you speak up?
Why are you shouting?
You have the wrong answer,
wrong line, wrong face.
They tell her she is womb-man,
babymachine, mirror image, toy,
earth mother and penis-poor,
a dish of synthetic strawberry icecream
rapidly melting.
She grunts to a halt.
She must learn again to speak
starting with I
starting with We
starting as the infant does
with her own true hunger
and pleasure
and rage.
Women’s laughter
1.
When did I first become aware—
hearing myself on the radio?
listening to tapes of women in groups?—
of that diffident laugh that punctuates,
that giggle that apologizes,
that bows fixing parentheses before, after.
That little laugh sticking
in the throat like a chicken bone.
That perfunctory dry laugh
carries no mirth, no joy
but makes a low curtsy, a kowtow
imploring with praying hands:
forgive me, for I do not
take myself seriously.
Do not squash me.
2.
My friend, on the deck we sit
telling horror stories
from the
Marvel Comics
of our lives.
We exchange agonies, battles and after each
we laugh madly and embrace.
That raucous female laughter
is drummed from the belly.
It rackets about kitchens,
flapping crows
up from a carcass.
Hot in the mouth as horseradish,
it clears the sinuses
and the brain.
3.
Years ago I had a friend
who used to laugh with me
braying defiance, as we roar
with bared teeth.
After the locked ward
where they dimmed her with drugs
and exploded her synapses,
she has now that cough
fluttering in her throat
like a crippled pigeon
as she says, but of course
I was sick, you know,
and laughs blood.
Burying blues for Janis
Your voice always whacked me right on the funny bone
of the great-hearted suffering bitch fantasy
that ruled me like a huge copper moon with its phases
until I could, partially, break free.
How could I help but cherish you for my bad dreams?
Your voice would grate right on the marrow-filled bone
that cooks up that rich stew of masochism where we swim,
that woman is born to suffer, mistreated and cheated.
We are trained to that hothouse of ripe pain.
Never do we feel so alive, so in character
as when we’re walking the floor with the all-night blues.
When some man not being there who’s better gone
becomes a lack that swells up to a gaseous balloon
and flattens from us all thinking and sensing and purpose.
Oh, the downtrodden juicy longdrawn female blues:
you throbbed up there with your face slightly swollen
and your barbed hair flying energized and poured it out,
the blast of a furnace of which the whole life is the fuel.
You embodied that good done-in mama who gives and gives
like a fountain of boozy chicken soup to a rat race of men.
You embodied the pain hugged to the breasts like a baby.
You embodied the beautiful blowzy gum of passivity,
woman on her back to the world endlessly hopelessly raggedly
offering a brave front to be fucked.
That willingness to hang on the meathook and call it love,
that need for loving like a screaming hollow in the soul,
that’s the drug that hangs us and drags us down
deadly as the icy sleet of skag that froze your blood.
The best defense is offensive
The turkey vulture,
a shy bird ungainly on the ground
but massively graceful in flight,
responds to attack
uniquely.
Men have contempt for this scavenger
because he eats without killing.
When an enemy attacks,
the turkey vulture vomits:
the shock and disgust of the predator
are usually sufficient
to effect his escape.
He loses only his dinner,
easily replaced.
All day I have been thinking
how to adapt
this method of resistance.
Sometimes only the stark
will to disgust
prevents our being consumed:
there are clearly times
when we must make a stink
to survive.
Icon
In the chapel where I could praise
that is just being built,
the light bleeding through one window blazons
a profiled centaur whose colors mellow the sun.
See her there: hoofs braced into the loam,
banner tail streaming,
Why are you shouting?
You have the wrong answer,
wrong line, wrong face.
They tell her she is womb-man,
babymachine, mirror image, toy,
earth mother and penis-poor,
a dish of synthetic strawberry icecream
rapidly melting.
She grunts to a halt.
She must learn again to speak
starting with I
starting with We
starting as the infant does
with her own true hunger
and pleasure
and rage.
Women’s laughter
1.
When did I first become aware—
hearing myself on the radio?
listening to tapes of women in groups?—
of that diffident laugh that punctuates,
that giggle that apologizes,
that bows fixing parentheses before, after.
That little laugh sticking
in the throat like a chicken bone.
That perfunctory dry laugh
carries no mirth, no joy
but makes a low curtsy, a kowtow
imploring with praying hands:
forgive me, for I do not
take myself seriously.
Do not squash me.
2.
My friend, on the deck we sit
telling horror stories
from the
Marvel Comics
of our lives.
We exchange agonies, battles and after each
we laugh madly and embrace.
That raucous female laughter
is drummed from the belly.
It rackets about kitchens,
flapping crows
up from a carcass.
Hot in the mouth as horseradish,
it clears the sinuses
and the brain.
3.
Years ago I had a friend
who used to laugh with me
braying defiance, as we roar
with bared teeth.
After the locked ward
where they dimmed her with drugs
and exploded her synapses,
she has now that cough
fluttering in her throat
like a crippled pigeon
as she says, but of course
I was sick, you know,
and laughs blood.
Burying blues for Janis
Your voice always whacked me right on the funny bone
of the great-hearted suffering bitch fantasy
that ruled me like a huge copper moon with its phases
until I could, partially, break free.
How could I help but cherish you for my bad dreams?
Your voice would grate right on the marrow-filled bone
that cooks up that rich stew of masochism where we swim,
that woman is born to suffer, mistreated and cheated.
We are trained to that hothouse of ripe pain.
Never do we feel so alive, so in character
as when we’re walking the floor with the all-night blues.
When some man not being there who’s better gone
becomes a lack that swells up to a gaseous balloon
and flattens from us all thinking and sensing and purpose.
Oh, the downtrodden juicy longdrawn female blues:
you throbbed up there with your face slightly swollen
and your barbed hair flying energized and poured it out,
the blast of a furnace of which the whole life is the fuel.
You embodied that good done-in mama who gives and gives
like a fountain of boozy chicken soup to a rat race of men.
You embodied the pain hugged to the breasts like a baby.
You embodied the beautiful blowzy gum of passivity,
woman on her back to the world endlessly hopelessly raggedly
offering a brave front to be fucked.
That willingness to hang on the meathook and call it love,
that need for loving like a screaming hollow in the soul,
that’s the drug that hangs us and drags us down
deadly as the icy sleet of skag that froze your blood.
The best defense is offensive
The turkey vulture,
a shy bird ungainly on the ground
but massively graceful in flight,
responds to attack
uniquely.
Men have contempt for this scavenger
because he eats without killing.
When an enemy attacks,
the turkey vulture vomits:
the shock and disgust of the predator
are usually sufficient
to effect his escape.
He loses only his dinner,
easily replaced.
All day I have been thinking
how to adapt
this method of resistance.
Sometimes only the stark
will to disgust
prevents our being consumed:
there are clearly times
when we must make a stink
to survive.
Icon
In the chapel where I could praise
that is just being built,
the light bleeding through one window blazons
a profiled centaur whose colors mellow the sun.
See her there: hoofs braced into the loam,
banner tail streaming,
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