Posted tagged ‘dVerse Poets OLN’

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“Resentment – the Terrible Spites”

September 25, 2012

Resentment  – The Terrible Spites

You can die by inches
as well as
feet. You can die even
by centimeters.
When you swallow
a sword, the trim blade’s
width can slice ribbed
gullet, currette deep
gorge, and spike all that climbs up
from that crooked choke
with bile.  Take care, take
care; if you would not fall/
gall/gash yourself again, you must learn
to digest cold steel.

******************************************

Here’s a draft poem which is my very late (and rather grim) offering for dVerse Poets Pub’s Open Link Night, hosted by the wonderful Natasha Head.  I am also linking to Imperfect Prose (though it’s not prose) hosted by Emily Wierenga.  

Check out dVerse for great online poetry, and check out my books:  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive, a very fun novel that is perfect for a pool or beachside escape.  Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents!

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Ossified (From Below)

July 17, 2012

Ossified

My feet are long and thin
with bulbous onion growths
beneath the skin. It’s like
you have three ankles
on each foot, my husband counts,
four if you include the real one.

And why, I wonder, each day
on the train, looking up at the host
of podiatry ads, are “before”
feet always so dirty (as if their owners, guilt-ridden,
stomped a wine made not of grapes
but ash) while the “afters”
have been de-smudged
as well as straightened, the services of
some modern Mary Magdalene
thrown in with the op.

My feet, despite the knobs, have (I flatter myself) a
singular beauty; the tendons cables, the skin
as taut and transparent as the marble veil
on a sculpted face. How I marveled
at those stone veiled heads
as a child visiting
museums, monuments–the way their features glanced
through an opaque gauze, the crease of marble
as transluscent
as tulle. Only my feet, not artifacts
as such, are more like
fleshly raincoats (the flasher inside out) whose ragged hems slowly
fill with quarters, lip balm, and this or that key
I had to replace.

They say old age creeps up on you, my grandmother
used to sigh, looking down at her own legs, like flaking
posts by the side of the bed, as if she could catch the years
in their scaling creep. Ooh, she moaned when my mother
squirted lotions
on their dry stiffness, too cold.

********************************

I’m posting the above poem late in the day for dVerse Poets Pub first Open Link Night of their second year of existence. (Happy Birthday dVerse Poets Pub, in other words. May the feet in all your poems stay fresh even as they age!)

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“Untucked”

June 12, 2012

20120612-102721.jpg

Untucked

When he’s away (increasingly,
these days), she
sleeps at the foot
of the bed.  It’s for the light, she
tells him, or rather
the turning off  of the light,
the lone lamp that sits on a
dwarfed file cabinet at the bed’s
bottom, not the best configuration, but rooms
are not always perfect for the
furniture people bring to them.

It was hard at first
to find a spot down there; hard to tug the top
sheet from its tuck, and even once uprooted,
to squeeze into its tight pocket, her limbs
a swaddled ricochet of angled waist, hips,
knees, aimed to keep her feet from
the opposite dangle.

I miss you too, he replies,
but he, someone who sleeps when tired, eats
when hungry, does not quite understand her fidget
around burning vacancy, the twist and turn of one
so defended she
can only meet need through
a maze, or over
a parapet.

It’s for the light, she tells him, the turning off
of the light, trying to describe the purgatory of
the doggedly dwindling, but
the truth, of course, is
more complex.

**********************************
Here’s an older poem posted for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night, hosted by the wonderful Hedgewitch a/k/a Joy Ann Jones.  I am also linking this post to Imperfect Prose, hosted by Emily Wierenga.

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Gauguin’s Stomach Grumbles (Oy! Poi!)

May 14, 2012

“The Meal,” 1891, by Paul Gauguin

Gauguin’s Stomach Grumbles – Pourquoi Poi?

Mes petits choux, don’t get me wrong–
I absolument do not long
for France or that old life of mine–
where so terrible was the grind–

Vraiment, I love the sun and shade
of this Tahitian island glade
but my old tum, not Polynesian,
simply won’t become amnesian
and insists on crying, ‘Oy evay,
non non non non more poi today.’

My tum’s the problem–it’s not me
it’s having a hard time ici;
it simply won’t accoutumée
to guava without creme brûlée.

I see coquille–it thinks St Jacques
(it doesn’t much like taro snacks).
So please mes enfants m’excusez,
when I say I’ll pass on poi today.

Perhaps un jour, I’ll change my mind;
my tum will hush its spoiled whine.
But til I reach that day so calm–
just pour me more of vin du Palme
And, s’il vous plait, go ahead, enjoy
that whole darn plat of lovely poi.

***************************************”

The above is my offiering for The Mag 117, where Tess Kincaid posts a pictoral prompt. I am also posting it for dVerse Poets Open Link Night. 

This week, Tess’s prompt, is the lovely painting by Paul Gauguin, who left his home in Europe, France and Denmark, for French Polynesia. There’s a bit of poetic license here – poi is the Hawaian name for a paste made from Taro. I believe they have the same stuff in Polynesia, but don’t know what they call it.

All the words above in italics are in French except “oy evay!” The point of this note is that “terrible” should be read ‘teRRIbla,’ more or less.

If you are in the mood for more silliness, check out my novel, Nose Dive, escapist fun that costs a whole lot less than a trip to Tahiti. If you are in the mood for something artistic, check out 1 Mississippi (children’s counting book with elephants, illustrated by yours truly).

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