They are all
plastic pearls and sequin tiaras,
twinkling tulle skirts afloat
on the sea of pavement,
battery-powered magic wands
flashing kaleidoscopic
upon topiary hedges
manicured into griffins and unicorns.
They dance and twirl, oblivious
to smudged streams of passersby,
an impressionist backdrop
for an asphalt courtyard
beneath clacking vinyl heels.
Little princesses, when you retire to your cotton candy pillows
and shimmering sheets,
clutch your glittering wands and
hold fast to your virginity.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Halloween Night
Once upon a time the bodies on the neighbors’ lawn
were just vinyl heads and limbs drowning in strawberry syrup.
Ghosts were old white sheets splotched with Magic Marker and skeletons were plastic joints strung together with invisible thread.
Twenty years later the evening news spun polyester webs
over the slaughterhouse next door because no one ever asked to be a suicide bomber for Halloween.
were just vinyl heads and limbs drowning in strawberry syrup.
Ghosts were old white sheets splotched with Magic Marker and skeletons were plastic joints strung together with invisible thread.
Twenty years later the evening news spun polyester webs
over the slaughterhouse next door because no one ever asked to be a suicide bomber for Halloween.
Nightchildren
It was August ’87 and we were invincible phantoms of sequins and smoke bathed in strobeflash writhing thrashing headbanging to glamrock hair metal peroxide blondes with faux-hawks and kabuki makeup taking drags on their joints all safety pins and leather leggings swaying boyish hips to the pulse in the marijuana haze shaken with vodka and everclear swigged by rockstar wannabe renegades eyes glazed over by the mirrorball foreheads beading droplets of neon panting gyrating hips grinding against young things in demibras pumped with silicone chemicals and hairspray body heat choking deafening slicked in leather-tinged sweat clash of metal against heavy metal in the orgiastic blur of narcotics and blood the young and immortal quick never dead— fuck we were invincible.
Holiday
A hard glare
blazes off of rearview mirrors
dissolving into facets of
rhinestones set eye sockets
glinting once through the blizzard;
She lusts after plastic
custom giftwrapped with a flourish
of aluminum shreds clinging
from the tinseled displays and
nightmares of sugarplums
she wants more;
Arms hung with
bedecked beribboned bags
she elbows through the glitter storm
drowning in tissue paper foam
still wanting more.
blazes off of rearview mirrors
dissolving into facets of
rhinestones set eye sockets
glinting once through the blizzard;
She lusts after plastic
custom giftwrapped with a flourish
of aluminum shreds clinging
from the tinseled displays and
nightmares of sugarplums
she wants more;
Arms hung with
bedecked beribboned bags
she elbows through the glitter storm
drowning in tissue paper foam
still wanting more.
Stone Point
Local lips
zippered shut about
that forsaken place;
decrepit house
shrouded in dust
abandoned and
disintegrating into
ivy and woodbines
I was five years old
mesmerized
by the window
with the bullethole
something happened in this house
glass shattered into a spiderweb
veiling the face
of a mannequin
gazing into oblivion
molded mouth
would not divulge
something happened in this house
secrets shredded
by sputtering engines
blacked out by
inkwell skies reflected
in vacant holes of
mannequin eyes
pierced my ears something happened in this house
silence shrieked
specter of
spiderweb glass
eye socket voids
dumb mouth
something happened—
zippered shut about
that forsaken place;
decrepit house
shrouded in dust
abandoned and
disintegrating into
ivy and woodbines
I was five years old
mesmerized
by the window
with the bullethole
something happened in this house
glass shattered into a spiderweb
veiling the face
of a mannequin
gazing into oblivion
molded mouth
would not divulge
something happened in this house
secrets shredded
by sputtering engines
blacked out by
inkwell skies reflected
in vacant holes of
mannequin eyes
pierced my ears something happened in this house
silence shrieked
specter of
spiderweb glass
eye socket voids
dumb mouth
something happened—
Eleven
I lost my innocence to a stick of incense. It was August right before sixth grade and eighty degrees outside but sixty-seven in the mall; I wore jeans and a striped shirt with a heart-shaped zipper pull. The incense, lurking in a corner of a headshop, introduced itself as Sex on the Beach and enticed me to rub some on my sleeve; the moment it touched the fabric there exploded a blinding flash of bodies basted in coconut oil, writhing on the sand in the glow of boardwalk lights. My mother had to scrape me off the floor and drag the pieces across to the Macy’s juniors’ department. I had just regained consciousness when a nearby mannequin with jutting plaster-of-Paris clavicles glared at me from the hollows of her eyes and seethed that my body was inadequate for boys; from that day on I vowed to metabolize oxygen and drink moonglow until fat displaced the tissue padding stuffed into my training bra. I tried it the whole month of September and ended up whoring with a chocolate cake brought to English class by a cross-eyed kid who swore to buy me lingerie on my birthday and wanted to slip his quarter in the slot machine keychain dangling from one of the zippers of my backpack. I longed to run from the room but the cake whispered that every devilish bite of sugar and ultra-hydrogenated fatty acids would send me faster through puberty to collect the swelling breasts and womanly hips that everyone with a cunt was entitled to around my age.
I believed it until I woke up to the radio alarm streaming RuPaul’s morning show, still flat-chested and girdled with a jelly ring.
I believed it until I woke up to the radio alarm streaming RuPaul’s morning show, still flat-chested and girdled with a jelly ring.
The Whore of Babylon
Our Sunday School assistant was a mermaid. Or a siren or a gorgon. Her Lady Stetson had a bottom note of saltwater.
She was seventeen and wore hair in a high chignon; two strategically placed curls molded with Dep gel fell on either side of her hairline. Her lipliner was a shade darker than her lipstick. She wore a royal blue sequin jacket and sequined big-girl pumps that snubbed the flat rubber-soled Mary Janes all the girls in the class were strapped into. A patent Mary Jane whispered to a suede one that the blue sequin pumps were conspiring to teach all the Mary Janes how to swim. Meanwhile, the mermaid’s glossy mouth spoke of the Immaculate Conception.
Halfway through class, a boy with a trident knocked on the door and asked for the mermaid. The mermaid claimed she knew him just as Adam had known Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Saltwater flooded the room.
She was seventeen and wore hair in a high chignon; two strategically placed curls molded with Dep gel fell on either side of her hairline. Her lipliner was a shade darker than her lipstick. She wore a royal blue sequin jacket and sequined big-girl pumps that snubbed the flat rubber-soled Mary Janes all the girls in the class were strapped into. A patent Mary Jane whispered to a suede one that the blue sequin pumps were conspiring to teach all the Mary Janes how to swim. Meanwhile, the mermaid’s glossy mouth spoke of the Immaculate Conception.
Halfway through class, a boy with a trident knocked on the door and asked for the mermaid. The mermaid claimed she knew him just as Adam had known Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Saltwater flooded the room.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
