bruce's boudoir

mercury players theatre

mad city noir

second summer cycle

a collection of poems from my second poetry class.

hitler for dinner

i saw hitler driving a truck today
and remembered the last time
he was over to dinner
how he laughed in his wine glass
completely sober or a little tipsy
(it's hard to tell with him)

he told me his best secret that night -
with wistful eyes he murmured
"i've never seen a falling star."
and as he nodded in time
to shostakovich on the radio, he added
"and i've never danced in the rain."

i raised my glass in mock salute
and proposed a toast to regrets
as some wine spilled over the rim

licking the redness from my fingers
i wondered if he knew
what kind of messiah he really was

there the warmest place

so long since men's hands
have slid down my bare-skinned back
i suppose that's why i wore
my gingham dress tonight

too long the tomboy in jeans and t-shirts
and how can a man really be expected
to caress a likeness of himself?

so the dress fell from the hanger
to the bed, where it lay
as i chose my one other vanity
of sandals which show all my toes

i suppose i knew the moment
when his hands turned exciting
his breath fumbled around my ear
as too-soft fingers found my belly
and stayed there, the warmest place

heedful of my desperate good fortune
i closed lips around his noxious fumes
as he lay his beer-soaked tongue on mine
and searched my thighs a little too roughly

my two vanities now gone
i made sure to smile and murmur
and hoped that the morning
would find me alone

on heading north

you think that i am strong
like weathered posts in wet grass
sunk deep and true against the years
but i confess that i never meant to be here
limbless and blinded amid this motorbike madness
barefoot and broken and turning to bone

realizing that i am several miles gone
not in the direction that i meant to take
and with the insult of gravel upon my face
i pretend it is not the dark prairie
which kisses me to sleep
but the farming wife
two leagues south
and i am landed
and feeling
home

free writing #1

walking beside a creek
in december, the black ice
windy with leaves.
beeches, falling on each other,
rubbing to bone next summer's
thick white skin.
my hands are empty
and will not be still.

free writing #2

the baby's cough was still in my ears
when i shot the rabbit
laid in crimson and not yet cold
twitching and jittering
          be patient
          and let it die
knees wet through wool
the sighs come and go
          patience
          it will die
but she is home and hungry
so my hot and cruel hands
bless and dispatch in short order

the shadows are longer this year
than they have ever been
the drifting snow more crisp
sending back the report of food
so swift it seems the hare
is already stewed, already juiced
the near-smell of it makes me
pulse and pursue my path
to fire and walls and her cheeks
polished red that will bend and lift
so like her father's
at this gift i bring her

these my summer men

these, my summer men
who carry me gently
into the whispered evening
one on each side
floating me through the trees
on fingers of precious words
and fragrant smiles

they have delivered me
they, who look only with the eyes
of those who have passed by
many young women
and found nothing of pleasure
in the hard embrace of winter

so now as they lay me
down in weeds
and begin to sing their
broken words of praise
i laugh uneasily
for i cannot see their faces
and i cannot remember
what they have delivered me from

no leaving me

my shirt stopped growing
when it was eight
stubborn green waffle-knit double-ply poly
with hard white daisies crowded at the neck
it refused to make any more allowance
for my ten-year-old torso
but i kept it squeezing me
until i was twelve

so now as i fight
to keep you stretched
more resilient but less forgiving
tight around me
pretending that you actually do fit
i laugh at your resistance
knowing i can keep you about me
for quite some time

there are no heroes in hell

there are no heroes in hell
no golden men to lift The Troubles
upon sweeping shoulders
and bear them away
no soft-bearded men
drop into the furnace
no willing stokers
create the burn
and in this valley of fired rock
all to be seen
are ordinary fellows and plain girls

there is no salvation
in barbed wire
wrapped upon hollow ribs
broken hunger does not give prayer flight
and winged despair carries us all crippled
into that emptied darkness

there are no prizes in death
closed eyes bring no release
and answers come slowly
to the newly dead
if at all

there are no angels
i can see no angels

aporia is awesome