HedwigStrange

These suckers were written for a creative writing course, for which I have to turn in a Grand Portfolio at the end of the semester. Of course, the poems have to revision quality, and I thought, where better to get some advice?

oh, and I apologize for the form poetry - I was forced!

How Do I Tell You?

Fifteen porcelain pretties, bedecked with roses
and covered in gold detailing,
such faux-rococo opulence,
But you love it.
They come with their own saucers,
And if the salesperson scents money,
Your own special bag of jasmine green tea
And a lavender sachet.

Eau de Mary Kay follows you
Where ever you go
Like the whimsical stuffed lamb
That was looking at you so fuzzily-eared
And pink nosed that you paid $35.00
To bring it home, even though
Your children have long since left you.

A doily on the Victorian side table of life,
You are. All lacy edges and channeled estrogen
All power-walks and dichrome cat brooches
And over-large handbags
That have seen a thousand thousand tampons,
Brushes, nail files, and oily lipsticks
All tinged with wintergreen gum.
Overstuffed, those purses, like you are,
Too much baggage
In an increasingly leathery package.

Here, have a mimosa or a mojito,
Or some other middle-aged drink,
While I sulk.
It’s just that, old bag,
No one layers noodles, sausage, and ricotta like you,
No one else tells me I’m beautiful
With any conviction
No one else is so uniquely talented…
At being embarrassing, I mean. I mean,
The world is your teacup,
Complete with rosebuds,
And you are generous
with the sugar.


Late Night at the Coffee House with Engineers
(written during open mic at Higher Grounds in Golden, CO)

Don’t move
I want to preserve the vision
Of the white sock curving
Around your ankle and the creamy
Scuffed shoe cupping your heel, strange
How beautiful it is

And funny how connected my sternum is
To the guitar. I feel the strumming, moving
Sine-wave through my diaphragm, my body cavity strangely
Resounding to the singer’s vision.
But my thoughts are a creamy
Oblivion, my brain is off on its own path, curving.

Look at that nose-curve!
That’s what personality is;
A pair of nostrils, not creamy
Good looks, because that bugger Time moves,
And it’s carving out its favorite vision
Not smooth skin, no, but a schnoz: masterpiece of strange

This crowd is usually estranged.
Tonight is a curve-ball,
But we’ve hit it off, we share vision
(bifocal, horn rim, such as it is)
We’re all together, parallel minds moving.
It’s too good, must be fattening, creamy.

The coffee needs cream
It’s watery, washes strangely
Down the throat, dirty tsunami wave, it moves
In great curves -
Strong in the esophagus. How is
It that this is perfect in the owner’s vision?

The songs turn off, softly fading vision
I’m feeling all cat in the creamy.
But the end of the night is
Here, and to be alone again is strange
At least these will never leave me, my curves,
They come with me out the door – time to get a move on.

Goodnight kisses are like cream
Curving lips dance a strange saliva exchange.
Blur my vision, move me, I’ll never know what loneliness is.



Bus Ride Image Poem (I know, great title. Suggestions?)

Electric-green pedestrian signs
Blare above traffic cones
Like giant neon-orange douche nozzles
And the seat adjacent is a bright blue bath
Filled with hot, hot multicolored confetti.

Color drains away, there’s the mall.
Light brown bricks stacked into more rectangles,
A blandness reborn in a thousand ranch style homes
Lined up zombies along pot-holed roads.

The white dashes on the pavement
Lead to a scuzzy white plaster building
Crumbling like feta on the outskirts
Of the street of Pearls.

Then pink relief, a cupcake of a dress
Lace and glitter and fantasy in a shop window.
A child’s dress with room for breasts
And a gelato shop there around the corner
To cure the craving for it.

The red of the Target sign is a bright lure for cheap.
Red cups in the creek spell idiocy,
And red John’s restaurant seems so cozy and warm
I just want to stop the bus,
and plop right down.