Lucid Writing

Let Us Walk Out

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:04:04 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Poems By Amy Lowell 1874 - 1925

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:47:21 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

New Publication in Harlot's Sauce

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:57:19 -0800

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.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Catholic Girl

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:50:34 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

They Did Not Wish For Helen To Be Slack-Jawed

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:02:02 -0800

They Did Not Wish For Helen To Be Slack-Jawed

Memento Mori in Process

This is the first in my Helen Series of sculptures. The head is made from modeling clay, wrapped in cloth and placed in a hand-made pine frame. In the old days, they used to bind up people's heads after they died, so the mouth wouldn't hang open. I hope you like my sculpture. More of Helen is to come.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Marina by T. S. Eliot

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:52:52 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Travel While Sleeping

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:24:18 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Random Reptile Photos and a Doll Portrait

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:17:40 -0800

Tortoise Shell

Albino Python

B and Python

Child's Hands on Tortoise Shell

Alligator

Monkey Tailed Lizard

Australian Blue-Tongued Lizard

Glass Eyes

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Seeing Helga at the Museum (still in progress, but revised)

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:33:48 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Leaving the Hospital (1st draft)

nobody@vox.com(Lucy) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:25:26 -0800

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

Read and post comments | Send to a friend