bruce's boudoir

mercury players theatre

mad city noir

exchange cycle

erin and i decided one pretentious night, when we were quite full of ourselves and our literary genius, to take a poem the other had written and rewrite it in our own words.

the original poem and credit are listed first, with the rewrite following.

Bulls & China - erin

Covetous mysteries made
of our two aged faces
painted with occasional farce
The script on the walls
making us hate our written name
Concluded
to reaching hands and clutching fingers
through gaps in the ruins
Old bruises and deep scars
not gone, but soothed into forgetfulness
And in spite of ourselves
we continue on a candied path
conquering the longest hall
into nothing
Barely noticing our own use of feet
and seeing much difference
in the beautiful same
Having begun with the end in mind
fulfilling our nightmares
most longed for
and our dreams most feared
Crushing each stone
with bloodied fists
for a single hot breath saying
"To Be"

crush - cara

blunder-stomp
we reach through holes
to find distasted dreams
we grow old and shambled-down
with patched skin
and blooded fists
not knowing our breath
but seeing our difference of being

Michaelangelo's Gate - erin

I dreamt of having your child
last night
having recreated your eyes
on the wild face of discovery.
Eyes that devour all that surrounds them.
Cries of primacy
slicing the nets that gave my soul buoyancy.
Only the swaddling clothes
of light on bare skin
not dissimilar to the flesh that pressed so close
it entered me
with the rush of celestial fire
lighting the way toward
the emptiness that would surely follow.
Barren, now, having bore your posterity
to be replenished again by that self same life
with explosions of pity and grace.

Waking with a meekness
having divined an illusion
that drank the blood of us both
I sought to divide us back into our parts,
setting each white knight apart from
each black pawn.
Perhaps the loneliest task
that I have yet done.

barren - cara

the babe that bears your eyes
devoured me
your flesh
graced me
not to be undone
i drew down the line of us
and left myself one

Talking in His Sleep - erin

"I love you more than death," he said
with weary eyes and tainted breath
My own syllables prevented
my heart having beat itself to throat
But still I believed him
and found in sleep without need of dreams
rest

late truth - cara

it was only after you spoke with
beery eyes and clumsied breath
of death and my adoration
that my heart found it's grown place
and closed me to a beating stillness

Skipping Stones - erin

There is a man.
I met him while
building a wall.
He was as fine a mason
as I.
And we did pride ourselves
in our own handiwork.
Giving the world structure
and the heart containment.

Now we are given to
being nomads.
And though we miss
the finest stones,
we know we must live
undaunted by sky and air
and leave the prairies
without architecture
in the hopes of finding convergence
guided to the same spot
without landmark.

breaking bricks - cara

in dreams on grass
i see the neat corners of our past
our harmony in the perfect construct of imposition

in days of light
we perfect the challenge of travelling with no lines
and finding without maps

give me this breath - cara

i gather myself
my black-burned heart
and cry for night
cry for your arms once again
wrapped upon my thighs
and your head on my belly
your favorite place to lay

i bring on the night
and the demons that accompany it
and search with restless hands
for the coarse living hair of you
and the warming breath of dreams
that hold no surprises
and no regret

give me this breath
wrap yourself about me
and give me a night
not quite so dark

Close the Blinds, Love - erin

How I fear this enlightened one
that haunts my dreams
How endearing your simple giggles
and reluctant eroticism
I claw for those tenderest places
in this black night
Curtains closed having known
what you will never laugh about
To drink the sweet ale
that will be bitter in it's taste after

the blue room inside my inferno - cara

this repulsive ache beneath me this fever shriveled and hard it will not rise die like my heart and mourned by this soul-less one by this one this closed mouth it holds in my baked-up love and there is no difference but death in this fire if it were alive i would kill it if i were alive i should like to burn grasping climbing upon the flames bringing my ambitions equal to yours

what do you think of me now?

can you need me this time?

this secret i hold it out special to you this secret i hold happiness tight in my scarred hands and won't let any out it is a precious commodity these days i will not throw it about it won't be thrown

