HIGH THEATRE
IN THE CEMETERY
SUNDAYS
PREMENSTRUAL TENSION
LITTLE GIRL AT SIX
OTHER SUMMERS
ARE YOU MY ANGEL
OLD FISH
LOVE NOTES
APOLOGY
ROCCO’S
WE TWO FORM A MULTITUDE
A POEM TO THE AUSTIN WOMEN
QUI EST-CE QUI EST UNE SURREALISTE
SCREAMS FROM UNDER THE HEAP
A RECORDED CONVERSATION
YOUR PHONE RINGS
MY GOODY MAN
THE PAINTING
OLD PAINTINGS
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
NIGHT VISION
CARRYING WOOD
Poem to the third tableau
BLOOD SYMBOL
THE READING
THE HERMIT
A POEM TO MY EX-HUSBAND’S GIRLFRIEND ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE
POTLUCK
TO THE SISTERS
70spoems/theatre
HIGH THEATRE
And you in black tails,
high theatre.
Wolves howl across your chest.
On flower-strewn carpets
of pretended lives
we separate to come together,
high theatre
a grand dance,
across flowers
we howl.
6/5/76
76poems/cemetery
IN THE CEMETERY
In the cemetery
at Gospel Flat
we talked about
death.
I explained
how people became
part of the earth
again and helped
the flowers grow.
Sitting on Maria
Giovanni’s grave
with plastic
bouquets.
70spoems/sundays
SUNDAYS
On Sundays
black-clothed,
flabby-cheeked
old men in
church offices
beseeched
last kisses
from would-be
visionaries
I began my
long lesson
in frigidity
and disbelief.
70spoems/pms
PREMENSTRUAL TENSION
This hard brown earth
full of cracks,
wide to swallow up men
wait for the relief of rain.
The madness of summer
eats in around us,
yesterday’s watermelon
a memory,
mosquitoes more real,
wait for rain.
70spoems/chorus
LITTLE GIRL AT SIX
Little girl at six
in cypress green velvet
leggings protect me from the cold,
muffs and matching purses
hats the size of my head
daffodil dotted swiss with bustles,
little girl at six
believes her voice is a chorus.
70spoems/othersummers
OTHER SUMMERS
i Austinville 1950
Belly blackened
from tire swings,
summer was
osh kosh easy.
In steaming kitchens
women wiped brows
over jelly cauldrons.
Ginny hung clothes
and listened to
white children prattle.
Grandpa bought
bushel baskets
of peaches.
And I spent time
hiding out from
the cistern,
the storm cellar
and the dark
stairwell.
ii Arizona 1961
In Arizona
summer nights
are like toast.
On parents’ patios
we learned about
love.
I was standing
at the clothesline
when they told me
Mama was dying.
iii Contempo West 1964
Emma Lou
got knocked up
I dropped
philosophy
lived on
cantaloupe
and watermelon.
Across New Mexico,
fat Indians
chased us.
iv Carmel 1966
Bryn ran away,
hiding out in Big Sur
with older men.
I hung out with
her brother
in her bedroom
listening to
electronic music
and Leadbelly.
70spoems/angel
ARE YOU MY ANGEL
Are you my angel,
death? Come through
garden gate, tangled trees
in rain hat and navy trench coat,
Garcia’s head in shopping cart.
Are you my angel,
love? The moth against
night windows, your hand
bashing against my soul.
70spoems/oldfish
OLD FISH
Little baby
on a bus bench,
swaddled in
the Los Angeles Times
in mid-winter,
passersby see
old fish.
70spoems/lovenotes
LOVE NOTES
The honeymoon over
the laundry is piling up,
the garbage is beginning to smell
and lately you re-use
the same old love notes
over and over again.
70spoems/apology
APOLOGY
In this situation we have created,
this utterly stifling,
pretentious independence,
I apologize for problems,
for crying, for being less
organized and directed,
for gray hairs, ratty beach blankets,
over-drawn checking accounts,
my children, my feelings,
in short, for not being
Annette Funicello.
70spoems/roccos
ROCCO’S
At the Italian vegetarian pizzeria
the young first-timers, paired
in perfect moth-tone gray,
see only each other. Do not
catch the sunlight streamed
through blood-drenched windows,
do not see the body slumped
beneath the bushes,
nor smell its stench.
