USA

jbuck22874@aol.com 

I Dance With Art

I dance with art--
ice pick in a perfect cube.
Cower to street talk
poets all wanting
some piece of themselves
eaten asexually,
but eaten 
neverthelessforloneliness.

I chase some spin
I can't control.
Pirate of the deepest deep.
Art drops me--
ice cream blob
too near the sun
that follows it.

When triumph hits
a cyber fan,
our sins exposed
as underwear
we ought to have changed
before we were caught,
you see me as a weasel
in a fairy tale.

Unpopular at cocktail
party fuzzy time.
I make missives
of our messes.
Pull celery strings
from their stalks,
cram them in some recipe
I think might
change a frozen globe.

The Tree House

A trinity of almost there
in terms of macho,
other isms brewing
in their itching shorts.
Three little boys
dance flashlight rays
off wooden ceilings,
brewing tea of manliness.
Discussing sex
and women's nipples,
seeing them in everything.
Pubic hair not pulled by lies.
Delilah dahlias growing 
in their swelling breasts.

Too young to hear
the deep throat owl.
Ears are deaf
to warning blast.
The secret box
they pass around
has diaphragms,
pictures of a naked girl.
Not yet drenched
by thunderstorms
or cherry trees
confined to seed.

Not yet weeping
at their fates
or slipping on 
slick stage of love.
Moons are spinning dimes
to trade.
Inside stirrings
own the dawn.
Fortune drops
are chocolate milk.
Each breath they take--
a new tattoo.

The Tattered Bible

I watch my mother's hollow sockets
spitting back the pills she takes.
Mist won't rise and Father plays
heart deaf, following disease
like a sheep herder collecting
mindless fluff in front of him.
We plan to walk, but she can't stand.
Her legs are whittled poplar trees;
issues packed inside her purse
are everything but popular.
She staggers in the merging fog
as if she sees a lighthouse there,
but cannot ride the rocking waves.
I'm snagged again by judgment mode,
hate myself for seats I take.
Wondering if my inner hollow
stems from wanting a glass of wine
or just her daisies out of reach.

We waddle to the family party.
Hair like hats is slipping off
and no one can admit 
the eagles of our dreams have turned 
to rotted eggs in cushioned cracks.
A tattered bible sits beside me
on a bar stool, no less.
A cosmic joke our world won't get.
Its leather seems like saddle bags
across a wounded, limping horse.
Black and greasy, notes in margins,
underlines, exclamations everywhere.
Photos of two charming children
pasted on the jacket's mouth.
Its poignant cue of course ignored.
Our fingers fold the bottle's shape.
Beer caps strung like rosaries,
except the string is missingness.
A legacy of lethargy
where gravity of loss laments.

Tight Sleeves

When mother died and we were kids,
chalky drafts of loneliness
settled on piano keys.
How did you weather inches of dust, 
fuzz balls on her mohair sweaters
turning everything to wool?
Someone, something rattled you,
whispered in your inner ear
infected with thick cells of grief:
"Tuck her veil and ivory dress
in closets for a future joy."
For men who dodge emotion’s flood
like roaches run from probing light,
like people slam the creaking door
on church groups pawning bible spreads,
you made a reach that silky day
in manners of a sleeping monarch 
stepping out of cold cocoons.

My sister wore it down the aisle.
Sleeves as tight as rubber gloves
or leather sheaths that hold a knife.
Drapes around an hour glass
with edges sharpened razor blades.
That sight in white just had to be
a dropping bomb, shrapnel
same as unpopped corn
in paper bags that don't inflate.
Potatoes wrapped in crazy foil
exploding in some microwave.
Searing mirrors of reminisce
tearing out a wounded heart,
relinquishing its arteries.

I can't imagine how you walked
the rocky aisle of mourning bricks,
slipped her arm in slots of yours,
toted memories of a casket
sliding in an open grave.
Held her packed bouquet of roses,
kissed her softly on the cheek,
handed such exquisite dreams
to eager lips, another man.
Her train was longer than the Nile,
wider than the Amazon.
Continents of satin flesh,
drum skin smooth without a stick.
All those ghosts in cobweb smiles--
you had strength enough to vault
a selfish urge to covet them.
Fit as perfect as a tear
hugging socket as it leaves.

© All Copyright, 2000, Janet I. Buck.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.