—
could bridge that line.

Here in the moonlight
I nearly believe
but responses turn an orbit all their own

and even the moonlight
can't bring you to trust
my lower body melting
brain enduring cold.

© 2001

I wrote a blog entry about the next poem a while back. The lunch counter reference is a late addition and clunky, but I haven't come up with a better alternative yet. I added it after an editor rejected the poem with an admonition that, you know, being a stupid southern hick and all, I probably wouldn't know this, but polite people don't use the word nigger any more. Jebus Fucking H. Christ On a Biscuit did she miss my point.

This one isn't finished yet—the music is still not right—but it's been published in an earlier and worse form too.

Oh well.

DRIVING THROUGH THE SOUTH

Today
o lord my god
I feel you blind me
slap me from on high
in technicolor
as I in awesome wonder

consider all these signs of yours
these worlds thy fists have made

In sagging towns along the way
I see your rugged cross
fading on the church signs
across from ammo store

Three rock stars now
three rock stars then
the reason for the season
with a burning cross
and a burning bush
and pimento cheese
and a plastic nativity scene

Oh lord
I hear your rolling thunder
rolling down the aisles
of every dusty Woolworth store
and misbegotten lunch counter

Thy power throughout
this universe displayed
as open spaces
pull me home
hold on like a song
I learned in school

Then sings my soul
a tailgate salesman
has strung you up
above cheap Elvis lamps

he says you're rare
on special three-for-one
for one day only

I mostly sell to niggers he says—
You want a Coke?

Thirty miles down Highway 19
someone's shot the V
out of the Jesus Lives sign
and the shriners need me
to help a child to see

My savior? God? To thee
donations can be sent
care of the First Baptist Church

and they're tax deductible

How truly great thou art
I reckon
Lord

because the fields are flush
and the cotton's still high
while I am lost again

just as I am
just as I am
just as I ever am

still crinkling my gum wrapper loudly
still trying to escape
how great thou art.

© 1998

12:15 p.m. - 2005-05-09

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