When I die, I hope they sing
The songs I would have sung:
Pop jams and rock ballads,
And soft-sweet lovely nonsense.
Just, please, not hymns. They always
Put me terribly on edge, and
If anything I want to leave you
Happy - all of you. So have a
Concert, shout and dance.
Anything but a solemn march.
I don't want your unshakable
Grief on my ghostly hands;
I refuse to be a brick in
Some grey cathedral's arch.

From the first wet gasp of
My first hello, I have spoken
As they do. On similar slipping
Legs I have wandered as they have.
I cringed and leaped, and was afraid
And was not. (A time for both, a time
For all. For every question, an answering call.)
There was no surprise;
Everything was a shock.

They, too, drowned in ennui and
Buzzed with electricity. But the lines
Crossed somewhere between:
As they were I have not been,
As they move I have not moved
The record skips out of the groove.
And they press manicured nails
To feathery hair, irked - annoyed -
Blotting out the noise.

Who are they to float above,
To glide in mascara and gold?
What trails and wakes they leave -
All the time whispering dry and dustily.
It's strange, I've always heard
(From the hidden smiling lips of
Those ahead, and those above)
That dust is dull and bland and plain.
How strange that to me it tastes of
Pepper and echoing gilded names.

From some empty table, I have peered
Into open halls with chandeliers -
Plated in silver, glistening with crystal -
And wondered how they get so high
Without a tinkling, slicing word -
Without a glaring, threatening eye.
I know I have tried, first to be the
Waitress, tray in hand, who has her moment
With the table and her guests. Then
To earn my right, to earn their view,
To be a sparkling rarity, a delight.

No more. Adieu, goodbye, goodnight.
Whether you care for me or not,
I'll never mind. I'll find some room
You've left behind, and sleep
Until I want to rise.

It would not be too hard to say
That all I lack, and feel, and hate
Should not be pressed onto my plate
At the end of a busy day.

It would be easy to insist
That I should never have to cry,
When crying is what gets me by.
It would be simple to resist.

But Auntie Ruth could smile and smile
With arms scraped up to blood by bark.
She stacked the odds and ends to spark
And burned nostalgia in a pile.

When the dark invades with its cold,
I think of Aunt Ruth's blazing yard:
Cooking all she could discard -
Her sadness that only the bonfires told.

So here I'll sit - and I might cry -
(Crying is what will get me by.)
And tear up tiny bits of leaf,
And clench my teeth to hold my grief.
With a warming bonfire smile,
I'll add my troubles to the pile.

She folds her arms inside her robe
And decides to go to bed
For the tenth time.
She closes her eyes and sighs
And turns around,

But the tricky cooling night slides
Through her graying hair -
Whistles through.
It sings a song to keep her near,
Keep her crying.

She sits back down on the porch swing,
Feet in the air, tiny again.
She's afraid, but
She knows it isn't going anywhere.
She wonders why.

A melody from tomorrow breaks the clouds,
And she looks to the horizon.
The sun is rising;
A bird awakes and flies to the power lines.
The night is dying.

She muses to herself that, in the light,
The willows' weeping looks like
Content sighing.
The grass she cut down yesterday
Is still climbing.

He knows what lies below.
This is where it all began: here
Beneath the bubbling sludge and ******* mud.
This is the home brew, the cocooning grounds.
His sturdy boots trudge through,
Hefting questions and glasses askew.
Somewhere to the side a fat swamp prince
Composes bog rhymes in ribbit meter.
Each squelching step sets a buzzing bunch
Of crystal dragons zipping away to
Slick peridot pontoons. A loon swoons
The expeditioner with a sobbing cry. He
Has said goodbye to reservations, to the
Long-dead preservation rights. He slogs through
The buzzing night. Yellow daggers clench
Between scaly steeltrap snappers and stones
With eyes blink in languid surprise, unnoticed.
He is lost, dying, unsure of his quest. He needs a
Cure. He knows it lies here, in the beginning place.
Their faces haunt his deathly guts and crush
His straining heart with need - need for the solution.
Need to survive, to prolong his life - alone!
So alone: the last. If only he could rest.
His nostrils quiver with the homesick stench
Of tails becoming legs and nipping lips sprouting
Sticky tongues. The answer, he is here for the
Only answer. Something below, below, down
In the dredges of history - in the slime of
Centuries, rotless and preserved. He will find it:
Some link, some closer thing he can revive
And test and rest as bedrock for his life.
A foot sticks in the overfriendly tar. No,
He will not pause. He has come too far.
In the birthing grime, some hungry memory wakes.
It knows what lies above, it thirsts to cease it.
It reaches, roils, pulls, rips with smelly squish-fingers -
Thirsting and thirsting to slake. It longs to reveal
To show, to make known to the traveler.
(All he has searched for is found here, it knows,
Organized and close. Held and safe below)
It reaches, grabs - thirsty - presses him into
A false step. A slip. A skritching clipboard
Of statistics curses in rustling indignance
As it flutters to the mud above a splattered head.
Science-frozen lungs fill with dread -
With life-giving peat. (It will show him) He ***** in
And burbles out a scream. (what he wants, show him)
This is where it begins, (this is his dream!) where it ends.
Now he knows what lies below. He lies - curled -
Quenched from growth. The eyes of unnoticed
Stones blink in surprise. Soaring swamp lyrics
Rise, a loon swoons with a sobbing cry.
He curls in peace and drifts alone
Now he knows what lies below.

