to peel an orange in one continuous spiral
one perfect careful stripe of orange with just a fingernail
and thumb, lay the sweet fragrance onto hands
and into the room, put the fruit
one segment at a time
into your mouth, then rewind the peel
into a perfect globe, each edge remet and fit
to its brother whole, hollow, yes, emptied, but perfect still
Handmade
Golden light on a square
of overgrown grass and dandelions.
I pull the shade.
Yesterday
in the damp night
I shattered
china
on the porches
on the walkways
on the railings
on the doorways
on the thresholds
Since I could not speak
I wanted to bleed.
Now that you
have taken away
the key
I hate locks.
Breaking and entering
I have broken
my own hands.
(Handmade
Golden light on a square
of overgrown grass and dandelions.
I pull the shade.
Yesterday
in the damp night
I shattered
china
on the porches
on the walkways
on the railings
on the doorways
on the thresholds
Since I could not speak
I wanted to bleed.
Now that you
have taken away
the key
I hate locks.
Breaking and entering
I have broken
my own hands.)
(I don’t know what to do with “The body of your submission is too short” prompt. . .sometimes all I write is a few lines. . .)
Brickhouse Blues
See these men out shooting craps
up against the brickhouse wall,
these men all shooting craps
up against that brickhouse wall,
hear them dice click on the pavement,
see them dollars fall.
Here come this little man
bouncing his basketball,
along come a little man,
bouncing a basketball,
hair all done up in plaits,
don’t hear his Mama call.
See him fanning out his hand,
see eleven-twelve dollar bill,
he be fanning out his hand,
got eleven-twelve dollar bill,
lays ‘em on the sidewalk
and that grifter start to shill.
If I had me a dime
I wouldn’t play you wicked game,
no, not even a dime,
I wouldn’t play that wicked game,
I’d hold up my head,
walk right by you all the same.
Woman walk by
she got two big mean-eyed dogs,
woman walking by,
with those two big mean-eyed dogs,
they go snarling at those mens,
all those useless little dogs.
Excerpts from Southern By Birth: Bi-Polar By the Grace of God. [/b]
Club MedWill this day dawn bright as you imagined
while squinting past pain to beg for medication?
Will disturbing dreams materialize
beside another tray of salt-free food?
Will you yearn for sincerity as some psychotic
grabs you: begs, pray with me like Daddy did?
Will you recall this moment next time the doctor smiles?
Remember before signing consent forms.
Silver bangles jingle, eyes snap in crinkled face
as she stabs a stolen flower into my soda can,
planting her flag like a conqueror.
Shoves my suitcase off my bed,
replaces it with her own.
Sashays to the bathroom. Returns
with my lipstick smeared
around her toothless grin like war paint.
Told to shower, she disappears; returns
dry and topless, breasts sagging past her waist,
my towel stretched around her ample bottom.
Tied and trussed like a black sumo,
she takes up a stance.
I killed my own mama
and I still sleeps good at night.
I be watchin’ you, ho. Mizz Eva has arrived.
When I try thinking on difficult decisions
I develop what the Brits call me-graine.
This, for some reason, calls to mind an oyster;
the grain, the irritant causes a pearl to be born,
polished and perfected layer upon layer,
laminated together, but not under such heat and pressure
as I feel in my head, behind my eyes.
Vision blurred, I struggle to read Plath;
ponder my own mortality.
Mint Julep, having finished his manicure,
models my chenille bathrobe while singing,
A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.
Now bored, decides there’s one thing
hasn’t been tried on this migraine
clustered over my right eye:
a religious experience.
Doctor’s order not due
until after my next suicide attempt,
I agree to stand,
arms extended,
eyes closed,
and receive this offering from
a gay evangelical bi-polar psychotic AIDs survivor
and his lunatic assistant, The Preacher-Man.
Research Project: The Legend of the Phoenix
Sleep-deprived and unable to keep down food, I spent
the better part of the night doing research
on the legend of the Phoenix Bird. Exhausting
all leads in the Funk and Wagnall’s 1966 Edition,
I am poised by the nurse’s station, hand on the phone.
My list of questions at the ready, bleary eyes
trained on the clock hands, I await 9 a.m.
and the opening of The Atlanta Library,
Main Branch. Just as the clock chimes, The Preacher-Man
swoops down grabbing the phone from my hand,
dials 911, screams Help! Murder! I’m dying!!
and takes off down the hall.
Next thing, several burly men dressed in white
pour out of the elevator, surround The Preacher-man
and him bucking like demon spawn.
Dragged back toward the nurses station, thrown thrashing
to the floor, The Preacher-Man is pinned, one man per limb,
face down while a nurse calmly injects his bare buttocks.
Struggle slowly subsides. As I watch,
defiance ebbs out of his fingertips and wafts down the hall
on a meager poof of conditioned air, hovers
around a light fixture, then seeps over a transom
into the men’s room. A giggle burbles up
in The Preacher-Man’s throat, choking out profanity,
followed by a low rumble of baritone singing
bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home…
as his loosed arms wave, fingers fluttering like feathers.
Back to my pad, I read my last notation from a sleepless
and delusional night’s research: I am convinced
all legends have their basis in some degree of fact.[/b]
by Freada Dillon © 2003
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