Sunday is the day
your old ghosts,
demons,
and crushing failures
drop in
for a spot of tea.
Tag: Ghosts
there’s a bar in the kitchen
where i sit alone most evenings
but not tonight
as sundays are for communing with the dead
the hour finds me sharing a scotch
with zevon’s vaporous ghost
he sits beside me strumming his immaculate gibson guitar
singing that his shit’s fucked up
i concur
explaining how i have acquired the sickening habit
of being unable to ignore the truth
in the door walks every bloody sacrifice i’ve carried in offering
to the goddess of being a lousy cunt
the heaviness you feel when your head is resting in your hands
is the weight of every choice you’ve ever made
i’ll never know your love
this will be the last thought
as my coins are handed to the ferryman
this is the price of admission
he strolls in
to the gray paged light
of kaldi’s coffee & books
seeking my table
it’s an old haunt of mine
down on main street
that’s no longer there
i nod to him
noticing he looks
hawaiian shirt out of place
this far inland
as he sits
the waitress materializes
liberating a beer from the table
that spent it’s time there
wishing it were a bourbon
promises are made about eggplant lasagna
we hear edith piaf
off somewhere in the distance
agreeing with an accordion
my lips have his eyes transfixed
as i tell him,
“You’ve turned me into your Yoko.”
he cackles up the side of bookshelves
laughter finally reaching the tin tile ceiling
“Why can’t you be happy with that, darling?”
“Because, when I arrived, it was already broken.”
“But you must pay…”
the yellow beeswax candle
the only fire on the table between us
extinguishes itself in the iron holder
“You should be grateful, all my characters die at the end. Besides, you’re more Idi Amin than Lennon…”
saturday
you are lovely
in your late morning robe
my ears have forgotten alarm clocks exist
invited to the table
by a red rosebush
i have tea with my closest ghosts
remembering
god lives in your mother’s kitchen
blueberry bagels are making the tangerines suspicious
i tell them julia child credited her longevity to red meat and gin
a cherry tree trial convenes beyond the window
the robin in the nest
just confessed
she was mae west
in another life
being a working mother
takes on many odd forms
especially in the evening
there were nights when the twins were small
they would have to come to work with me
taken to the third floor playroom
of the victorian mansion funeral home
they would watch cartoons and play as knights storming castles
as i embalmed bodies in the catacombs
listening to lou reed and watching them on closed circuit tv
on occasion i would be focused on my sewing
when i would hear their screams running down the steps seeking me
my feet would fly to the casket elevator
it being faster than the grand staircase
and the surest way to my sons
my hands throwing open the brass gate
would lead my eyes to discover
i would not be alone for my ride upstairs
the ghost of whomever i was stitching
would apologize for causing all the shouting
i shared a meal
in a bombed out madrid hotel
with ernest this morning
he was grimy and blackened
from a night
of wandering through the plaza de la villa
amidst the sheep, soldiers, and ghosts
i ordered red wine and white cheese
he barked for whiskey and bread
all of which continuously slid to our right
down the half broken bar
to the east
under the swaying
provisional wartime bulbs
my pristine cream blouse
looked like sacrilege
stretching across my breasts
and his eyes
forcing my lips to move
i asked him what he would change
about his life
he said
“I would have fucked more.
I would have written less.”
Categories
chronos
he comes to me
as he has for centuries
late in the night
after an evening
spent drinking on cloudy bar stools
propped against
the full of bourbon moon
heavy with a longing pocket watch
and the color of my eyes
he pours through
cement street corner shadows
until he arrives
at the side porch of my life
his finger urgently
finding the way
my doorbell sounds
at 2 am
i descend the
sleeping staircase
white night gown floating
and thus the ritual begins
coming to the door
i do not open it
nor does he intend to enter
preferring to remain a wish
rather than live as a regret
we place hands and lips together
kissing through an inch of steamy hour glass
in the doorway of time
mouthing i love you
as he fades into the street lamp light
mausoleum chambers
fill my mother’s house
the lavender room
with grandmother luvenia’s bed
and soft pink crystal light fixture from the old house on fishing creek
is where the spaw and bates families are entombed
the bed spread woven from funeral ribbons and loss
cherry framed antique portraiture
hang as illuminated death masks of my ancestors
behind the old convex glass
shoe leather faces
whip stitched lines
and battle scars
their backs curved
from bending to god’s will
their great depression was their existence
i look into the women’s changed eyes
who lost children
they had faded to a barely living shade of gray
known only to battlefields
and beds sickened with scarlet fever
country life is a sort more merciless than most
particularly to the feminine persuasion
mother swears the cicadas were screaming in the june apple trees
that pot steam august day meant for sewing bicentennial dresses
the day aunt lena jumped in the well
i often walked by the sealed haunted thing as a little girl
lungs filling with fear
wondering why that day
she chose to turn potable water into tears
was it the four year old daughter
named venus
born and died in the month of april
buried beside the church
had the clocks her late husband made wound her tightly enough to do it
or was it simply senility
i’ll never know
when had she stopped hearing the piano music
what had she suffered
that an abyss seemed somehow more comforting
than another day lost in the valley of stones
i close the memory of her with a crystal doorknob
cousin leland went into the well after the body
but her soul
never resurfaced