Entrance by default

Maybe it’s time to stop wearing

a dead woman’s perfume

find my own

smell

be my own

woman

I met her when I was 11

looked up to her in that tinkering way

I have continually become besotted

with older women

those who knew more than I

all the secret clubs they belonged to

giving me entrance by default

knock, knock, admittance, change your coat

alter your mind, don another mask

take a turn at the carousel, the diamond

cut of your eyes as you churn out living

into the willing mouths of babes

go on lap it up …

drink yourself into thinking you’re not you

comfortable with anything but

your own skin

the smell of your life clinging to my escape

like a day old glass of wine

just drinkable, a little bitter

redolent in mid-day sun

as soft as fur

I think I’m old enough

to be myself now

which means

your smell

in that white bottle

that I can only buy in rare perfume shops

because it was long ago discontined

much as it reminds me

of being a young girl

trying to understand why

she had feelings for older women

(that were definitely not about seeking a mother)

those days are over

I’m old enough now to have had

my own children

and while I still

have a thing for older women

I’m not going to smell of you

and the memories

anymore

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This dance is for the dead

Would that you would stay

would that you were ever mine

would that you knew how

you strip and stir those tender passions

sterile of any other life

I am blackened with desire for you

I am white with inordinate stifle

see the end of the bottle how it glistens?

With promise and her velvet touch she

summons,

turn to me, burn with me, set me alight

leave me wrecked on your shore, blistering

this is why I breathe, to end in your gaze

this is why I ache, to imagine just a glance

this is why I die, to lose you without ever

having

there’s the rest and there’s one girl

she’s a woman, she’s rage, she’s not gentle

she can’t be caged or capitulated

the stroke of her fingers on metal

she’s tearing you up with her untouchable ways

ruining others, for they seem tame

comparison is the enemy of the weak

she laughs at your charade, your belief

she’ll ever want a thing from you, nothing

further could be true, she’s so far removed

reach for her, she’ll bite you in half

try to be tender, she’ll laugh in your face

howling another’s name just for sport

indifference is her game, she’ll toss you

aside before she’s arrived with your petty

longings and your wounded heart

she’s little and she’s huge, she’s magnification

and cruelty and searing everlasting beauty

I imagine lying next to her and it’s a joke

the nearest I could get would be a parallel universe

made of pins and needles, volcanoes and tsunami

your beauty is a storm of urges unspent

my secrets just flowers of passion unsung

feeling your way in the dark is your favorite dance

you’re roaring in your sleep and breaking the sound barrier

you compete for breakfast and throw the weak over

for the sharks

there’s nothing between us except everything

even if I were not myself, I could not be close to you

you abhor connection, you loathe obsession

fearless you parody their love of you

with mocking abandon like a ballerina

needing no shoes

you write songs with the pen of a bloody mad woman

you tattoo desire into my chest with sharp knives

thrown from a mountain

all the while not knowing what you do

for I do not exist and neither does time

it can harp and beat for a hundred years and I wouldn’t run out

of want, just the means, just the methods

just one time, just in a dream, just fantasize

shut your eyes, turn off the light, stand still, run

your voice over broken connection

nimble fingers strumming a line

from another time, one where you give me

one moment, I stand behind you, watching

the shape of your conquer

chaos in the surge of everything

anger, rage, beauty, madness

you can move someone without touching

you can devastate someone without speaking

no injury and it hurts worse than breaking

egotism in a glass vase to be shattered

where we go, nobody will know

children of night, children of satiation

I heard you sing in the past when I didn’t know

names and places, people and feelings

I was a dead thing dancing to numb haunt

you stepped toward me and I saw you

a dervish in halo, a god within a devil

nothing else, the crowd cleared, it was only you

so sure, so dark eyed, with your torture

curling me around your laugh like a rocket

I burned and drank it down and the flames

made me golden

plug me in, I spin on electric want without power

you stop and start, you shout, you demand

you scream at the complacency and kick the rulers

I am a dead star above your night, I am

the person you were before you were born

I inhabit your meaning like a false note

there is only nothing and nothing comes with

a voice until you speak

into my freeway, driving at 100 mph on

drowning streets, they cry for your attention, you

giggle in irreverence

no fault of yours the whole world adores

someone who cannot be won, or succumb

to usual rules, to anyone’s need, it’s always been

about you, about you, about you

i’m happy here, stretched on your rack

beginning to enjoy poison and its benefits

for we make aches out of wants and wants

never cut too deep, they die as they are

absorbed into daylight, scars making scars

you are the eternal night you pull me in

I struggle against your tide, you want to drown me

with your sharp loveliness

it’s your control, it’s what you know

you have the bravado of a broken angel

words leave me struck through with arrows

secrets are best left buried

dig me up, let me whisper, I would say

it’s always ever been you

say it once and I drop to my knees

I was told it was wrong to worship

I was told it was wrong to believe in

perfection or need

you open your red mouth

i’m watching, I’m writhing

how are you still moving? Didn’t you

die? Didn’t you stop breathing?

