Dilettanti Online
Poetry 1998
- Turkessa Cockrell
- Purple: The Forgotten Crayon
- One in the Same
- Trey Harper
- Ode to True Love
- Chris Harris
- Eighty-Five & Winston
- God?
- Junk
- Diedrel Laster
- Ligeia
- Ligeia's Love
- Rowena
- Lori Jean Mantooth
- I See
- Christy McDaniel
- The Divorce
- Fatsong
- Element
- Shaving the Cat
- Leslie Randle
- Sonata Form
- Jeanette Stone
- Thoughts of You
- Orlando Webber
- Realest
- Gary Whisenant
- Warm Embrace
- Neal Wilkinson
- Mud
- Spindles
- Pockets of Immunity
- Requiem
Purple: The Forgotten Crayon
Turkessa Cockrell
Little Boy Blue paints the deep, deep sea
And leaves of grass are painted Whitman Green.
Old Man Black sketches the shadowy night
And cheery Miss Red illustrates happy delight.
For sweet lemonade there's the Lady Yellow
And for tree trunks Mr. Brown's a good fellow.
Even bossy Orange gets invited to the ball
Because she comes out during the season of fall.
Orange and Brown, Red and Green,
Yellow and Blue, and Old Man Black,
All have friends, and that's a sure fact!
But why, oh why is it such a giant hurdle
To find someone who likes poor dear Purple?
One in the Same
Turkessa Cockrell
We will become one spirit.
I will take you heart and soul and mind
and intertwine them within mine.
We will dance to the same song,
sway our bodies to the same rhythm.
We will move toward one another
Until we become one in the same.
I will not be pleased with just
the taste of your sweetly moist lips
or with the sparkling gaze
of your luminous eyes.
I will not swoon at the juicy words
that you whisper with your haunting voice
or celebrate when you vow
to cherish me for eternity.
That will not quench the thirst
of passion that burns within me
and my insatiable desire for you
will not cease to be unfulfilled.
I will not declare my zenithtic joy
until we walk within the same step
and breathe within the same breath
and die within the same death.
I will not be satisfied
Until we are one in the same.
Ode to True Love
Trey Harper
True love doth shine like a star
reaching its light to embrace the world.
Its silent testimony afar,
A beacon of love.
Or is it like a melody
Of the angel when it takes wing.
Singing its hymns of glory,
A song of love.
Or is it in the baby's cry
When the infant first enters life.
Sparkling in mother's smiling eye,
A cry of love.
Or is it when the blind did see,
And the lame stood up and began to run.
All along the shores of Galilee,
A life of love.
Or is it on Gethsemane hill,
Where a child that night knelt.
Praying "Father, not my will . . ."
A prayer of love.
Or is it in the Calvary tree,
Where the Savior hung and bled.
With the crowd, the thorns and the agony,
A death of love.
Or is it in the kingdom that nears
The entrance of Heaven or eternal home.
And the end of pain, and grief, and tears,
A word of love.
Eighty-Five & Winston
Chris Harris
old man
cancer man
sits ideally on a wooden chair
smokestack heart attack
cool gray eyes stare...wildly
through sunken down eyes
he scrams madly at
yesterday's newspaper
his old town wife bakes bread
from the old day
her charcoal lung husband
drinks beer from a
dark brown bottle
I approach
he coughs and wipes his mouth
five o'clock shadow
gray brown day old
yellow nicotine hand
and no teeth
"Hey man,
Got a light?"
his gray eyes bat
in the shadows
his brittle hands fumble
for a match in the
breast pocket of his
gray pinstriped
double breasted
old country suit
he pats his breast redundantly
then his sides
and his hip pockets
he looks at me blankly
squinting
speaking in an aluminum voice
with a scary hole in his neck
he says quietly
"Sorry"
That's okay
I'm drunk in the freezing cold night
Holden Caufeild was right
Kaufman was always "ON"
Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac...
it's too bad about them
Shakespeare was an illiterate fraud
but that's okay
because I'm still drunk
and I can see my breath
in the freezing cold night
God?
