Submissions by pyrategurrll (Lauren Tivey)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
LOVE POEM
Published
7th May 2011 5:00pm
7th May 2011 5:00pm
Among the Lilies
My liberal mother, with her bristling
Yankee blood, tolerates the South,
because certain charms, like sunshine,
Key lime pie, and Spanish moss, settle
in the blood, reorder the structure
of one’s cells; but also because
she built her life with him here,
their quarter-century marriage thriving
amid the steamy groves, bounty of flowers.
When the cancer takes him, she buries him
close. Though she is cracked in half,
she arranges everything, and we flock
to her side. ...
Yankee blood, tolerates the South,
because certain charms, like sunshine,
Key lime pie, and Spanish moss, settle
in the blood, reorder the structure
of one’s cells; but also because
she built her life with him here,
their quarter-century marriage thriving
amid the steamy groves, bounty of flowers.
When the cancer takes him, she buries him
close. Though she is cracked in half,
she arranges everything, and we flock
to her side. ...
3782 reads
8 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
3rd Apr 2011 1:05pm
3rd Apr 2011 1:05pm
Passing through Galveston
Memories of highways,
truckstops and trailer parks,
when I kept you moving, moving,
in those wide-eyed delicate years,
with your trusting blond head,
your bag of dolls, fatherless.
What chance did you ever have?
Misfortune of a teenage mother, me
full of juvenile incompetence,
one shitty boyfriend after another,
food stamps, social workers. I tried,
kid, I tried, while you deserved
swingsets, playdates, dance classes;
you know, decent foundations.
What have I ever...
truckstops and trailer parks,
when I kept you moving, moving,
in those wide-eyed delicate years,
with your trusting blond head,
your bag of dolls, fatherless.
What chance did you ever have?
Misfortune of a teenage mother, me
full of juvenile incompetence,
one shitty boyfriend after another,
food stamps, social workers. I tried,
kid, I tried, while you deserved
swingsets, playdates, dance classes;
you know, decent foundations.
What have I ever...
1907 reads
24 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
20th Mar 2011 9:26am
20th Mar 2011 9:26am
Elegy for Japan
Over the tortured shores of Miyagi,
a spinning uranium sky, full of ghosts,
those taken during lovemaking, meals,
while singing their earthly songs,
whispering stories of their gone lives,
of the broken, the taken, the swept-away:
they tell of Owatatsumi, gathering the bodies
to his sunken necropolis, wrapped to sleep
in his ribbons of kelp, of children stolen by waves,
rocked to rest in the embrace of mermaids,
their passions by the sea, goods of their days,
of the polished mandolin, its gentle...
a spinning uranium sky, full of ghosts,
those taken during lovemaking, meals,
while singing their earthly songs,
whispering stories of their gone lives,
of the broken, the taken, the swept-away:
they tell of Owatatsumi, gathering the bodies
to his sunken necropolis, wrapped to sleep
in his ribbons of kelp, of children stolen by waves,
rocked to rest in the embrace of mermaids,
their passions by the sea, goods of their days,
of the polished mandolin, its gentle...
1576 reads
15 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
12th Mar 2011 1:24pm
12th Mar 2011 1:24pm
The Marmosets
Contained in their glass village,
as whimsical as sea monkeys,
fast as hummingbirds—
flipping and swinging.
Two dozen of them,
two thousand miles
from their shrieking jungle,
bouncing like furry racquetballs.
A baby clutches his mother, a curious
backpack, with tiny, gleaming eyes.
The biggest male, his fierce
black glare nestled in a fan
of whiskers, hangs in front
of the oiled, white moon
of your face, then exposes
the pink barb of his penis.
With a simian...
as whimsical as sea monkeys,
fast as hummingbirds—
flipping and swinging.
Two dozen of them,
two thousand miles
from their shrieking jungle,
bouncing like furry racquetballs.
A baby clutches his mother, a curious
backpack, with tiny, gleaming eyes.
The biggest male, his fierce
black glare nestled in a fan
of whiskers, hangs in front
of the oiled, white moon
of your face, then exposes
the pink barb of his penis.
With a simian...
3755 reads
9 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
27th Feb 2011 2:43am
27th Feb 2011 2:43am
The Breakdown Atlas
i.
