Dear Colette,
I want to write to you
about being a woman
for that is what you write to me.

I want to tell you how your face
enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . .
hangs above my desk
like my own muse.

I want to tell you how your hands
reach out from your books
& seize my heart.

I want to tell you how your hair
electrifies my thoughts
like my own halo.

I want to tell you how your eyes
penetrate my fear
& make it melt.

I want to tell you
simply that I love you--
though you are "dead"
& I am still "alive."

Suicides & spinsters--
all our kind!

Even decorous Jane Austen
never marrying,
& Sappho leaping,
& Sylvia in the oven,
& Anna Wickham, Tsvetaeva, Sara Teasdale,
& pale Virginia floating like Ophelia,
& Emily alone, alone, alone. . . .

But you endure & marry,
go on writing,
lose a husband, gain a husband,
go on writing,
sing & tap dance
& you go on writing,
have a child & still
you go on writing,
love a woman, love a man
& go on writing.
You endure your writing
& your life.

Dear Colette,
I only want to thank you:

for your eyes ringed
with bluest paint like bruises,
for your hair gathering sparks
like brush fire,
for your hands which never willingly
let go,
for your years, your child, your lovers,
all your books. . . .

Dear Colette,
you hold me
to this life.

Dragging my head on the ground
No one, no one’s
I’m catching death on my lips

Sliver off my flesh
Heart’s beating bruises
Well, there’s nothing here but nothing
So give up

Won’t you wear me like a sweater?
Drape me loose across your legs?
Tie me to the bottom of your nothing head?

Kiss me till I turn to dust
Kiss me till I turn

I’ll believe in something when I’m dead
We’re all just passing over each other’s empty skin
Don’t pretend anything
Life’s as worthless as it seems

Van Gogh cut off his ear
gave it to a
*******
who flung it away in
extreme
disgust.
Van, ****** don't want
ears
they want
money.
I guess that's why you were
such a great
painter: you
didn't understand
much
else.

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

Hey kid, I woke up buzzing, here
In the future ruins of ancient America. 
Staring, after the imperial sunrise,
Listening to Los Angeles on repeat.
Insistent and purple, only 
Sediment left in the
Bottles of night. 

This third-world way
Causes Third World War
So I'm drinking at a 
Tavern on the End.
The bus goes by, and
"Baseball's the worst sport."

Alliteration, allusion,
Colors, characters,
And metaphors.
Sobriety sending me 
Searching for smoke. 
Rehash, re-up, and "read the ****** thing." My world-view,
Out-maneuvering your
Upbringing.

(The memories I have are white and yellow.
Fogged, not angry, if even confused.
You'd call me, after finishing your nightly readings, to cry about the characters you'd loved, and castigate my inability to care.
Remember when you used "undermined" to describe the adaptation?
You meant that it was "assuming too much.")

"Brenda and Eddie," over here,
"Couldn't go back to the greasers" so they
Wound up at your family's tavern. 
"You look like the fat kid,
On whom the popular girl was 
Forced to settle."

Dear Man,
Woman's found you out. Or 
Are we, justly, doomed to be 
More juvenile?

Worn sole, soul-open, "so long,
Kid, I don't know you, but,
I can't help myself from
Destroying you."
(My upbringing: out-maneuvering
Your world-view.)

"You've always been the caretaker, Flagstaff."
The bait's in your brain. 
You've simply been 
Overlooking the barkeep.

(Dear Diary, could I just die already?
The Price is Life, and purgatory's a game show.
Anger, the color of your mother.
Skin, the shade of yard-work.
Staring at road maps of Virginia, stoic.
Trying to divine the diners we'd die in.)

Wet grass broke my heart
Plastic tarps taught me how to hate myself
Metal cans frizzed my hair and sliced my throat
Fireworks burned my thumbs and left the kitchen lights on
We're all pushing twenty and things are going stale
Chlorine burns my brain even if I hold my nose
I slept inside with the mountain boy and my best friend
While they were naked in the dirt
I didn't want to leave The Survivors, but she saw my seams begin to fray, stitched me up, and put me to bed
The broken hearted girls stayed apart that night
I couldn't hear your American Screams and I'm sorry

I had a mental breakdown in a grocery store yesterday
Linoleum floors caked with dirt and a mother scolding her child

they said summer would be better
they said they said they said they said
in spring i was born again, just like
they said they said they said they said
I thought after winter I would never feel again, but
his hands and his tongue,
his lips
oh my.
don't let me go, let me rest in your lap
for eternity.
let me hold your cheeks to my heart and be alive.
I love you, I think
I'm not sure
but you may,
you may save me yet

I’m Smith of Stoke aged sixty odd
I’ve lived without a dame all my life
And wish to God
My dad had done the same.