it doesn’t matter that she is blank
to you
i see her
scribbled in fine
point
so many want her
temptation
I am not alone
in this I have thought
about her since
childhood
so many have had her
some by accident
or not – no matter –
when she craves
a taste of you
she will have you
some do not want her
cold caress
stealing their breath
but others – like me
flirt with her heavy
want
zero our rifles
just enough
to taste silver
before
For this time being, she swept dirt away from dirt and from cactus and captured the memory of a small home made of partially buried lava rock and desert rain weeds. She swept Earth away from itself, angrily debating existence. And it was comfortable.
She wanted to sit and invite a sister and a mother to laugh and admire her desert. Without a roof. Without water. Without time. She wanted to stay and wait for a summer moon to smile at her with pride, with knowing.
And night came, but the desert never becomes cold. Coyotes came to practice midnight and bury sharp hunger through the necks of jack rabbits. The universe came to cover her head and remind her of tin roofs and frail wood spines of old women that shriek with each step she steps.
How cold the desert becomes in that small house.
Elvis is alive. Fact or fiction. Electric theory travels across a nation. She meets guitars and drums and sex and drugs. She is seventeen wild in a broken city. She is chained to an old lamp-post that jolts to life at sunset. Her lungs are clogged. Smog takes over. She inhales a damp determination for life that doesn’t smell like rot.
I meet her at twenty two and Newport Beach. Carpet stained by black top walks and coffee. It’s an LA Times kind of morning. Knit tops cover immodest mannequins waving to her from window cages. He head hangs to her knees. Cracks in the sidewalk taunt her. She is guilty and broken. She doesn’t speak or mimic or cry, but she can hear intent. I give her symbols. Ice. Shadow. Flight.
She chooses to choke.
Summer leaves her. I leave her in an hourglass. Her slim smile leaks through the sand. Time is running out.
She starts talking to the desert. A language I can’t understand. Ink leaks from eyes to her young lips. She tastes words for the first time. I stop to watch. She is thick with rage. We are intense and struggling. Our muscles melt together with neurons and we know each other. We are scared.
We see doctors and pills and whiskey and we time it just right so that our bodies do not fail. And we buy reviews and our way into a new way. Oranges explode and we drink fruit rinds. And I miss her when she is not there. We discover each other but we do not know. What is truth? Where does it begin and with who? We softly debate existence and beg for an out. Shamefully we beg for an out.
And here we are. In the middle of the Earth. Gravity. Cells. DNA. Still so unsure. Still begging for an out…
until we step into his driveway at midnight. Our hearts shake. His sharp hunger examines our every layer. One hand behind our neck. We stop breathing. We are out.
The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun. It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove. It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.
I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.
I am late. I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.
Fountain Of Confessions is now available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle. I look forward to hearing any feedback on it. Thank you so much!
Sickness comes at interludes, when
light burns brighter than
sun stars, when Anger dashes in
to catch the aftermath.
We battle for the scenery.
Touching base, both reaching for
the flag, for proclamation.
It is mine. This sickness is mine
to water or see to wilt.
I find no fault in either,
both are stars of polar regions,
imploding a billion light years away
from me. I will awake with sweaty palms,
the enemy dripping down my back.
I sit in the night, like a sauna,
saluting the grace of the Gods
for keeping what is meant for the skies
quietly away from these hands.
My medicine will come clockwise, sneaking up
on me, on little twinkling toes.
I never miss this time because there is no
better place to live or to die.
If I count on the hours to happen
regularly, I’d be stuck in
a jar, afraid of measurement against
anything.
Instead, my cells vibrate against
all odds. I crack eggs, scrambling
locked brains, eating for the
sake of eating.
I have only been substantial forever.
Nothing more. Just my face,
along with legs, and hands that
move like a floppy clock.
But my name, now that is something.
Every hour that comes,
every hour that goes,
will remember my name,
just the way my cells will remember
how small I am,
like an ant stuck in a jar,
burning from the most toxic hour.
What would you guys think about a maggiemaeijustsaythis pod cast or live talk radio?? Would you call in?
Would you be interested? Want to chat?
IT WOULD NOT BE POETRY. But could be about poetry, writing, and other topics that this blog explores.
Any and all comments would be awesome!!
Thank you!
XOXOXO
~MM
Each morning greets me differently;
she kisses my cheek for love, or
spits down my throat for some other reason.
I used to hate her obnoxious light.
When I was a child I threw sticks
at her and swore I would do myself
in before she could. I made rope from vines
that her sun rays grew. I gathered
poison that lived on her sickly Earth
and piled them next to my bare toes
as they dug deep through the planets
coarse skin.
I think I sat in this spot, with my back toward
her for years on top of years.
She burned and blistered through my anger,
but I couldn’t see.
Until, one morning, my daughter greeted me,
sat softly next to my feet and reached deep into
the pile of poison
that I’d been saving for me.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 