Chris Harris
I spoke to God in a phoneboothe
on my way home
She's bleeding from his scratches
and she'll die in our dreams
Somewhere in this lonely place
I want her to be her iwth me
Doesn't it make you smile
inside her screams
and her shreiks
and her moans
lies someone I never know
and stil don't
Dont' leave just yet
we haven't finished what
we started so long ago
You went your way and
I fell in love with
you while you were kissing
someone else
Junk
Chris Harris
A spoonful of warm junk
sitting Indian style on the
corner of 33rd and Main
staring blankly down the alley
at the cop's headlights
He doesn't know how hard
he'll hit when he falls
face first into the end of time
His clothes came from the
good will depository and
he only has one shoe because he traded the other for a tenner
of smack in the church parking lot
Warm and full of new life
somehow he can't remember his
middle name or his address
or his youngest daughter's birthday
This morning he ate lumpy oatmeal
at the soup kitchen behind the
Baptist church on North 7th street
with Ruby the prostitute
He never looks at himself
as he passes store windows
and women in heels
with perfect hair and nails
He's just looking for another fix
slowly he slides down
into the gutter apologizing
for what he never said
Those sweet perversions
through the telephone lines
seem like time consuming
evenings, depraved and evil
He says
"I'm afraid and I
can't be what I
wanted
mistakes late at night
lying in the moring dew
and she next to me
cold lips and weak
seduction everytime
I touch her
How much longer do
I have to wait for you
I need you like a
hole in the chest
oh well, I'm trying
and smiling eventhough
I'm dying to hear the
love that will never be"
One last conversation on
the relentless street corner
I hear every word she says
"You're my friend
there's no way around it
I know your game
your open hands
and sleepy smile"
It's okay because he
never says never and
he never says never
and he never says . . .
He forgot the little bubbles
before he fixed himself
It's okay
It's okay
and in a split second
he was gone
Ligeia
Diedrel Laster
I see her standing there in the darkness
My Love illuminated by the light of the pale moon
There are no words that I can use to describe the way I feel about her
Like all things that I have ever loved they die and leave me to my
loneliness and despair.
I curse Azriel for taking my love, my life away
And I wish that I could be a worm in her tomb, so I could lay beside
her
Nothingness is all I feel without her a cold chill that I cannot be rid of
I tried filling her place with another, but it only made me want to be
closer to you Ligeia
At night I have opium dreams and you come to me always in these
dreams
I wish, I hope, I pray that you will come and stay with me again.
Then suddenly one day you crossed from the death, the place of
darkness through another
She looked like you, she moved gracefully into the room like you...
My heart pounding and the blood rushing all around me and then you
opened up your eyes and they were Ravens wings.
I gazed into them and faded into you until I was lost.
Ligeia's Love
Diedrel Laster
I dwell in the shadows longing for him
My love who worshipped the very ground that I walked upon,
There he sits waiting in oblivion wishing that I would return
I want to touch him but I cannot, I want to ease his loneliness but , I
Cannot because I an just an opium filled dream to him
All I have is the worms that keep me company in my alabaster tomb.
He tried to replace me with another, but his heart is still mine
Rowena knows that he is mine, but she stills wants him
She sees me at night illuminated by the moonlight
She fears me and she should.
Because I will come back to my love through her
She fights me every night when I try to enter
But, I whisper in here ear and offer here peace
I say to her that he is mine,
She believes this and I have won
Here my love the Ravens wings.
Rowena
Diedrel Laster
Here I am there wedded to this solitary man
My parents thought he was a rich catch
Upon arriving to my new home I find only a tomb
Spider webs are around draping the house like lace
Over the fire place stood a picture of Ligeia with her pale skin and
dark hair.
I paused to wonder why This man wedded me
I with my light hair and eyes
Opposites like the sun and the moon are Ligeia and I
I watch him grieve his lost love
Everyday he longs for her more
He sleeps with his opium filled dreams
calling her name Ligeia, Ligeia,
How can I live in this melancholy world
While my husband grieves for Ligeia
Who has an alabaster heart.
Ligeia who sleeps with the worms
My heart cannot stand this constant loneliness especially during the
Night when I imagine , I see Ligeia pressing he lips to my husband's
forehead.
I fear there is nothing here for me.
I feel weaker now and more strange.
Ligeia comes to me now and whispers "Let me in"
At first I was strong and able to fight her.
She offers me peace,
Now I grow malcontent with the world
And with my husband who loves a dead corpse,
Oh, Now she is here again
Strangling my life
She wants in
I say you cannot have him
She looked at me with her black eyes.
