Pantoums in the Night OR Pantoums Often Organize Prettily

Marie woke up inside her own head.
It was so unlike anything she’d ever known, and so familiar, that it couldn’t have been anything else.
The rushing walls fell in and emptied when she tried to stand up,
So instead she lay there in the dark.

It was so unlike anything she’d ever known, and so familiar, that it couldn’t have been anything else.
The old-world actions embedded in her glands told her when to go and when to stop
The rushing walls fell in and emptied when she tried to stand up
While a million years of evolution worked and weaved its way above her

The old-world actions embedded in her glands told her when to go and when to stop
She was too wise to listen to anyone’s words but her own, so she ran through her own city, no one else’s
While a million years of evolution worked and weaved its way above her
And she got lost in her own tangled ecstasies.

She was too wise to listen to anyone’s words but her own, so when
Marie woke up inside her own head,
She had no one else to blame for the anger and hatred and malaise.
It was so unlike anything she’d ever known, and so familiar, that it couldn’t have been anything else.

Für Lucy

Yeah, it’s a dog poem, deal with it.

You’ve got an ocean inside of you.
The brutal, sandy hacks confirmed my diagnosis (silly girl, you cannot cough up an ocean!)
And why you choose to spend your shuddering last moments curled up by my face is beyond me
(Too dumb to know that I’m your Judas or too simple to care?)
So many little things tucked up in you, away inside of you
And now this. Where is there room for an ocean?
No wonder you throw up sea foam
In kelp weed green and hazy dead yellow
Or red like the coral reed or high-tide Bible fungus
Or like a beach ball
Swollen and distended like your tummy, it all makes sense now!

Are there people on your belly beach?
When I listen, I don’t hear–
It sounds empty and hollow, like deep-tissue reverberations
Makes me feel like how I feel the night before
Something coming, but so far off and in another existence
And able to be prolonged indefinitely if I can only
stay
awake.

It’s like a spirit cave, or a subtle world
By some terrible, gruesome misconstruction mine ended up inside of you
At least now, when it comes time, I can just
Lay my head against your back and listen to the sanguine sound of distant waves.

The Curse of Double Dees

I don’t remember this prompt. I don’t think that it had anything to do with boobs to begin with, though. I just wanted another excuse to use the word “gozongas.”

Copy a Post

THE CURSE OF DOUBLE DEE’S

Dainty Dish Patisserie is famous for its pies
For if you clean your plate up, you get a huge surprise
Kalooh, Kalay, you’ll shout with glee before your very eyes
Your once petite-ish knockers will grow to twice their size.

At first you bless the pie shop for this most joyous day
But soon you’ll find gozongas only seem to get in the way
And then, before you know it, you’ll be spending all your pay
On walkers, canes, back braces, and pie-sized lingerie.

The Raven

For this one, mama gave me the prompt, ‘Write a poem titled The Raven.” Here was the end product. If read aloud, use brash Brooklyn accent for voice of Andros, the disgruntled raven, as if the previous owners were Sylvester Stallone and your whiskey drinking grandma.

THE RAVEN

The day I went away to college, my aunt gave me

A bird.

It was this big, black, scraggly thing, with tufts of feathers sticking out of the side of its head

Like a Bozo the Clown wig.

“His name is Andros,” said my aunt, patting him bemusedly on the head and

picking at a spot in his feathers.

I really didn’t have the room in my apartment but

I didn’t have a roommate and

I needed someone to talk to and

A bird was better company than the weather lady.

I called him Andrew for short and he sat on the bust of Cindy,

or Laura,

Or whatever centerfold happened to be lying open on my desk at the time.

I read somewhere that Crows can talk, or at least mimic

In ancient, crusted tongues.

So I tried to teach him to say his name

And mine

And to ask me general questions like, “How was your day?”

But Andros just sat, staring

So I gave up and let him pick at my TV dinner while

I caught up on my shows.

I met a girl who had a smile like diamonds

And who let me feel her up at the movies on the first date,

So the centerfolds were soon replaced with pictures

Of trips to the park and the art museum

And a couple eating ice-cream photogenically and laughing for the camera.

One day, I came home to find a note on the door saying

That it was fun, but it was time for her to move on

And did I really think that it was a serious thing in the first place?

“You’re too boring, That’s all. Learn to live a little. Sincerely L. P.”

I only cried for a little while, then I took down the pictures of her,

And cried some more. But mostly,

I just sat

And watched TV

Another day, similar to the first in trauma

I received another letter, informing me that I failed

Three of my classes, and only managed to pass the fourth

Because the professor had to leave halfway through the year

And never found a replacement.

I was to clear out my dorm and leave within 24 hours.

I waded through the piles of odd socks

And slumped down in the remains of a Chinese-food take-out feast.

“God, what do I do? What DID I do?”

I heard a noise, and thought for a moment that I had un-muted the television,

But then a curt little voice said, “If I may.”

I looked around the room,

At the stereo, and the radio,

And in the hallway, and out the window for good measure,

Then I turned to face the only possible remaining source of the sound.

Andros opened his beak.

His voice came slowly, and in fragments.

He spoke in cobbled words, I recognized the cool feminine purr of the NBC newswoman

and the strident tones of the soap-opera queens,

And in even my own words, incorporated into the creepy franken-voice of the disgruntled figure perched

On my DVD collection.

All these words, strung together from the bird’s dismal surroundings, sounded something like this:

“If I may. Jesus, I’ve been waiting for the right words to come my way for some time. Your sitcoms lack the desired eloquence, and you can’t imagine how frustrated I was when you watched nothing but Mexican soap-operas for a month because you liked that chick’s gozangas. Dios mio, cabron, get a life! You’re a loser and a coward and all you’ve done since you were young is try to hide from yourself and the last two years you’ve done nothing but try to hide from college and girls and responsibility, but now they’ve caught up to you too, and all I can say is, good luck kid, you’re on your own, I’m outta here.”

He cocked his head pointedly, and began to hobble

Towards the open window.

“…Andrew?” I whimpered pleadingly.

“It’s Andros, asshole.” And he flew from the sill.

I collapsed back onto my couch, onto my throne of despair and self-loathing

And old pizza boxes,

Rubbing my temples and wishing vaguely

That he’d just said “Nevermore,” and left it at that.