Scantily Clad Press, 2008
Play Part: Symbolic Relationships You step involuntarily corridor a blank space might ignite procession Lurk willing feeble man alive strewn to menace textbooks the riff of your corn hand knocks sheets jumbles pages as if steel clippers interfere with polarity Strewn on the back of licensed cars driven by unlicensed drivers some beating taken by whiskey sniff Feeding lime wire into jail makers bringing solitary in executing solidity out You breathe stale internal glands on my bed You breathe puberty into my backside like French kissing stole garnet rings Underwear doesn’t look so good backwards (controlled movement that fell head high) Ego to feed past faux pas delight runs wild Over over again brush hair to limp lay a decoy mocked Stravinsky fires move semblance You breathe faint cookie cutters crystal cut sin loather lime light pencil tight
The meridian speaks as jail juxtaposed massive attacks of masochism Don’t think jail doesn’t fit you right you shred internal affairs into my soup of digestion “I refuse to be stomped on: refusal shuts entrance of commandments “I refuse to run: clause speaks into megaphone “I incessantly garble free language: text must change Who strings alphabets that prefer order I call upon you to collapse my query You must be simple so oblique like Stalin’s cap fits your head “I refuse to be illiterate: daily read Protestant’s introductions to the heavenly skies Combat quarters not meant for laundry mats tokens constitute no health of our “freedom” I set up plays I stage them direct them in Spain Italy and Russia then fall asleep (The scene ended with me interrupting) I interrupt up hours of sex He stole my cup sent deities in it as chariots master fire of: speedy living legends Why do such cults aggregate along borders like all at once a sheep
who stole the tickets to help conquer environmental claims ridden off like tax reflex I don’t paint my toenails for no reason
Remember deals remember breaking tunes apart tin cans dust caps libraries full of purpose “I propose a solution to this : Garble gander march ever so grander the cab might lift you up He expects a purpose clean clothes lay dirty for days if selling weren’t so weak “I’m tired of this story I’m tired of your story I’m tired of garbage collecting in gutters: police free incest population regress pitter-patter titter tatter sucking tits melting bricks A stomp must conclude in jail light fixed: (remember participles ran my waxy knees) The ceiling fans make me nauseous: (intake of gentle folk lap dance curtain rods) “I killed helicopters for marching ladies akin to the IRA organize franchised: a dada a dada strum strum children run hands held side ye Scottish kilt low slung This dialogue moves dispersed about my kitchen nestled in wood crannies I realize my play’s plaid is so plaid it criss-crosses, runs diagonally then recedes on intention You catalog time like some clear banks aren’t already covered in vine You wine boy you traveler you dust off your pants and never get up again You read resiliently digested diagrams that mock your compulsive lies You create fiction your head can’t tell the difference and I listen: (I motivate silence I dig my tongue in your ear I’ve sucked your toes picked your nose removed eye bugs I guarder my poetry I fester it as novelty Eyes don’t read it toils with esteem: you night suckers hang low on companions The day ends with the moon conjoined with light cityscapes don’t always make nice stars Mice remind me that I was born in the country ant farms don’t collect insurance (This literature provides insight into prefab modulation of various expose` )
THE CURTAIN RISES AND FALLS WITH INHUMANE LAUGHTER
Your suit makes me drool costumes of comic relief stages set up presuppositions “I prefer Trinidad spices to some balmy tobacco: to be declared over the lime wire (Mango lip-hunt seasons poisons profusions) This makes me all tied up in my diary it makes me ill all diabetic “I stay high on dust an am frequently accosted as being too: snip snub like some dub reeled back Cadillac Transatlantic tours gamble naiveté this stage falls off my border I see my brother If you find the dub stuck in my u trust me there are many one-way streets:
This
is not a
through
Street
Lime wires get caught in temples bruising passivity into subconscious As though universal conscious can be chained together along hi-frequency Your head melts when struck by phone: This Show Must Go On
“I drank candy a lot didn’t stop: text makes for better synagogues “I paint bruises on her leg: the pain of the parade She feels so naughty I hasty channels don’t switch TVs on for purposes other than subsidiary This paper cloud origami bird hung from strings puppeteer attached to ceiling The enigma suddenly night becomes day music can drive the plot: “Hey guy Manchester Hotel or my place: this philosophy needs to be rebuked “Are my stilettos sexy or do you see my armpit hair: cuddle hone under the “fog” “Hey you is this an epidemic we’re fighting or a queen’s gap: candle lit no other way stay smug
