Puthery

Dear Donna:

I did not graduate, nor downsize

my hip-hop culture; my penchant of

putting my gum under the IKEA  (slang for)

smooth top, fundamental soft covering

voodoo culture, non-crushable 

dimmed or disliked then returned

without bawdy receipt, torn and sold

"as is" blues form. What I mean is,

I chew the new poems edges

into wrinkled leach skin: life's menagerie.

I had tickets to the Tigers game

sat in the nosebleed's. Ate a hotdog. Watched

wading birds swoop down in their instance of

madness and polish off a bun. Fame,

like reckoning, is shifting, I thought.

Get older and everything reduces is size,

cars, cabbage's, Penises

yet, your white prom glove,

after all these years,

I've  saved.

(2)

Mother fell in the garden and got

thons in her palm from the 

blackberry bushes she had pruned to a pile.

Together our two tongues shift like sheep

and get this,

the girl with down syndrome they

elected as prom queen. Beauty is

unraveling the fangs of

uncertainty. The shame is that

love makes our absence worse. 

Reviews

[emmajoy]

' .. . Beauty is - unraveling the fangs of - uncertainty. The shame is that - love makes our absence worse. '

And so it does, more than regrettably.

How time and sights and feelings alter, dana; how you've grabbed thoughts and turned them into whoop of joy at one minute and a gasp or pause in the next. Your three 'tableaux' seem to take you places that you look back on with a hugger-mugger of emotion, both sides of feelings and reactions felt, turned this way that for closer examination. Perhaps? Each stage of time and experience seems to trickle more slowly into the skin as if sizzling in the stove - adding oddly different flavours, but perhaps, changing strength.

Sometimes Em finds it difficult to follow some of your written thoughts but that's not due to your inadequacy but mine because, mind-reader I am not.. and of course, don't feel the same sorrows, pleasures or regrets. Your final section holds such a heap of emotions, less seems more, a sadness of the now, not the past. Such is life - day and night being what it is. As ever, there's intensity writ here but an emotion hard to find in many written words these days. Thank you.

[h d e rushin]

sometimes Em, "I find it difficult to follow some of my writing" also. but I love you because you have no emotional filters; no layers of untruth worn over armor or irrational hand wringing to make feelings reliable. I want to be able to write love poems with such conviction, the type that transports to the level of sunken ships or as high as launched heavens. You are my hero of method and my hydro of cause and retrospection. Thanks as always for stopping by....dana

[Einstein Noodle]

Well....soon the weather will turn quite pluthery for me too my friend ;) quite the definition for IKEA ... i stick my gum under the surface .. brilliant my friend ... simply brilliant .. no need for clarification but i am so glad you shared these lines:
"I chew the new poems edges
into wrinkled leach skin: life's menagerie." ....to cool for school my friend!! i think the letter format is refreshing ..the change in time from verse to verse grabs me each time .... (your not old enough to have the wisdom nor evidence of a shrinking world ;)
the saved glove is poignant and emotive ... i almost cried my friend :( V3 L2 add the "r" to thons please :)))) the Downs Syndrome girl as Prom Queen comes up in the garden talking with Ma ... speaks to some good in a changing world ... unless its a Carrie kind of thing >;/
your closing leaves me a bit off balance ... i want more of a bridge from the garden back to the missed love with Donna ..great stuff ..your poetry and remarkable use of the language always inspires and teaches me new things ... thanks so much for sticking around and sharing your "stuff" ... right here at the Cafe'
E.

[h d e rushin]

thank you my friend..i struggled with that ending Einstein, that is, I struggle often with poetic bridges:..how to make teardrops of longing, verbose . poetry is hard as hell to do....dana

[Einstein Noodle]

it should be shouldn't it!? its because we care .. about what we are saying, how we say it and keeping it honest and on a road of improving ... love on ya friend!

[Kathy Van Kurin]

'puthery'
h d e rushin,
Pushing through the emotion of time.
Life flies by. Fragrant youth comes and goes. Love unravels before our eyes.
Through the reality of now we squint through the strands into the bright sun of then.
Your poem was refreshing reminding of all the experiences which are held in our souls.
Blessing to you.
Kathy

[h d e rushin]

yes, yes, yes Kathy..in our souls is where poetry emotes and where it justly belongs. Love does in fact unravel before our eyes without even a sliver of the bitter angel of the afterlife to remind us/ to convince us of our duty. Your words are so beautiful...dana

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Dana,
Well, we try don't we to make sense of the layers of time we carry...they live on. Some are so deep and a mystery. Love seems to be the deciding factor which everything spins on.
Blessings and thanks for reading and giving your own unique voice.
I hope you are enjoying some new spring where you are.
Kathy

[kentuck14]

D,
Like the way you put this piece in the form of a letter to 'Donna'. Even though I don't get some of the cultural references, I still travel easy with your lines (sometimes mystery pumps up the volume as we use to say). e.g. "I chew the new poems edges into wrinkled leach skin: Life's a menagerie." This sings!
Reference to the Tiger's game: the quick flip in conversation . . . even in a letter. Interesting switch in attention from the general game (of life?) to a single bird on the make. Seems we are distracted when witnessing an act of survival (Or perhaps, just greed?) Seems like it all becomes clearer as we age . . . the way of the world closes in . . . all things contract right down to a white glove worn so many years ago . . . this becoming vital with the passing of time.
Oh, and the sudden shift to mother and her injury . . . but it's quickly lost in a moment of incredulity.
Final words to Donna . . . maybe we loved each other after all?! Nice write Dana.
Tom

[h d e rushin]

aint that the truth...I, like all of us who write here, are trying to get this poetry thing right..It's as hard as it is insoluble. But I keep on trying and thank you so much for continuing to read and review.......dana

[kentuck14]

It's my pleasure.
T.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

love how you metaphorically refer to poetry here...and sticking you gum onto the underside of life's belly.
like we do get some of our life at a rummage sale...cheaply acquired but can't take it back.
and you bringing up the Tigers, the nosebleed seats...reminds me of sitting with my dad in the grandstand seats we had for a Yankees/Red Sox game in NY around 1957 or so...
good seats then...but a friend and i went to Comiskey park...the new one right after it opened and sat in the nose bleed...i was afraid to lean over to get my peanuts, thinking i would fall out of the seat and down to the field.
sometimes life gets to be like a nose-bleed seat...and we get scared to move or breathe.
and your prom queen...reminds me of my high school girlfriend...my first love..and how i missed her prom because my dad wouldn't lend me the money to go...she thought i didn't want to...and married the guy she went with....such is life...i think our two tongues still whisper to each other every once in awhile.
j.

[h d e rushin]

Red Sox/Yankees ? 57? Now that's some history right there Jacob..At my high school reunion I didn't recognize my high school sweetheart although (I thought) I was in love with her. I still have that glove in my yearbook somewhere in my mothers basement....lol/ Thanks for your insight my friend...dana