"He is already mine"
I have lostÑ
I see only Raven's wings
I See
Lori Jean Mantooth
I see the purple crocus peeking through the snow.
muddy icicles on cars passing.
pink cotton candy clouds at sunset.
darkness coming on the heels of the moon.
the rooster waking the town from my windowsill.
I see the pain I have caused you .
I see a child's toy, the teddy bear squeezeably soft.
the baby's smile lighting the room.
hunger in the girl's eyes.
the tiny coffin lined with shattered dreams.
the joy of victory in the Little League team's eyes.
I see your fear of an uncertain future.
I see Kristen's unmade bed.
puddle-drenched clothes in a pile on the floor.
the soap scum she missed yesterday.
her once-white socks stuffed under the chair.
the horrific aztec print comforter.
I see your silent tears and cry with you.
I see the heartbreaking poverty in my town.
the stained dress that caused her shame.
the mangled motorcycle that took his young life.
her despair over a lost soul.
his fear of things unknown.
I see the heart you hide from the world.
I see God's work around me.
I see the smiley face she drew on his cast.
I see the room full of memories.
I see the wall breaking one tear at a time.
I see myself in you.
The Divorce
Christy McDaniel
I heard a loud rip
as he shoved his fist,
whole,
into her mouth. His knuckles
scraped her teeth,
I saw.
"
Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Bailey?"
I had knocked. Politely, at first.
Then, with panic.
Black lacey things
draped from crooked nails like
moss
on a peeling door frame.
They brushed my forehead
as I passed under.
I heard thrusts, muffled cries, whispers
and peeked
past a lonely
dark hallway
to see
her gaping jaw
swinging loose and dumb,
like a gate
on a rusty hinge.
He
squatted
above her, fist in mid-air swing.
And she was terror,
there on the dusty red floor,
that I had seen.
I wanted to tell her
that I was alright, that I should
be worried about her. This is what she
lived with, I knew.
But he sucked the air out of the room.
And I was afraid.
Counting my footsteps: Seven, Ten, Twelve...
to the door, down the hall, and
into a sunny street.
My stomach turned with each street corner.
Now, I counted street numbers
down, down
with quiet grunts pounding behind me
following me, cursing me.
My heels were scraped by
black
steeltoed boots.
(A construction worker by trade)
I smelled his vanilla pipe.
Mrs. Bailey was my friend.
We talked about
talk shows, local gossip,
inconsequential politics and
less consequential news.
She called me late at night
and told me jokes, made me
soup when I was sick with the
flu, and painted that picture
that hangs over my coffee table
that everyone admires.
Mrs. Bailey was my friend.
He had
cornered me,
once,
between the bill desk
and the ironing board
once,
(she was making dinner, for Christ's sake)
and told me if I scream I die and I didn't.
Mrs. Bailey's head was floating
above me now. The 27th Street
billboard became her face with a screaming,
suspended, lipstick-ringed "O".
My eyes were watering and
a piece of paper stuck to my
left heel. My good shoes.
She had wanted to celebrate
the divorce.
Fatsong
Christy McDaniel
I have this white hanging,
A Lurching, a shaking,
A Babylon white jiggling
yesterday's glutton-wave.
(Or is it sorrow's bend,
Crooked inward like a blueblack blade?)
I measure,
Court,
Jiggle-jumble,
Pinch
Between two fingers or four,
Ôtil it becomes me, or I it,
and nothing is something
far more.
Again,
I count brown skins:
Thighs, breasts, and lipstick,
Count them
Like some inventory of a flame
shaded impotent, violet
licking the walls
In a flickering
golden
shame.
"A Noble sufferer," they call me
Celibate...
special once more
As a frozen breeze chills me
Purple, cold, angry
But tender as ever before.
Now,
I have this pale hanging,
Shaking
Jiggling
To protect, conceal, store
My pink painted notion:
Mother's breast
cancer lotion
(To ease the sore friction);
two dozen doughnuts
to numb my rememb'ring;
and one lonely kiss missing...
as ever before.
Lost in seas of chocolate,
Brownies, and pop tarts
Surfacing
Once Twice
But briefly--
Only
to push me under once more.
Element
Christy McDaniel
"I've lived here all my life."
Sunburned hills
in the summertime
are enough to sustain me
Red dirt is a chunky
earth blood, bleeding
earthworms and sprouting trees.