70spoems/wetwo
WE TWO FORM A MULTITUDE
for Jana
You are the strongest
person I know. My most
devoted friend. I respect
your opinions. I like your
mind. Your grace and movement
an aesthetic high. Your
yet unseen vision my deepest
inspiration for man. And that
day when I cried in front of
the 7-11 you took my hand,
I said I was glad to have
a friend. You said I always
did and always would. For
the first time I understood
the photo caption, “We two
form a multitude.”
70spoems/austinwomen
A POEM TO THE AUSTIN WOMEN
Elizabeth Story old bonneted
Christian saint accepting
God’s will and everyone’s
limitations. A husband
drinking Hadacol brandy-filled
bottles in dark stair wells
and boarders who kill.
Silent martyr gone to soap
kettles, heavy-hearted
aberration of hard times.
Victorian Christian ethics
demanding black stockings
of saucy daughters
come up stronger than you.
Alice Austin proud stoic
holding back your self,
spice hidden beneath potatoes.
I’ve seen photos of your
youth. Heard stories
they used to tell. Know
you had fits at your man
and always got your way.
This confusion you bred
by tongue held silent
behind body fist determination,
when the Women’s Society of
Christian Service became
too much you got sick
and died. Leaving
behind saucy daughters
come up stronger than you.
Sarai Austin play out inherited
little girl confusion. Breed
even more deception. I know
stories you could tell
of witch legends passed
on at soap kettles and
chants to use when Christian
rites fail. Genetic vision
of women long silent
behind men and secrets
handed down woman to woman
in dream image. In fear
of your own power
play suburban mother
to saucy daughters
come up stronger than you.
70spoems/surreal
QUI EST-CE QUI EST UNE SURREALISTE
The imagistic mind
meets the surrealist
with a good strong
value system, a sense
of right and wrong
and usually the
appropriate.
The howling mad
bleeding head bedangled
images put on social
disguise of ripe fruit
and plaid aprons.
Speak with quiet
firmness on the
juxtaposition of
circles triangles
fissures cracks
and different cosmic
realities.
The wild-eyed mad
surrealist becomes
realistic to
encounter the
surreal.
70spoems/screams
SCREAMS FROM UNDER THE HEAP
Four thousand miles a year
around the block. At three
eighteen we roast marshmallows.
pick up friends who need rides.
Holding together in sand piles
of children and dull friends,
suburban mother strangled to death
by broken shoestrings and smothered
under mounds of holy tennis shoes.
Buy everything.
Nothing comes without its price
and inflation drives up
the cost of even shoestrings.
That sphere where you tighten
eyelets is my head, pared
like an orange, peeled and
sectioned.
Pared, peeled and sectioned,
fallen through stacks of dirty
laundry, picking up pieces,
always missing some part,
the sky fallen down to
the dirt and grass growing
out of the buildings.
70spoems/recorded
A RECORDED CONVERSATION
A recorded conversation
became a poem
I said I love you
you worried about my mad
and gave your speech
on surrealism, but then
it didn’t really matter
it was only a poem
a recorded conversation.
70spoems/phonerings
YOUR PHONE RINGS
Your phone rings
and I grow angry,
you in the presence
of someone else,
the smell of your sweat
still strong like today,
your phone rings
and I place daggers
in your covers,
wish impotence upon
you and numb for myself,
your phone rings,
your phone rings
your phone rings.
70spoems/goodyman
MY GOODY MAN
My goody man
brought love
and Tiparillos
between fake heads
to fit my begging hat
and rent checks.
My goody man
brought old suspenders
and used tee shirts
and love
between rehearsals
and rent checks.
70spoems/painting
THE PAINTING
The head
full
of perfect circles
no blood
the shell cracked
no egg
the butterfly
golden
no transit.
My insanity
showing
begging patience
my lover
I wrap another
cloth
white
about my head
and be very
very still.
70spoems/oldpaintings
OLD PAINTINGS
In her bureau
color photos
of old paintings
she takes them out
to paint them again,
remembers each line
every brush stroke
pattern and tone,
it is all mechanics
now,
experience held still
on canvas,
the vision gone
the inspiration trampled
the artist dead,
she paints old paintings
again and again.
70spoems/announce
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
We telegraphed Arlene
today
Daddy too
ex-husbands and Miss Lou
school bedfellows
old poets we knew
no wedding no baby showers
to attend
just I am madly in love
and joyfully happy.
