The History Girl

The quiet snarl of a gas oven smothers me.

Colorless strings, my veins bulging like meat in pigskin.

I hear only a slow tick. My heart that once purred -

Now reducing itself, filtering out all the blood inside it.

Me the feline, monoxide kisses, hisses to a carcass. Carbon dates the passing years.

 

An old cloth cat dances along the Whitehouse lawn,

His stuffing spills out all over the neat cut grass -

Bubba Clinton inhales both stuffing and grass, his nose as long as a Cuban cigar.

My piano tutor, a Brooklyn priest, tells me he is to marry the King of England -

He invites my teeth, my black teeth that is, to the wedding.

 

Blossom soaks a statue of my mother as a faun,

Its marble frosting melts under the weight of rainbow sprinkles.

Silhouettes on an unmarked headstone tiptoe alongside

Three Siamese fighting fish in red hunting hats, their scales made of one green eye

That stares at me, mocking my bed-head and last night's weeping eyeliner.

 

Out of this curious dream I am jolted, finally stirred as

The wireless wails Whitney. ‘... and I will always love you….’

Oh Houston, we have a problem. I really need to switch you off.

A moment or two of fumbling… and I recall adolescent sex,

Even more so as the wireless goes dead quiet; that awkward silence

As loud as Kansas thunder.

       

Inside my head, Mussolini and Hitler like leeches

Suck all the blood downwards.

 

It is the start of the working week.

 

Ethics decontaminate, they show up belligerent and tough -

What are we to think of Uncle Joe Stalin and the great incongruity?

 

This is my vocation, and it is this I tell myself.

 

I wear a cream blouse and a World War Two smile.

My lavender pencil skirt asserts a sensuous authority.

My Bette Davis spectacles suggest an enigmatic firecracker -

A steel needle in E minor. A medusa of knowledge. A heart of darkness.

 

My red painted lips hold an Empire of dirty secrets -

My body, an Iron Curtain, waits to be pulled apart by some uber undergraduate,

A Kapitalist nitwit spreading democracy and theories of free market grades.

 

I am ready for the twenty yard gridlock.

 

O such seminar disorder -

The lights are fusing like French resistance.

East and west, each front another war.

Valium wins the day.

Author's Note

Inspired by my sometime life as a college tutor of European history.

Reviews

[Shmoke-Sifted Heftlande..]

this dream goes so deep into the rabbit hole that it decapitates a
worm-hole-black-hole and jumps into the chest of Hollywood and restores the imagination of Palestine.
but yeah, your transition between the dream bridging a personal allegorical connection between history and reality and adolescence and adulthood in the paradigm of a fubar society leads nicely in to the ending.
it's an ironic twist ending that is both obvious if you were paying attention and completely unexpected (for the sake of comedy?) if you were paying attention. But yeah, I'm not one to admit believing in type-o's but then, I haven't been drinking either...god forgive me for being sober and Morgan Freeman for president of the USA.
I love the Family Guy reference, and I'm only gonna admit to liking American television because I like being the guy from Antarctica, because polar bears and penguins are not ready to hold hands just yet....prophecies have not fully come to fruition just yet..
this poem should be the poster child for universal metaphysical health care and I don't give those kinds of compliments every other day.
I thoroughly enjoyed the progression of the historical costume facade towards the end..that really tickled me. Way to go. High five!

[Rosalind Gale]

-xx-

[Dean]

So much in this piece! No wonder you agonize over every poem you write. I would have to do a line-by-line analysis in order to give a fair impression of my feeling (and intellectual reaction) as I read it. It is obviously stream of consciousness, but with desisgn...an "I" poem without the offense of self-centeredness. Kudos for that!
-Dean

[Dean]

I just re-read your autobiographical notes. I see that what you agonize over are your REVIEWS. I apologize. And, if you look at my own work and react to it (which I hope you will) please do not agonize. I sincerely welcome and deisre frank criticism. I thrive on it, and grown because of it

[Rosalind Gale]

Well I do both Dean... thank you for original comment! I just thought - I mention 'piano tutor' - and I know music is close to your heart. That made me smile...
And yes, I will be around to leave reviews for your poems, having read many of them already - it will be my pleasure -
-xx-

[Dean]

Yes, of course. Music has always been big...Not so much since I have become quite deaf.

[Coyote Poetry]

I love history. Myth and history are my favorite. Many books above me with story of war and life. I like the thoughts and the flow of this poem. I like the many interesting questions raised up in this poem. A very surprising ending to a excellent poem.
Coyote

[Rosalind Gale]

Thank you -
-x-

[Dr. Wood ?]

I wonder what it might feel like to be inside your head....You must have to let all of it out to make room for the rest that is constantly growing....I cannot wax lyrical...but need to.....this was awesome

[Rosalind Gale]

Thanks Doctor -
-x-

[Kristallo]

Valium wins the day. Haha, nice ending. :P This IS quite enigmatic, and some of the metaphors you use here are stunningly inventive. There are so many lines that I fell in love with when first reading.

'Silhouettes on an unmarked headstone tiptoe alongside
Three Siamese fighting fish in red hunting hats, their scales made of one green eye
That stares at me, mocking my bed-head and last night's weeping eyeliner.'

Wow. This really is a trip into the guileless stretches of imagination. It seems that you took snatches of memory, combined it with surreal imagery, and juxtaposed that alongside self-affirmation as you put a glimpse of yourself into the writing as well.
'I wear a cream blouse and a World War Two smile.
My lavender pencil skirt asserts a sensuous authority...' I really enjoyed that stanza and the next, they seemed very personal. Oh! I loved the first line, the Holocaust reference. You have such a captivating way with words. As I start my day, this line above all will haunt me: "Me the feline, monoxide kisses, hisses to a carcass. Carbon dates the passing years." Fantastic write, one of my favorites of yours for sure. :)

[light and ashes]

History mixed with whimsy :) I really like this.

[Rosalind Gale]

Thanks so much!
-x-

[light and ashes]

Welcome!

[Bare trees]

Well Rosalind. I have to admit to you I feel left out. I have no idea what any of this means. LOL Not a clue. And yet, the others are so blown away I feel like a little kid standing on the side hopeless. I realize there is a lot of symbolism going on, I've always been confused by others with the same style.

I know I'm missing out but nevertheless, this is going to go into my favorites for the mere fact of using it to study in the hopes I will someday discover its meanings. I hope you are not disappointed in me but I find it would be too easy to make something up. And I'm not into that.

So, my simple mind is off and will be back again. And again, and again. ha

[Rosalind Gale]

!!!
-xxx-

[Rosalind Gale]

Such an amazing serenade. Every detail, every history aspect, you've brains girl! I loved it. Can't wait to read more of your work. And I will, writers as you make me happy...

E.L.

[Rosalind Gale]

And that makes me happy E.L.
Thank you!
Rosa -x-

Me too! why didn't I read you before :) so happy now ;) xx

~ Elisa Laura

[Rosalind Gale]

;) -xxxx-

[Rusty]

Holy s**t this is superb! Thank you mame may I have another! Dizzying succulent wraith gnaw on my bones as my flesh cannot bear in this mortal life that which you construct here!

[Rosalind Gale]

Why thanks Rusty - you are too kind!
-x-

[Leslie Philibert]

Really dramatic. as I read the first verse I thought of Slyvia Plath. Lots to enjoy here, really like the imagery, the best poem I`ve read this morning.

[Rosalind Gale]

Thank you so much Leslie -
-xx-