Treated lumber,
musky poles
mark pastures off for ponies;
clover and wildflowers
designate
lonely
soul spaces.
(Some wiry
little backbroken man
sold his soul
for these places.)
Callused hands are a map.
A laugh line, a double chin,
a pucker on her thigh--
damp sod is as
re markable.
She is the type of woman who,
barechested,
reigns-in wild horses,
burns thickets, and
dances naked beneath the sun.
Compared to her,
I am a man-made hill.
A little white shak,
persimmon trees and muskidime
jelly, Coca-Cola,
moldy window sills
and honey buns;
Warm cornbread,
cryptic whispers of bootlegging,
lost television knobs.
She's not that easy--
a fired touch
of yesterday,
motorcycles, deserts, liquor,
and Georgia clay.
Before, long ago--
when youth was possible,
forgivable,
and a whore for
everyone but me.
But when my legs knock against the bed posts
I remember something I'd lost.......
She says she prayed for me.
A lake shore,
an inlet in November, when
I lifted my shirt.
She knelt before me
kissing and pulling me away.
We, together, in
November water were
rocking a steady boat's sway.
And I remember my big hips, my thighs...
Another
Memory.
My Papa was this way:
"They called me HEAVY. I warn't fat, just big...healthy."
Funny man...He would understand
my need to run skyclad in 30 degree
winter rain.
His mother died at Dewey's feet...He said,
That man's too mean to die
Mama hadn't no chance a Ôtall to live her life.
She
had one of these men in her life:
A man who meant more than the South;
Humor and love and justice and truth
wrapped-up in a pair of
Liberty Overalls.
We share that too.
Where the elements and memory meet--
big, handsized leaves
and milkweed
dogwood trees
in the Springtime,
flash creation in primal speed.
She showed me
a need
I'd forgotten.
Memories and Creation
wrapped into one
"Child of Bad Memories."
She gave up the year I was born.
I wasn't planned either,
but
my resentment is tired
and so very, very, worn.
Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe...
We talk about this,
kiss
each others neck
and whisper white houses
on hills and trees and dogs, a picket fence.
Hope
is warm body;
love is and eternal
compromise of memory and
fire, earth, sky, and rain.
Shaving the Cat, Or Christy's Ode to Therapeutic Humor
Christy McDaniel
I have this feeling, this feeling where everything
Sinks like a walk in fresh mud, or cat shit.
I just can't scrape the stuff off my shoes.
It feels like that when you have
A mind like mine.
I keep thinking that I should steal her (not my loser, but the Other's ) cat.
I'd break in hate at right, with my black, turtleneck and ninja garb...
No, during the day when they're both at work I'd find the pretty, sleek black one Lure him with fresh tuna, And stuff him
Headlong, tail twitching into some gunny sack
I just happened to have lying around the house.
I'd carry him, screeching all the way,
Back to my room,
Toss him into the bathtub with a loud 'meo-ow and thud,
Lather him up into a little white blob of cream
And go to work.
THAT's revenge, mister.
Of course, the cat suffers the winter cold.
But it's a statement, at least. No real harm done.
I'm not boiling bunny rabbits or anything.
I'm not sick, you know.
The only problem is that
I'd never do it.
I don't even think it's
her (the Other, not my lover)
With whom I am angry.
I know it's not the cat, because I've never met him.
It's that I have this mind,
This awful mind
That turns things over and over and over.
It's the same one that buys her (the other her, My lover)
Candy, picks flowers that never seem to die, and gets all fuzzy
At the thought of her precious little up-turned nose.
I'm nauseatingly in love, I fear.
I'm too far gone to wax intellectual.
I'm so damned dramatic these days.
I'm reduced to midnight romps across campus,
Secret meetings whose details become
Too blurred to get straight; long mysterious walks.
"Gay people walk a lot," someone once said.
He had no
idea how much.
In fact,
I've decided to start training for the Olympics;
It's part of the courtship:
I walk a thousand brisk laps around campus until time to occupy her bed.
I burst into her bedroom with a flourish of trumpets and 'HURRAH!"s,
Break that finish line tape with my proud
Extended chest, and collapse into her arms
As Julio, the water boy, pours Gatorade down my parched throat.
It could happen.
If I could only relax,
I wouldn't be contemplating the intricacies
of feline hair removal.