It happens in a Hong Kong hooker hotel,
off Nathan Road. A round bed under mirrors,
girlie pinups gazing from candy-pink walls:
pain clamps its toothy mouth down, and the body
spasms and crumbles. Clean sheets, a fresh towel,
no cockroaches. One doesn’t ask for much.
Women’s heels click back and forth
along linoleum, past hourly-rental rooms,
amid Cantonese chatter, laughter, muffled sex.
All that flashing neon—the nerves, liquid fire.
It wasn’t easy to find a hotel, after 18 rigid hours
on a mainland train....
It happens in a Hong Kong hooker hotel,
off Nathan Road. A round bed under mirrors,
girlie pinups gazing from candy-pink walls:
pain clamps its toothy mouth down, and the body
spasms and crumbles. Clean sheets, a fresh towel,
no cockroaches. One doesn’t ask for much.
Women’s heels click back and forth
along linoleum, past hourly-rental rooms,
amid Cantonese chatter, laughter, muffled sex.
All that flashing neon—the nerves, liquid fire.
It wasn’t easy to find a hotel, after 18 rigid hours
on a mainland train....
4263 reads
17 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Jan 2011 6:00am
27th Jan 2011 6:00am
Red Lanterns
Chinese New Year, Shanghai
It’s when the icy winter winds
bluster down the Bund, spraying
pin-prickles of dust, scudding
the sky, scattering the fish-paper,
ruffling waters of the ancient Huangpo,
driving the hardiest of romantics to shelter,
that the bars and alleys blaze, strung
with luminous fruit; apples, cherries,
strawberries—or, are they radiant
ruby necklaces? Détente:
your hand on my knee, the thaw,
the glow of beating, suspended hearts
in...
It’s when the icy winter winds
bluster down the Bund, spraying
pin-prickles of dust, scudding
the sky, scattering the fish-paper,
ruffling waters of the ancient Huangpo,
driving the hardiest of romantics to shelter,
that the bars and alleys blaze, strung
with luminous fruit; apples, cherries,
strawberries—or, are they radiant
ruby necklaces? Détente:
your hand on my knee, the thaw,
the glow of beating, suspended hearts
in...
1441 reads
16 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
24th Jan 2011 10:04am
24th Jan 2011 10:04am
Day of the Dead
Bolivia, 2009
Her fevered body quivers on the cool, tiled floor
of a bathroom, near the tangled nest of a hotel bed.
Staccato of fireworks, as the parasite claws its way
through dehydrated organs. At the Mercado de las Brujas,
revelers purchase marigolds, candy skulls, and bread-children,
to cart to the graves of the Valle de Flores. A hitchhiker
tortures the bowels with a vicious will to devour, to live.
Crawling from the hell of the toilet, to the purgatory
of the bed, she knows hours are limited,...
Her fevered body quivers on the cool, tiled floor
of a bathroom, near the tangled nest of a hotel bed.
Staccato of fireworks, as the parasite claws its way
through dehydrated organs. At the Mercado de las Brujas,
revelers purchase marigolds, candy skulls, and bread-children,
to cart to the graves of the Valle de Flores. A hitchhiker
tortures the bowels with a vicious will to devour, to live.
Crawling from the hell of the toilet, to the purgatory
of the bed, she knows hours are limited,...
1137 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
17th Jan 2011 9:42pm
17th Jan 2011 9:42pm
Trawlers
Like ghosts, they are out there, mast lights bobbing
on the horizon. I ignore them, hoping they never
find it—the answer from the depths, the history
of man, embedded in the skeletons of fish, in slivers
of phosphorescent scaly things—the history of man,
as yet to be drudged up in their drab nets. They persist,
flashing their clandestine codes, sorting the fish gut,
overturning the shell, cracking the crab, the lobster claw,
studying the slime, poking and probing the solemn
ocean floor, as if some god dwelled therein.
*Note:...
on the horizon. I ignore them, hoping they never
find it—the answer from the depths, the history
of man, embedded in the skeletons of fish, in slivers
of phosphorescent scaly things—the history of man,
as yet to be drudged up in their drab nets. They persist,
flashing their clandestine codes, sorting the fish gut,
overturning the shell, cracking the crab, the lobster claw,
studying the slime, poking and probing the solemn
ocean floor, as if some god dwelled therein.