As though every play needs a bed scene (characters proceed with caution)
My mind is turbulent and your schemes box me in (help I feel snubbed ) Don’t deliver words into my mouth that fall out of yours you say you want liberty while I unveil: This is the curtain of despair blasphemy and it runs red across my lips My chap stick makes me want to accept your condolence you must apologize while puking Lime light so bright-pulsed fields you caught me star gazing: so s I l l y an: action I ran away with caught cow tranquilizers dished dicey like prefab mafia This play executes dramas of all genres: (civilized civilization vs. the Johnny discontent; pinkertons vs. outlaws; farmers vs. elite mobile masses; you vs. me; chariots from heaven vs. ill-tongue Briccriu This is brutal telling you but I’ve mastered a dialectic that moves just for (to control thoughts, intuitions, emotions) no telling how or why I just decide It’s taken days of discovery I no longer have to paint this pattern or join the circus You think I’m slimy except I’ve painted backdrops for days mobilized candidates for this play
They never showed up (too drunk to figure out typos) hypnotic over strange play danger is in: dreaming My twenty- dollar bill was found under hat: this entails a setting Red lanterns broken rooms dancing feet music harmoniously dips crowd: dancing like junta revolutionized this play World sits on these land mines clocks ticking like his brother who says: volcanoes equal global warming
I create an air pocket between a commercial dancer my fancy fast feet My nightgown grows apparitions over my head playing Pocahontas drinking gin
REJOIN CONTENDERS IN ALCOVE LOBBY FOR AFTER-HOURS This narrative controls my time going back to the old fink: dishes wishes slices of fishes “I’m controlled as the third: tongue bender hood contender tidy apron “I snip paradoxical phrases: vegetable feast bravura deceits ears asleep “I’m all ears: magnitude defined by shady rhyme non-electric dialectic
This gets caught every moment between my hip and bone the Ionian Sea spoke to me in my dreams Too scared to cry this old Gaelic tune a preamble expedited through terra firma It’s that joinery between after-hours and midnight showers You feel lost in this space deserted by flashes that took years to describe You strove after an axis that would spin for curious denotation
All hooded in your sensory organs all tied together in March bows this makes me so sick for long lost lust highly accosted for that shrink brisk to pouch brave “I sense a demarcation in this attitude a very fine break from the ordain:
s
a a
i
l m
i
n o
g n
g
s
t
this sea: a speech garden practical land grid finite lines judged blue black green separate moon from old spot light so false so fuzzy almost feeble in its falseness lucky bridge dwindles on ridge
Shameful of gridlocks tongues turned over to the FM like the radio speaks to god A song to catch the reminder of syncopation like words don’t beat it all out of you already: lime lime lime lime hoopin hoppin hollerin slim knuckles shady buckles tappin time knickers and rhyme frail fickle matter seeps out bladder A true to be convinced of this shredded mess already put in my soup like one knuckle after the next doesn’t convince you that I’m an outlaw this damn play reminds an action a proverbial speech coordination I have scars to prove Every once in a while you are ashamed for disbelief in an inveigled contact the lime wire that no longer fixes itself on your chamber Your desk is coordinated with colors to match the sides of your head so the profile perfectly fits It’s a bottomless quarry for investigation that old prefab modulation like the tongue forgets its fixation: (speak into my front ear the one that held the eye)
More symbols scratch parenthetical around my outdoor chaise: (close to dinosaur ruins or Dali’s paper-cast creations) Judgment of these ruins deciphering old tricks handle over hand under cave to modify bones on top blue old sea bottom The one better told of such distant days Instructions cast aside ridicule the larger claim lays at the bottom of: (the melted manual prints) This scene demands characters of grandiose status as some rock cliff Teton height range: a stable staple in the old lineage A crutch to rely on the jurisdiction of the high skies
A yes answered calmly in the play oh “I’ve seen better days but rumor has it that: you no longer act tough scrape aside better stable vibe chariots fire beat down hallelujah “I find mystery to be a standard of: broken bibles timeless titles chanting prairie psalms batteries all gone