Turning in betrayal, you can

only betray when it matters

nothing matters to girls made of stone

they sing to the siren and the siren

blesses them

this dance is for the dead

desire so long it’s bent double

it hurts to enter the temple

you burn me every time you don’t notice

but that’s your way

that’s who you have always been

untouchable

untouchable

untouchable

 

Radiance

Sun filigreed through high tree lines

Touching our chosen space with bright finger tips

We swing, irregular rhythm, sometimes your momentum, sometimes mine

I watch you point your toes and know

It is hard to remain calm, not to act upon

Desires bound by respect and difference

You are a forest nymph, a hummingbird

You are a nayad of the lake, your honey my want

I imagine holding your bottom lip lightly with my teeth

Graze your unapproachable grace with whispering touch

Green water is still and birds sound from high

I hear it all

And only the gentle deep of your voice

How you move your mouth

The tilt of your long elegant neck

Sunlight turning your skin into caramel

Picks out the rushing river of your eyes

Glances off the high wistfulness of your cheeks

Your thin tshirt a wrapper, I long to pull toward me

Your fingers, nimble, I would take in my own

In my mind, I preserve each motion

How you tilt your small chin

The sway of your bones moving beneath skin

If I could I would cup your little face in my hands

Tilt you toward sunlight until all we could feel

Was radiance

Reach for the taste of your tongue

Bury myself in your laundered smell

The brush of forest and leaves, wild and breathing

Stay in that singular and plural second

Retracing the shapes you make, rising and falling

I know there are things pulling us back into the world

I know we cannot stay in this dappled moment forever

That life goes on demanding our turn of attention

But I will keep coming back to your eyes

Capturing light, water, air, me

I think I see

I think I see

More within your secret self

Than our words have yet said

All I can do is hope, I’m not imagining

Or the burning in my chest does not long alone

It would be inexplicable to feel so much

Without return

But as I drive away

The sun dipping slow behind clouds

I have a confidence I’ve never possessed

Certain it is not just me, who speaks silently beneath surfaces

If you can hold on to the courage of now, how we are

To let yourself feel it too

It doesn’t matter how long it will flame

It matters that we do not give up before we create that light

Before the resolve of desire and emotion

Sets untouched and life grows dark again

I do not want to give up on hoping

You’ll look at the same sky

Share my wish

You have planted a longing in me I cannot ignore

Unspoken and afraid to be real

Until you say

From your beautiful mouth

With your lovely faraway voice

Yes I want

I want you too

She is beauty

If her heart were a drum

it would be outlawed for beating too loud

for the insistent and unwary pound

keeping wakeful when those who rest

wish for silence

beneath her is a lake of feeling

if a mime enacted, his black cloth fingers

would grow numb with gesticulation

his elbows fatigued from the shapes

her wordless passion smacked into

taut skin

trembling at the imagining of her

proximity

she breaks a sweat on the fine hair of her neck

a necklace of pearl and moonstone

for each sway of her fruiting body

she is the picker of her sanity

a welcome devil in empty playground

she blinks into darkness, seeing futures

in one, she is swimming in dark water

the stars illuminating only her want

reaching shore, she searches for her among shadows

trying to imagine the way she feels

naked and shaking off

the spill of her longing

in another they are talking

far into time and beyond, where

landscapes break open pink and ochre

like food consumed by gods

she cannot yet tear herself away

from the smoothness of her skin

or how her cheeks slope like arching

cats, pulling beauty from places

she didn’t know existed

she cannot yet reach out

run her tremulous and urgent hunger

along the narrow slope of her shoulders

and dipping into honey, find a

succulence beyond anything yet tasted

she is a terrifying girl who

knows her power and still

is lost at times to its art

the wince and crimp of her slimness

like a willow tree, capturing storms

she holds her head like a wave

cresting against soft shoreline

proud and a little self-assured

the quivering arrow of her curves

tie like a bow around desire

burns in its simplicity

her skin is mango and sunlight

of all her lives spent

before she was found

still like a water fountain

just before it bursts, released from clay

there is harmony and music

in her tread and no one yet

has found the riddle to her heart

something distant and wafer thin

like a fabric of unknown origin

it is not her wish to change anything

but the temperature she feels

when they press against the other

beneath roar of blood and live wire

crackling into cuplets of lightning

it is not her wish to alter one second

save the moment she relents and

sensing something good

releases her perfume and all the

capture of her loveliness

till they mingle as one energy

burning their quickening on the tail of

some unearthed connection

where beneath the moon they

reach for each other and not

the solace of being alone

lying in a circle like warm petals

she draws her hand slowly

over the silk of her

without words sufficient

holds her breath

as long as it can stay

spellbound by her presence

the entire world paused

in reflecting pools

oceans

never deep enough to

swallow

the intensity

of her regard

for she

is beauty.