*Note:...
4730 reads
6 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
17th Jan 2011 9:40pm
17th Jan 2011 9:40pm
Library
I remember a girl, whispering
with menses, her breasts swelling
under a sweater. She had just moved
upstairs from the children’s room.
The bindings were like rows
of bones to her. She didn’t know yet
that she would suffer, or smoke
cigarettes forever, or that boys
would use her. Only the books
mattered, as they would always
matter. She sat at a table
for hours, cradling them, then
donned her pink poncho,
headed down the steps into
encroaching maturity,everything
palatable, then. ...
with menses, her breasts swelling
under a sweater. She had just moved
upstairs from the children’s room.
The bindings were like rows
of bones to her. She didn’t know yet
that she would suffer, or smoke
cigarettes forever, or that boys
would use her. Only the books
mattered, as they would always
matter. She sat at a table
for hours, cradling them, then
donned her pink poncho,
headed down the steps into
encroaching maturity,everything
palatable, then. ...
3545 reads
7 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
18th Dec 2010 1:11am
18th Dec 2010 1:11am
Confession
Cunning at eleven: Back in the States,
when the scuffed-shoe village priest asks
for her recent crimes, she changes the subject;
cadged root beer barrels, skipped catechism
classes, illicit cigarettes, the kissed boy in the cellar—
wows instead with images of old Pope Paul
greeting crowds from his gilded and red-velveted
apartment in St. Peter’s Square, the bony hand
of blessing, ecstasy and tears of the faithful.
She details every intimate, clean curve
of Michelangelo’s Pieta, tells of how
marbled...
when the scuffed-shoe village priest asks
for her recent crimes, she changes the subject;
cadged root beer barrels, skipped catechism
classes, illicit cigarettes, the kissed boy in the cellar—
wows instead with images of old Pope Paul
greeting crowds from his gilded and red-velveted
apartment in St. Peter’s Square, the bony hand
of blessing, ecstasy and tears of the faithful.
She details every intimate, clean curve
of Michelangelo’s Pieta, tells of how
marbled...
4226 reads
2 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
18th Dec 2010 1:08am
18th Dec 2010 1:08am
Homework
Quick and neat as minor
surgery, it didn’t happen
like it does in the movies.
A cold, New England winter,
my teenage legs spread across
the afternoons, as his penis
fumbled like a key. I didn’t really
love him. Eager for practice, I wasn’t
what you’d call a slow learner—
we cracked the books, often.
*Note: This poem also appeared online in May, 2011, in The Literary Burlesque (now defunct).
surgery, it didn’t happen
like it does in the movies.
A cold, New England winter,
my teenage legs spread across
the afternoons, as his penis
fumbled like a key. I didn’t really
love him. Eager for practice, I wasn’t
what you’d call a slow learner—
we cracked the books, often.
*Note: This poem also appeared online in May, 2011, in The Literary Burlesque (now defunct).
3467 reads
4 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
6th Dec 2010 11:33am
6th Dec 2010 11:33am
Meadows in Vermont
for Angela
The dream was the same for years: an auburn sun
staining the goldenrod as you twirled away summer
with the windchime of your laughter. The birds
were shot arrows under the cobalt dome of sky,
their bright and busy bodies plump with gifts.
Your downy legs pumped through the tall
grasses, and your dress floated with movement,
in a flurry of dandelion puffs. It was safe,
and it was warm. You were glad, and you grew.
You were glad. You were safe. I held onto this.
It was nothing, but it was...
The dream was the same for years: an auburn sun
staining the goldenrod as you twirled away summer
with the windchime of your laughter. The birds
were shot arrows under the cobalt dome of sky,
their bright and busy bodies plump with gifts.
Your downy legs pumped through the tall
grasses, and your dress floated with movement,
in a flurry of dandelion puffs. It was safe,
and it was warm. You were glad, and you grew.
You were glad. You were safe. I held onto this.
It was nothing, but it was...
1267 reads
12 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by pyrategurrll (Lauren Tivey)