Play Part: Social Myths I feel obligated to beauty while dodging insanity: a lineage of elite men Grandmother met Helen Keller who touched the child’s face remembered years after (These aren’t dull dioramas of expression: stage moves towards truth
If a play is devised to define my family history do I invite Goddard for initial viewing? Subject to class criticism great-grandfather the personal physician of three presidents Invented Hoover ball for a sick weak body to lob medicine orb over net
President Coolidge with Mrs. Coolidge camera caught smiling with grandmother on knee at circus (Smiles were difficult to come by during the Depression) The inherited charm bracelet grandmother slept in Lincoln’s bed: long narrow bed little girl Age ages stories less appeal rather reveal conservative ancestry : family tree elephant heads for leaves
“It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as it is a poor man: the repetition never grew on me “Why don’t you just quit school, stop working and find a man to take care of you?: exit the stage with caution Aunt obtains grandpa’s seat, controls feudal cabin property: vassals point gun at rock chucks Backdrop smears poly-resin fabric as a shield of protection: stand on bed with sharp sword My sphere occupies ten toes for walking five fingers holy chin steep in conquered territory Ancestral Aunt a trick rider in Buffalo’s Bills Wild West Show: woo-hoo ride em’ cowboy Tilt hats to traditions rolled over academies sleeves piping hot from festive broken lots
No day’s better than hot Frontier day in Lovell Why: ponies circle rickshaw pink popcorn stage light dust
I’m claustrophobic in this closet containing eleven hundred jazz albums my brother inherits “We must load up the car drive them out to Cali: speak francophone onward home “You sure are a pretty girl if you’d like I can introduce you to some fine men: dad rebuked Mormonism for sake of self and children
Always loved always admired why this choice makes me different––––– West girl
“Thank you folks for residing north: three auspicious kids segregate plaid from boots and honkey tonk Happenstance I could tangle language without disrespecting elders?
not a mid-
California Shoes
**
I hypocrite in my shoes call for California news passed over hills Spectacle traps from golden pastiche built pass wine blindly around She thumbs her way through magic made my life old today Aqueous deposits fill in coastline-bridge me one whirl New skin moves overcome by sound Barely touching fists we uncover what’s left of the bay Old film photos of wet baths hung salt that mats hair as spray She comes on her shoes again at Goat Rock won’t be a girl This time maybe spoken word has translucence for no holiday
**
I pipe down easy on this fortress no fog in speech Kick reverberated self go peak at moons We’ve amassed cranes sort birds out of reach She immobilizes me through these sweet dunes
I quieted her dreams as she napped Too much hysteria blood-fingered through There are troughs of noise animals lap Up soon digested flu Go see how we end up this time Head held in v-shape thigh high viral rhyme
I tuck into a cottage to eloquent historical thread Nazis Tough with locked-jaw looks and she’s “a pretty Jew” Fake political comments with red ink on metacarpal bone We put pot in the floor she kneels touching nose to knees I scream disaster and melt into a frenzy Good narrative accepts us takes us into the throne
**
I founded the Aquarium Classics aggregate schools below sea-level We ran around kicking sand for hours there’s power fought abound Her poem makes me scale imminence turn cargo hum relay Echo-out we chant for hours monotonies made oil spills Shift caught between old pens and current keys tap levy sound Open more she hides her face in a hood we turn night rain into day
Fernando, Eyes bespectacled in our consumed-seated-truth; our eyes dust knowing, configure the hopeful future we once saw lost. I’ve seen the seeds realigned, and now growing bigger and becoming certain of their ability to unscar the residual dirt left over on my sidewalk. My frontier was momentarily taken away, mishandled, reidentified in the name of frustration, spit into the garden, and spun wheedled into a brass cage. The door is a handable explanation for entry but more alerting an exit. The guided fall through, penniless in raw sewage. I hope that this lapse we’ve made, this cave we shook resembles smothered brilliance and domesticity that has been taken for granted. This is the one thing I ask for, please don’t mishandle my frock. Flung, Cecille