I like my headphones for the
Insulation. Sometimes my ears
Take in too much stray noise,
Dredge up too much disorienting
Mud from the depths of a TV
Screen or an iPod. Then I can
Always snuggle into my headphones
And be silent - and silence is a
Dear dear commodity, to be sure,
When every other scene-
Stealing, pudgy-mouthed buffoon
Has to put his ten cents in. So
Much sound should be a sin;
Background music, ambient noise,
Music for airports, and pubescent
Boys screeching from tinny silver
Speakers near the wall. I don't
Want it, not every bit, not all
The hate and the slippery tongues
That speak and salivate and don't
Say anything human. I want to reprimand,
To excommunicate them from
This Holy rite of sound. (And really,
I would be content to never hear
Music if I could block out the roundabout
Fights and the sultry nightlife descriptions
Gushing from my screen, if I could
Use my headphones to keep
That liquid crystal from pouring in
My too needfully silent ears.)
Maybe I'll follow a painter's path:
All visuals and open dripping wet
Wrath with a noisy race. I can be a
Terrifying girl. Cut off my ears and
Be deaf to the world. Wrap me in
Canvas and chase me back into the
Woods on a starry starry night.

He travels down pathways of velvet,
Treading mahogany and maroon
And ruby, all the varying shades
Of a wine glass caress his slick
Shoes. His face is freed from
Marble prisons, loosed onto
Stretched canvases in myriad
Bursts and strokes of sapphire,
Emerald, amethyst, opal,
Quartz, ivory, jade; his face,
Embroidered on jackets, on
Coatsleeves, is a symbol of
Charm and grace - a symbol of
Power. When he speaks, the words
Clink and sparkle together
Like gold and silver, like diamonds
And roses. The elements so mix
In him, etcetera. With a pace meted
In waltz-steps, he crosses galleries,
Admires his pet works, his pet workers.
He is a sought man, a buyer of
Flatteries. He drinks fine scotch.
This man, so vivid and clear
In place and time - so placed
In the center of beautiful scenes -
He drowses by my fire in his fine
Suit; he lids his eyes next to my cheek.

Perhaps I am slowing, or aging,
Or growing tedious. Stop me if I
Bore you; I hate long-winded bores,
Unstoppable ranters, and one-sided
Opinion staters. But returning to my
Friend, the gentleman who lounges
On my couch, who tickles my
Ear with soft cologne whispers,
Who catches my eye with poised
Puffs of flagging breath. He is so
Soft and kept in life. Death will find
A pitiful creature when it comes for
This delicate boy. He is my special
Treat, my prized butterfly in the
Most elaborate case. Watch him
So feebly flap his wings - don't worry
I've pinned him well. Look at how
His pale eyelids flutter (I could
Watch forever!) like the little
Bush-finches that come to bathe
In ditchwater and fly again to
Woven homes. But he will not fly!
Never will he slide out of my
Loving sight as he was wont to,
Never will he have to drink fine
Scotch alone. I will sip with him, I
Will warm his feet when he cannot
Lift his (now) leaden legs to the fire.

Don't touch him! Did your mother never
Teach you to look with your eyes?
He is mine! I will show him to you,
You will admire. I know you can, you
Were admiring him when I came
Upon you. (I should have known you
Would reach to leave your prints
And smudges on him, you bad-
Mannered girl.) Don't make that face,
You were trying to pin him, I
Just crunched my harpoon in first.
Now look at him, all lost and
Stopped. All but his eyes. Tell me,
Isn't he beautiful? A masterpiece.
My centerpiece, that's what he'll
Be. And you, you were the roots
And the thorns of an elegant flower:
The regrettably worthless stray
Leaves to be pruned away. I'm sorry
My poor dear, but you were born
To be wasted. Don't be sad, you
Had your day, you hung on his sleeve
For your little night. But he has
Such a habit of losing things he
Keeps there: cufflinks, his heart,

Girls who are not me. I'm sorry
My darling. It is a shame I must
Send you home, I do so love it
When people share my tastes.
Now drink this scotch my poor
Thing. Drink up. There now, do
You feel warmer? Are you tired?
Let me pull that cover up, why
Don't you have a good (long) rest?
Go to sleep, there's a good girl.
I'll put you to bed.