the martingale's

 

 

 

Those faint narrow lines on the planet Mars

seen thru 50's telescopes and are thought by some

to be canals built by Martians, weren't never

 

the roses of improbability, flattened by

overfed bosoms on cushion-less couches on

Pennsylvania St. And I chasten to offer

 

innocence as a substitute for purity and deportment,

because no person, and certainly no African American

woman person, could wake up so angry. Dancing so

 

strong around the campfire lit in the bathroom with

squirrels on the windowsill, and I have wondered

if it was your future I had saw in the well

 

and not the cyborg I kissed on it's forehead before

cold eyes were made thru steel refrigerator doors.

But I was reminded

 

that love was like the firethorn that blooms in winter,

yet never reluctantly,

and that I had a charmeuse hat that I have kept for

 

30 years only for it's magic powers and the way it

slides off and rests on the shelf next to you're crazy layers

 

and that stinky wet slip you wear with hypothetical tears

to untie me.

Reviews

[Cool Handless Luke]

30 years only for it's magic powers and the way it
slides off and rests on the shelf next to you're crazy layers

and that stinky wet slip you wear with hypothetical tears
to untie me.

i like this dana. especially the ending. in order not to insult your intentions i think i will swirl this one around the glass a bit before i leave a fitting review.

[Shmoke-Sifted Heftlande..]

empathy transformed..it's like it's all I've ever known
I can't understand what i can't feel, and I can feel this
but I don't know if I understand it, yet (an important word in the equation, I think)
not because of a lack of clarity
maybe hydrogen
or some color that hasn't been discovered yet by the naked eye
do you ever wonder how the parts of the light spectrum we can't see travel?
if there's a seed of hope in that then I'll get married like some of the others did
I don't create for hope though
it's more like projectile vomiting after layering your screwdrivers with ice cream and falling asleep
I can't think of a less boring way to wake up than projectile vomiting
where the hell am I, anyway?

[Marie Anzalone]

Why o why are we so irresistibly drawn to human beings so unemotionally available? Why don't we recognize the pain of trying to draw warmth from a machine in our bed where a partner should be? It's like we go looking for the hypothetical combination of crazy that will devastate us just enough to make us finally believe we deserve all the large and small betrayals life has handed us since about the age of 3. And we know it's a train wreck in the making and STILL we go there, drawn. Bonfires and old hats and even the canals on Mars that only appear after one has gazed at the surface long enough to see them- maybe all of these things serve as a guidepost, as we throw back our heads and roar, limping, into a second half of life where we can unpeel those layers of hurts from 30 years of disillusions? Superb, as always, dana.