Fernando, The days have become more elucidated, the jeans redder, my legs pinker, I’ve cash in my hand, and thrown some fool’s daffodils off the hobbling ladder. Let the pink inside me grow brighter, let my knuckles be in all fairness a light for you to judge and handle. When broken steam machines emerge from my surface, you’ll see through the tension lapsed and cornered in time. Memory has broken through and beseeched a new lover, and the pinky’s strong and my hips a wide circle. Envelope this entirety and spill into my zoo crush. I thought you saw my hair tugging, I thought you saw my sides nudging, but my thoughts were really about sky and I volunteered to lunge towards it. You are a whistle blowing inside me, you are leaving my bling-jewelry on my lawn, and mowing it at the same time. I love these incredible principals; not to be taken advantageof. Though the remote is far away, you can still pick it up and click me on. Unabashed, Cecille
Fernando, From the frothy bevel of my neck, you are the cape growing wilder out of me. Nobody believed I could spring feathers and loom above the ever-widening city, but I’ve proved all wrong, simply with silence. This may seem a fair token, or a regretful one, or a simple gem in the rocky shore of Providence. But I guarantee you it’s only occurred for you. My silence was once a bank for criminals to take over, now it’s an enjambed tire between the thistle of a reed and a duck’s wading. The pond is Braille that you shift over in brilliance, and feeling these things out– can’t be encumbered by anybody but you. Simply, Cecille
Fernando, If the walls were to fall apart over night, I would crumble, but there’d still be the baseboards, and I believe in them, find the distilled imagination of a labyrinth. And if this labyrinth were any less a searching than I’ve seen you to be, my resolution would be the unconscious ailing of a backside. A backside I’ve long since superseded, and my rear is the worst thing to face. Who stored away veins in the opening of this ugly canal? Not me, certainly and that’s the most specific instance you’ve recollected, and what has made me the fondue worth dipping. A bike is only worth riding if you ride it home. Vaguely passive at this instant, Cecille
Fernando, I’m sorry about that last letter, the tremors of my past suddenly got to me, shaking my brook and silencing my friend’s cats. She says the cat’s hers and none other, that made me jealous, I long to have something absolutely my own; this is one thing worth knowing about me. May the funny thing between the two of us be that I like to be shared, a pie with my friends I am. I also think its funny how your books read into my lap, like I have a familiar inkling towards majestic to be known about. This is silly, when after all I’ve avoided dissecting myself, and especially have grown recluse by the causes of a past breeding of mostly himself. I think he knows it was him all along, and only him and ever him he cared about; which is partly why I’m saying my shattered frock has left my body a spy-field. Do you see this bile solution that’s seeped onto me, and made me think the only worth knowing is the one that puts self beside self? I’ve escaped from a cornstalk, a corn-pit, I’ve make my way from the Field of Dreams as a player on my own accords. Truly Not I, Cecille
Fernando, I love the way the ‘F’ rolls of my tongue, and the ‘r’ spins around into the pale distant of my cavity chest. But instead it’s solid and obsolete and my chest is swollen with the enlightened spindle of your cock lap. Didn’t mean for the pardon to become so unabashfull in the blinking run-up of nothing else. It’s just meager that my vent insists upon strength in order to be chartered out. Right now, my body is hovering above its self, a disgusting scarlet angel with pathetic wings ever accelerating towards the ceiling fan. Red all around, sense of danger grows, strength I’ve lamented into a pigeon’s whole beach arena. Space to stretch makes space to become friendlier. The raw hands I look to beat glass with poise from your beak and crack the cauldron. As your hand is circling the top, creating the ringing crystal droll of that comical ‘F.’ Sanctimoniously, Cecille
Fernando, All this time I’ve been trying to write about our love, but my past is too jammed with flimsy porno, and detestable syndromes. The shepard wandering up to my porch insinuating on my moon shelter, the shoreline is another source of forgetfulness. Like sitting on that edge, seeing into the every setting and knowing that in all fairness closure is always looming; the moon always filling-in.
Stability is valuable, a four-legged
animal, a two-legged human, a match for anything delightful. Put my paw in your mouth, sorry about the fuzz, we must obey our makeup. Cartouche Applause, Cecille
Paige H. Taggart lives and works in a house, in Brooklyn. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Agriculture Reader, La Petite Zine, My Name Is Mud, Blazevox, Ditch, Elimae, Robot Melon, Caketrain, Critphoria, EOAGH, Sawbuck, and Eleven Eleven. You can listen to her reading one of her poems online at Weird Deer. She makes jewelry and you can find her stuff online: http://mactaggart.etsy.com