She told me, don’t worry about it

We’re sitting talking about how we know

You’re making me laugh at jokes, about Hannibal

How I only like Gillian, because she’s a bit like you

And I can’t tell anyone, including you

You reminded me how I knew, I was still alive

In the video of you dancing, uncaring and wild

That’s how I’m reminded why

I know beauty

How women

Are the possessors of

All that is beautiful

With your downcast eyes, the color of absinthe

Hair falling in your pale face, cut cheekbones and grace

The switch of your merciless, marching intelligence

The sorrow, the humor, the passion lines

How you make me laugh hysterically and blush

Pouting, pulling on your cigarette, getting me aroused and nervous

Without trying, you command all attention

Your wit is sharper than a sword

When you didn’t talk to me

It was like a blonde flower, turning her lights out

The night was darker

Still I heard

That song you made immortal

The sway of your slim hips and secret smile

And I’m speaking to you in a language, I outlawed

Because he dirtied it for me, forever

But you sound so lovely talking in the fog

I know I have to stand at a distance, or I’d reach out

Grab the concentration from your lovely brow

But to be in your blazing aura

The tiny, angry, intelligent, firey soul

You inhabit like no other

You were the girl who woke me up

I’d give anything to dance with you

To that exact song, in those same clothes

Your then blonde hair, a chaotic wisp

The crunched concentration on your francophone face

There’s classic and there’s disheveled-perfect and you’re both

I’d take your hand and say

Don’t worry, I know the rules

But for fucks sake we’ve both been here long enough

born the same year

You got the small chest I always wanted

And you said you liked my eyes

Same color green as yours

Not narcissism

But sisters

Lovers of

Pain and hard living

We only trust those like us

Who smoked and drank and have to show on our tired faces, the weariness of living

Where boundaries are never crossed

But fantasy is free and inked

And you like being adored

I am good at loving

Sad, happy, gorgeous girls, with crooked smiles

Who hold my attention with their spark

Catching in the darkness like a skinned rock, thrown out to sea

On Brighton beach

Where we’ll always be young and beautiful

Me chasing you in the cold sea

You disappearing into green waves

Wounded bird

I tried with you, I really tried, and then I let you go

you flew out of the window even as it was closed

panes securely fastened

latch tight and unyielding

because you had never quite been

 

it was you see, a failure of mine

to find you flailing beneath yourself

with a few choice words you could

nourish from my adoration and mend

your rapid fast airy heart

containing only string

for what you need and not

enough for love

 

I was a clay maker

thinking fitfully if I put enough into shape

if my structure were sound and whole

if I poured water to prevent cracks

moistened over the thin spots

despite not being what you wanted

despite being a girl

despite having tired fingers

you would relent and

let me hold you in my lap

as crickets drowned the rush of air in hot melt

 

you were after all

used to mistreatment, I reasoned

surely a bird who had been injured

would long for peace?

the passion of sincerity

a terribly naive hope

when we all know

those who like the wound

will return to their abuse

not the arms of one who

is boring in her devotion

I never thought I should become

that very tedium

you strike against with mended wing

the one you answer last

when bored or idle

not they, who burn in your throat

wakefully lusting

whilst I feel already the part

of spinster and milliner

hemming your spare parts

 

it would be easy for me to

dress like you, smell like you

gather a flock of admirers

play midnight dalliances with

camera and music

cue ..  lights ..  pose ..  fizz

and now that you have shown

your true feathers

I see a little of why you prefer this slovenly approach

it suits your downturn

your denial of yourself

and I feel embarrassed that you had me so hot

as you pulsed beneath my wonder

with practiced charm

so used to hearing the false words you live for

 

I do not own

a penis

though my strength and my passion

would have surprised you

I do not possess

a penchant for games or

the worship sufficient to be

your follower

your worshiper

so little bird

when you escape

please do not

return when the skies fall

and he stops calling

or insults your honor

because my fingers are burnt dry

from believing myself

needy of you

 

 

(Daquin, 1997.)

On the other side of rebuke

I used to say

O talk to me

open your maraschino mouth

pull the glazed words out

until they come undone

now I say

keep quiet

stay absent

I have found what I didn’t yet know

standing on the other side of rebuke

we forsake our blazing joy

under the suffocation of those

who demand all of us

and none of us

I spent a life time waiting

to stop hating myself

when the girl with the sparrow in her limbs

took me by the hand and bid me dance with her

entreat I may rinse my history in her cupped smile

held under chin like buttercup tells fortune to

gilded child, with her smoothness and her beguile

latching emptiness and filling it with stars

bursting over us like white flames caution the acrobat

to walk steadier in the marsh of emotion

I didn’t think I could start over, my chapter was

dulled by the passage of hands holding me back

she knew I could

when I lost my footsteps on the other side of rebuke

she picked me up, held me still until my heartbeat

slowed and the music filled me anew