November Poems, 1-7

I’m slowly but surely posting the poetry drafts I wrote for November’s 30 poems in 30 days challenge.  So far, no spacing errors.  Dare I hope this pattern continues?  –Feel free to point out typos!

1
My Hero Too

The women stand holding their breath,
cradling fantasies kept since girlhood
as she prepares to burn.  Even while

 

laying sticks around her, strapping her
arms behind her back like Joan-of-Arc’s,
in our icy-blue blood of tradition hope

coursed for the French knight to come,
cursing the crown and laws he once
swore to defend.  He’s her true lover.

I’m just her husband, married to rules
I made up in a fit of idealism.  Oh, God,
where is he?  My champion, brother,

the hero who will rescue his woman
at any cost?  Ah, hoofbeats at last!

2
Ch. 21:  “Grey imperfect misty dawn” [Moby-Dick]

Yet again Elijah warns, his last-minute desperation
“strangely peering” at our two clueless friends
asking if they’ve noted five shadowy figures
hustling onto the pre-dawn Pequod.  Yea, and yet
Ishmael and Queequeg shoo away the prophetic
as lunatic.  Then they board even while wondering,

where did those men go on the eerily quiet ship?

–Ahab has sneaked a-ship unseen, is now holed up
in his cabin.  But forget that gloomy Gus for now.
Chiefmate Starbuck, aboard, awake, is important.
Congratulate yourself, fearless reader.  You have
reached page one-hundred of the greatest American
novel ever put into ink…that survived the mighty sea.

3
Ch.22 “And off we glided” [Moby-Dick]

The ship’s owners bid bon voyage, turning over command
to Starbuck, whose job is to haul anchor, set sail,
prepare for the open sea.  And just where is the Captain?
you’ll ask.  Oh, Starbuck!  Good “luck to ye.”  It’s a frosty
Christmas night with a breeze that’s stiffly titanic, when
“blindly [the whalemen] plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.”

 

4
She’s Only Right in Theory

 

Maybe at another time I’d have turned man-thief,
learned how to pull hair, spew words, prepare
to battle to death for love of a man.  But there’s

 

too much to do now, after a lifelong attempt to be
a better woman, too much unlived life to wonder
about–having outlived past aspirations by mid-

life.  Perhaps another woman would slit her throat
for a man like hers.  But what’s the point of that?
I’ve practiced love before.  It never got better.

[I've no idea why so many variations of "life" are in S2.  Oh, well for now.]

5
Fairy Tale Thought for the Day

Snow White.  Opens the door to a stranger.
Eats the stranger’s food.  Goes Kersplatt!
on her face.  Dumber than seven manual-laboring,
hi-ho-ing dwarves.  Snow White.  One dumb ‘ho’.

 

[Yes, I know.  I have to be in evil witch mode sometime, don't I?]

6
Lightning Exhibit

At the museum is a Pompeii exhibit.
There was a fire here, at the drycleaners
on the corner.  Its white ash preserved
plastic-covered clothing that walks,
disembodied, over black-soot piles of
axed-to-the-floor ceiling remnants,
racks sticking up, startled then defeated
arms. An entire geometric village of red,
turquoise, yellow, patterns of triangled eyes,
dresses skirted with silkscreened pumps.
The navy suits are all lined up, marching
toward certain slaughter

7
I Do Keep Trying

Sometimes it’s a tongue in my ear
unexpectedly causing a memory
of more passionate times.  Then
I daydream for a few days, weeks,
even months if the tongue’s really
speaking my language.  Last week
it was a poetry reading that flicked
my switch, reminded me of a post-party
four months ago that ended with a pal
making a big, fat pass.  He hasn’t
entirely given up, despite limping
away wound-licking and weepy from
yet another crappy ex-relationship.
We’re supposed to be too mature
to get excited.  I certainly do know
better.  But I reach for the phone,
casually ask another single-again
smoking hot man I know to come.
It sound plausible enough.  Support
a friend’s musical efforts at an Irish
bar in Fanueil Hall Friday night.  [check sp.]
No big deal.  If I don’t end up
in his bed someday, that’s okay.
I tried.  That’s the point.  It’s small,
the part of me that keeps demanding
satisfaction.  I can and will still get some.

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