70spoems/night
NIGHT VISION
Leap at air thought to be
black cat. Moon silk demon
shadows pierce night silk
gray shadows through
light. Night face fanged
gleaming enamel smile
night full sky face.
Hyperion mad. She witch
turns window ice
close curtain. Sleep on
his shoulder and drool.
70spoems/third
Poem to the third tableau
This black sea the artist’s
spleen. His mirrored image shattered.
Eyes closed to sun bright. I hold myself
whole to reflect whole self back to him.
Playwright poet political priest
man child lover,
this chalice my blood
flows free of slaughter,
rebirth without execution.
70spoems/kickers
KICKERS
a poem for Bob Cooper’s shoes
Your Kickers
toe to toe
talk to each other
on flower rugs
carry on
real conversations.
Your American hoot juice
touch irrevocable now
no French whore’s
bed dust will they
ever know.
Old kickers
home now
and feet almost healed
talkin’ toe talk
and wrinkle memory
recollection.
70spoems/symbol
BLOOD SYMBOL
This old obsession
with blood symbol
moon spilled woman
psyche drains into
city sewers and
soaks up cotton
cloth. Man poet
place woman in Jeffers
tower. Woman poet
scrub and cry
peer down toilet
and write of blood.
70spoems/reading
THE READING
And the reading said:
woman beware of your senses
be not controlled by
your emotions
the word
was perseverance
struggle
the sermon
they repeated
diligence
spiritual responsibility
toward mankind
humility
the first lesson for the great
service
the duty of the visionary
and that black velvet
lady with feather plumes
finger snappin’
strut
came easy
easin’ toward salvation
green eyes glinting
a strawberry on her lips.
70spoems/hermit
THE HERMIT
Hermit on cliff of empty air
night grown cold as silver,
monks garments shredded
by winds swept up
from the mouths of night witches.
Gray-bearded old visionary
blinded by lantern reflection
turned back on tight tough skin,
shaped by day winds up mountain.
Battered by night
fog-dimmed lantern slips
from bony gnarled fingers,
turns into she witch,
wild-eyed hair streaming Cassandra.
Lantern falling to pit,
hanging hanging,
watches bony bloody
finger by bony bleeding
finger as each nail breaks.
70spoems/girlfriend
A POEM TO MY EX-HUSBAND’S GIRLFRIEND ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE
Why, of course, we’re friends,
it’s only new age enlightened
civilized.
Certainly, he speaks highly
of me. I command his utmost
respect. Having destroyed
each other there is no longer
the need to war. This shark’s
tooth necklace, his fangs
pulled from my own young
flesh. His skin beneath my
nails, his hair flying
into my nostrils, my foot
bruised from kicking.
Why, of course, we’re friends,
having splintered
his male psyche like old wood
for the fire. Cat mad scratching
for self flings dog to cold
nights alone without a home
and only an old shin bone
saved to gnaw and cry.
Cat mad scratching to be self
gone mad alone.
He came back to be my friend.
70spoems/potluck
POTLUCK
Your bloody boring
friends robbed me tonight
of at least ten good
poems. I see my phrases
drowned in their spaghetti
pots. My imagery spread across
their French bread. My poetic
implications gulped down
their slimy tongues
my vision eaten at by
their gastric juices and landed
like bubble gum at the
bottom of their bowels.
70spoems/sisters
TO THE SISTERS
To the sisters
who have come
to cut this cloth,
to help patch these
velvet pieces,
to weave this hierophant’s
robe. This holy man’s
cloak for the
most mortal.
Put down your scissors.
I wear this Joseph’s
coat now. Put down your
pretty color pieces
of illusion,
of romantic deception
from self.
Sisters, my dearest,
beloved sisters,
gathered for this rite,
this most sacred ritual
of love. It isn’t
this artifact
makes me now
woman whole
without man.
It is the gathering
of my sisters
come to cut this cloth,
this eclectic vision
merged and strong
seamed. Symbol full,
love full of hands
touched on cloth
in unison of
woman rite.
To the sisters
who were there
when my own pieces
were unseamed pretty
illusion of self.
To the sisters
who have come
to cut this cloth
made me high priestess,
hierophant
in holy man’s robe,
I wear now
a celebration of you.
6/26/76