I Will Wait Your Sword - erin

How stealthy, I
How fine in my reverence
when my sparkled splendor
is as yours
Held in your incestuous nutshell
The king of finite space
Perhaps I, your queen
having withheld my heavy heart
from your glancing view
Your sabor with I contained
within the leathered handle
filling your venemous blade
These conquered
they are mine
But you will always scoff
at all but your own
And I will grow small
having fed on teeth and bone
and your too-thin sole re-guard

no second coming - cara

the Devil often sleeps in my house
and sometimes lingers long enough for breakfast

"the Lady is a Player..." He softly murmured
when He first saw me, first laid His hands upon me

and months later, when i watched Him walking the crowd
nodding and provoking beauty with His every word

i knew i was lost in His soft-spoken lies
and felt myself slipping down His sweet little laugh

yet, still, every morning i would up on my hope
as if to dress myself up for the man who would rape

and every long night i would quarrel with god
and become less of a stranger to the bottled sunrise

as i thought of the dirt i have lodged beneath my fingernails
and how i'm not so sure that i'm real without Him

and once more, like in this sorry morning light
when He came to my room with that Fuck-or-Fight look

the blood seized up in my too-shallow veins
and i crashed into Him, whimpering viciously

and as He turned from where i lay destroyed on the floor
with the brand of the Stoics upon my broken brow

i thought of my childhood's wish for rosebushes
and i pretended that the Devil's whore deserved roses

He Wore Buckled Leather - erin

I chose to have a drink
with him
though he sliced through
the crowded cafe
and seemingly chose
the seat beside me,
I allowed his slippery nipple
and picked up the bill
We drove to a park
miles from town
Like girls who risk the
polka dot night parking lot,
I let my slitted skirt
reveal
I let him cut to me
with eyes of judgement
I let him touch my bare back
before kissing his thin lips
And after
I laughed at his bigoted jokes
and watched him walk down
the gravel shoulder
pretending to defrost the morning dew
on my windshield
And though I never surrendered my last name
I still got angry when
he didn't call

the last pasture of the paziks - cara

it is said of this land
that it was the Pazik's final stop
the Nomad's last resting place
that their souls reside here
above the high Russian Steppes

and on that deep winter evening
as we lay on top of the snow
we talked of their hidden land beneath us
and their spirits watching us from above
everything was sacred
every word its own separate song
i kissed my own lips with your name
i gave you all my white-armed love
and every time you turned your wet body to mine
i could not say no
shaking from cold and your beauty
i thought that this would be a good night to die

and when i asked you for your love
when i asked you to promise and swear yourself away
it was not in you to say yes
you pointed to the sky and i saw my winter Orion
and as you explained that the Hero
would be gone before spring
i looked over at you and saw my winter of ruin
reflected plainly on your face
accusing me of wanting too much
i saw your eyes closing to me
and i knew that your heart was closing as well
that the hero would outlast the man

you left me in this field
and here i have stayed
dancing with my midnight shadow
squeezing all the blackberries until they died
and biting the budding leaves from the trees

tonight i sit in this garden and dream of you
with my legs wide open and my eyes shut down
can't you hear how my springtime is calling you?
i know you must hear my cries, but you do not come
throwing stones at god to pass the time
all i can hear are his cross-talking angels
all i can think is that this would be a good night to die

Marty and Rif - erin

He always spoke of his father
with such gentle reflection
A traveling salesman
of the Pacific Northwest
It wasn't until he too
left this place
and me with his children
that I understood why
he was never angry
Maybe it was my fault
for giving him that money clip
with an embossed soaring eagle
that filled him too full inside

But now I'm left with boys
I named like the winged wind
I buy them postcards
of places far away
knowing they will follow
the lines of lineage
but perhaps will send
them back to me
so one woman
one wife, one mother
may not go unremembered
in their geneology

the exchange that follows was part of a class exercise, and was what started erin and my subsequent exchanges. again, the original poem first, rewrite second.

Poem #5 - Suzanne Olive

My soul longs to
escape the misty
window of my
mind.
Happiness dances but
mystifies the truth longing
to
break
free.
Gentle winds blow
cobwebs from my heart,
unlocking its secrets as
it
pounds unmercilessly.
Chirping new
birds herald the
arrival of my love,
our eyes lock
and seal our
always fate.

broken shell - cara

it was silent that night when i finally left
maneuvering through the window
i'd looked out of for years
the air like a breath of surprise
or joy jostled around me
but i had no secrets left to tell
it would have to wait
until the wrens began their song again
in front of a window
absent of me

aporia is awesome