Liberation!

There she is
sitting
stooping so low.
She is smiling through
red cherry lips.
Her porcelain face shines
so bright in the gallery.
Is she art?
Arms and legs
attached together by a brown twine.
Her wild black hair
is only a wig, it seems.

So long and brittle
So longing to break
Free from the puppet strings
that hold her back
Her torso is just a torso.
White. Cracked. Glossy.
Tiny hips and dips
but without those strings
each limb would fall
off and roll to the floor.

What does she want?
Is she happy
on display?
Willing to rot?

Life-size and statue-esque
but the cold black bones
of her eyes
say otherwise.
She wants her porcelain body
to merge as one.
She wants skin and fat and dimples.
She wants to rip
those strings
and immovable black harnesses
off her body,
Slice each one,
slip into being
Human.

She just wants to breathe.

There she is

Gazed upon. Scrutinized.
Seeing humans when the gallery is open.
Being alone when the gallery is closed.

One night
She gets her wish.

As if, by magic,
A pink sheath of skin morphs
And secures her loose-hanging limbs

and melds them together.
Hair sprouts in places
she never could touch,
like a soft padding of cush.
Her lips, they twitch
Her eyes, they blink.

She can hardly think,
She can hardly think.


She feels her black hair
on the top of her head
and jumps up, so quick
about to be fed

new information.

Dark is the art gallery
(after hours)
as she slips by, unnoticed.
Finds the extra key
(in a desk drawer, unlocked)
opens the door and walks into the night.

The cold air greets her
fresh naked body
sending goose bumps
down her newly
acquainted limbs.

She laughs.
She cries.
She is finally alive!

Turning her back to the gallery
she runs into
the blackness, stars
illuminating the stark night.
(never to be seen again)
The next morning the museum curators scratch their heads in wonder.
Did somebody steal the art piece?
The seat she was sitting on is empty……

Jejune

Trivial, I am
human as the lonesome
traveler, right on the
edge of town.
Loop it through
something strong.
Dead, it seems
my heart. Molding
spots of discoloration.
Lonesome as ever,
surrounded by miracles.
Flamboyant, I am
on fire until the ash
consumes me, mold
and all.
Sickly, it seems
just to dismantle
the rusty chains
that hold
what was
this heart.
Silly, I am
bumbling through the
world with only
letters and keys.
Bouncing into
trivial things.
Bombarding hidden
minds like tombs
unhinged past the hour.
This muscle
so ugly,
can no longer feel.
It just wastes away
like crumbling lead
chalky stems that
turn crisp in the light.
Fanatic, I am
moving from one place
to another, can’t
seem to place
wishing for some kind of love
to whisk me away.
Open, somehow,
my chest breathes
out smoke and
inhales fire.
Not orange or red,
but blue as a robin’s
egg, blue as plaid PJs.
Plausible, I am
proactive, I am not.
But when my will
comes begging,
where will it reach me?
where will I go?
will anybody see
this moldy heart blow?
Fickle, I am
so picky I
stumble over these vast
limitations with
laziness mixed in.
It’s been a while
since I’ve missed
slumber, but I’m as
bright and cold as ever.
Invalid, I am
sinking into the water
as it warms under
my freezing touch.
Am I still made of
moon particles and dust?
The wrinkled page
tells plenty
while the sofa sits
in its plastic chamber.
A cover covers its fuzzy
soft exterior, sealing
in its fury.
From where does the
knife come from?
Glittering, poised
and ready to slice
that plastic cover
away to reveal
the sensual velvet

underneath.
Feel its slippery silky
hide and rest
on its voluptuous
deep maroon cushions.
Spacious, I am
in my surroundings.
Silver I reek
and red, I devour.
Fingernails toughen
as I bend them
by my own ferocious teeth.
Well-worn pages
speak the truth
as I sleuth
for answers.
Playful, I am
delirious, insane and
off the deep end, I
swim in impossible dreams
waiting to wake
for the future’s closer
than it seems.

Woman’s work

Grandmother
advised me:
to sit with my legs crossed
like a real lady


I learned
to sit in a chair
and contemplate

No dismissal
from this
contemplation.

I realized then
I did not have to listen
So I sat tall and proud

With my legs
splayed wide open
Siting, still, with an air
of complete contemplation.

The Hollow Women

I

We are the Hollow women
We are the strong women
Forming together
Heads full of thought. Alas!
Our stuffed voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet but powerful
As rain pounding on the ground
Covering the earth
With our dampness.

Shapely with so much form, so many colors,
Fierce movement, gestures with so much motion;

It fills up our system.
Those who have crossed
Us without explanation
Formed the movements
To taking a leap
Into the unknown.
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Emotional souls, but only
As the hollow women
The strong women.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In a world where people scrutinize
I do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Glossy magazine covers
Broken
And voices are
In the wind’s howling
More distant and more unrealistic
Than a fading (movie) star.

Let me be no nearer
To perfect
In societies glaring eyes
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Tight dresses, high heels, painted faces
In a place
Behaving as the wind behaves
Conflicted—

Not that final deliberation
In the mirror

III

This is a fake land
This is a cutthroat land
Here the photoshopped images
Are raised, here they receive
The appeal of a dead woman’s hand
Under the twinkle of the spotlight.

Is it like
This in other places
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with low self-esteem
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to a broken system.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley in-between worlds
In this hollow valley
This broken system of our lost strength

In this last of meeting places
We gather together
And avoid argument
Gathered on this ground of plain dirt

Insightful, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual obsession
To be thin and pretty
Triumphs the need to be intelligent
Reflecting the permanent mind-set
Seen by men alike
The hope only
Of empty women.

V

World perspectives falling down
Falling down
Falling down
World perspectives falling down
My fair lady.

Between the conception
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act of
Personal appreciation
Falls the conquest
And the Conqueror
Between the desire
And the doubt
Between the emotion
And the realization
Between the remorse
And the hesitation
Falls the feeling
And the Conqueror
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
Ring around the rosies ring around the rosies
A pocket full of posies a pocket full of posies
Not with a shout but a whisper.

Inspired by: Gertrude Stein's writing style (Part of her piece: Tender Buttons)

“A barn owl resembles a barred owl. A barred owl resembles a spotted owl a spotted owl resembles a snowy owl a snowy owl resembles a short-eared owl. A short-eared owl resembles a long-eared owl a long-eared owl resembles a great horned owl a great horned owl resembles an eastern screech-owl an eastern screech-owl resembles a western screech-owl a western screech owl resembles a whiskered screech-owl a whiskered screech owl resembles a burrowing owl a burrowing owl resembles a barn owl a barn owl resembles a flower.”

Meadow Cornflower

Inspired by: H.D.'s "The Sea Rose"

Flower, stiff cornflower,
damaged and with a stretch of petals,
skimpy flower, spiky,
edged with blue,

more prized
than a wet cornflower
single on a stem—
you are caught in the wind.

stunted, with sharp leaf,
you are thrown in the field,
you are lifted
in the crisp field
that moves in the wind.

Can the stark-cornflower
leak such bitter fragrance
hardened by a sheath leaf?

Yellow Pencil

Inspired by: William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow"

So much rests
upon

a yellow pen
cil

fixed with bite
marks

beside the black
notebook.