Let Us Walk Out
I watch you
ursine one
under the covers
I want to feed you salmon
from my fingers
and pop berries
into your red mouth
Before the children wake
and before all is chaos
of fights and questions
let us walk out
over the moon-strewn
lamp-lit streets
Let us leave the city
on padded paws
go to where the sea girds the shore
Let us return to being fish
reject evolution's pull
Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 12/2009
The Bungler
You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.
Amy Lowell
The Taxi
When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
Amy Lowell
The Pike
In the brown water,
Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine,
Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds,
A pike dozed.
Lost among the shadows of stems
He lay unnoticed.
Suddenly he flicked his tail,
And a green-and-copper brightness
Ran under the water.
Out from under the reeds
Came the olive-green light,
And orange flashed up
Through the sun-thickened water.
So the fish passed across the pool,
Green and copper,
A darkness and a gleam,
And the blurred reflections of the willows on the
opposite bank
Received it.
Amy Lowell
Aubade
As I would free the white almond from the green husk
So would I strip your trappings off,
Beloved.
And fingering the smooth and polished kernel
I should see that in my hands glittered a gem beyond
counting.
Amy Lowell
Please visit www.harlotssauce.com, a really wonderful magazine, with a poem of mine and my first published photo! The magazine's main theme this month is life, god and the universe. I believe in God, or an "invisible friend." I have often struggled with this faith, forged in childhood. I need my God like I need a safety blanket. I carry God around with my everywhere. In my poem, I am exploring how I feel about God. Many good poems and articles in this issue of Harlot's Sauce, so please read and comment. I plan to do so.
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Catholic Girl
The supposed buoyancy of Jesus in water
Used to obsess me as a child
Was Mary unable to bathe her baby?
Once at the end of a Sunday
I realized I had a bit of Jesus
Caught between molars
I hadn’t felt godly all day
And had fought with my sister
In the choir balcony
I squeezed shut my anus
My vagina
To avoid fouling the air
Sweat poured off me
I grew dizzy and saw lights
At the moment of transubstantiation
Red mist poured from the priest
And a low hum like a lion’s growl
Swirled about me
I had nightmares about the church
Running between pews
After a little devil dressed
In yellow rain coat and galoshes
Like the Morton Salt Girl
When I caught her
I saw myself at five
Laughing and bewildered
At the same moment
I had nightmares
About the Cat in the Hat
Damning me to fiery hell
He was not natural
A six-foot tall cat
Wearing a hat
He was Satan
Later when my sex swelled
And I had thoughts
Of women and men
I had dreams of coupling
In the depths of the sea
Mermaid beautiful me
I came upon the shore of the bed
In waves, in spume
I dreamt I was a lime-white lady
In a brocaded gown
a scary medieval Madonna
I came to the church
And was met by knights
Wearing those silly duckbill helmets
They told me
Though I was queen of the land
I was not ruler of the church
And could not enter
I’ve even dreamt I was the
Whore of Babylon
Riding a seven-headed dragon
Who was actually quite nice
Everywhere I went
I withered crops
Unintentionally
It wasn’t my fault
There were some saints
I could kind of have
I always felt that Joan of Arc was hot
I’d go with her
I’d be in her club
And Mary Magdalene
Was almost stoned
Till a long-haired Jesus
Saved her
She was worth saving
Worth fighting a crowd for
I think I’ve found my Mary
the scared girl at the back of the class
Something god-like in her
I want to help her fight
Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 12/2009
]]>Marina
Quis hic locus, quae
regio, quae mundi plaga?
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what
islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through
the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird,
meaning
Death
Those who sit in the stye of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death
Are become unsubstantial, reduced by wind,
A breath of pine, and woodsong fog
By the grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger--
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer
than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and
hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my
own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that un--
spoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
What seas what shores what granite islands towards my
timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
T. S. Eliot
Travel While Sleeping
cracked patina of night
there is rust in the clouds
from city-polluted light
on the dark rock-bound shore
mollusks sing the scarred moon
to sleep as crabs bore
under with worn-out ragged red claws
and mottled sculpins dart
tide pools whittled like black paws
I am in bed and I am dreaming this
I am walking to the lighthouse
My feet pad the water
soft as the paws of a mouse
It is night
And I am going
there is a message in my hand
from the island of ghosts
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
11/2009
]]>A Pilgrimage to the Altar of Saint Helga
(for Andrew Wyeth)
But First Lunch
This room is a valley of flickering
firefly tumbleweed lights
between tall buildings
Lusty Lady – All Clothing 100% Off
winks the sign across the street
My son has found
a numerical pattern in the blinks
We are here to see Wyeth's Lady
clothed and unclothed
Helga in her incarnations
but first lunch
The waiter looks like Groucho Marx
Hear the sound of over fifty spoons and forks
the chatter of the crowd
my children's voices
Seeing Helga
We see Helga floating on velvet crush
her nighttime lake
Little trout of light swim
her body tide-pools
We see her in her Austrian coat
standing
for hours in the snow
with great discipline
We see her with her braids
the nape of her neck naked
where spine joins brain
a white triangle exposed
holy peephole
We see her smile creases
her blue eyes
slips of horizon over wild grass
and her hair
you can feel it
the soft order in those braids
We go home in dark and rain
the autumn trees light our path
every leaf
a flame
in a lantern
Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 10/15/2009
Leaving the Hospital
I am climbing the golden stairway of my hair
to the sweet hereafter
a flute is playing and I wonder if it is real
music of heaven and I am deceased
my legs somewhat numb
but no, I see the flautist in his tuxedo
I half expect him to have donkey ears
but he does not, so he is really here
my companion assures me of his reality
and the reality of the music
and that in fact I am alive
and that the baby in the car-seat
is our own baby with her thin patch
of red hair and her white knit bonnet
looking like a child of another era
an error of the anachronism the car-seat
and the shiny white hospital lobby floor
The flautist plays his Caliendo concerto
inspired by Corot's gypsy painting
I will lay in the night later
with no guitar
only the baby with her face
pale as a moon
Lucy Simpson, Seattle, 11/5/2009
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