Nair would be much easier, I've decided.
But, no, he'd try to lick it off before the recommended
Thirty minutes (is it thirty?) are up.
No, no. It will never do.
I'm just writing poetry.
At least, at least I'm not praising her eyes, her skin...
How her smile is enough to buckle my knees.
How her hair is a never-ending mass of darkly curled fascination
for me,
As I pick and rake through it in my soothing lover ritual.
At least, I'm not
that far gone.
Damn it all.
I should get a hobby, like latch-hook.
I could latch hook a yarny sweater for the cat
After I shave it.
Then,
Then I wouldn't feel so guilty about it all.
But I don't have the patience for that sort of thing.
Latch hooking is so fascinating--
I'm afraid I might become obsessed.
That would never do.
No, no.
I'll simply
wait
until the next time my mind settles.
When I'm rational again, I'll go see her. And we'll talk about
Important things, laugh knowingly at my complete insanity
(I'll remind her, coyly, that
all us artsy types are loony--
aha), and kiss passionately until morning breaks.
That, I have decided, is what love is and should be.
Sonata Form
Leslie Randle
Exposition
exposed to the elements
chained
incessantly beaten by the
buffets of wind and wave
the never ceasing CRASH
over your body, hot
and sticky from sun and salt.
Thirsting, thrust forth
awaiting. (helplessly)
Development
of your mind and body
at the expense of your soul.
Oh, you can work on that-
your French is terrible
that not is flat
You should excersize
you're getting fat
work on it for
next week, which
will just repeat the theme
on a different subject.
Recapitulation
sounds like giving in again-
Helen once again leaves for Troy,
past conflicts resurge,
the never ceasing litany of past mistakes
rising again to remind you of your fallibilies.
always someone there to remind you of
opportunities missed,
again,
forever lost to you
every time
Thoughts of You
Jeannette Stone
I thought of you today
As I watched the morning sun bust forth
INto the newness of the day.
The fluffy clouds on the eastern horizon
Reflected light from the morning sun.
Colors like fireworks announced the arrival
Of a fresh new day presenting a clean slate.
My mind raced with thoughts of you
I knew you would love to see
The artistry of the Master on his canvas of blue
And hear the melody of the morning birds
Singing in tme to the breeze blowing
Through the tall pine trees.
I could not help but wish
An old friend was here to share this moment
A comrade who would like to feel the coolness
Of the morning breeze on their face
And smell the spring flowers blooming
In the meadow across the way.
I knew that you would share my joy
At the beauty of the beginning of the day
And my enthusiasm for what it could hold.
I wished you could be here to experience
The gift of a fresh canvas on which to paint
The colors of life.
I thought of you today as the sun burst forth
Into this new day and wished
I could share this fleeting moment with you
Reminiscing about sunrises past
Preparing for the sunrises of the future
Giving us more new days on which to
Decorate with the many hues of life.
Realest
Orlando Webber
Exit the ghetto deathwish came and won't let go
Dream holdin'
Late night eyes swollen
City look like it been through warfare
Cemetary militia come get ya quick
My brain preserve the thoughts of fallen men
Try to get out of this cold world
But you shut me in.
Kamikaze suicidal
Who gives a fuck about survival
Five-o
Can't you see I got nothing to lose
My father gone
My heart bruised
Me and you
On a magic carpet ride
Why our minds coincide with genocide
Murder tape make hearts separae
What is my fate
I decide whether I just handle this life like a man
System sworn to disarm me
Like I' a contaban
Label God's child as a
superstar phenomenom
Death got his arms out
Ôcause her I come
make it in this world if I have to die
so look me in my eye
and say you wanna see make it
lavish style mansions and cars
everybody and they mamma wanna be a star
Warm Embrace
Gary Whisenant
like a leaf in the wind, I fly
soaring
without purpose, nor direction
her body my blue sky,
whic I embrace
with the passions
hidden
within me.
I cry out to her
as I begin to fall,
the ground
rushing
at me, my eyes
diverted
from her beauty,
but I catch a glimpse,
of your eyes
waching
me, as the sun
looks down upon the leaf.
your gaze
comfortsme as I crash
to the ground,
the pain softened
by your warmth.
Mud
Neal Wilkinson
There's no mud between my toes
And my thinking's pretty clear.
I had a thought just yesterday
(The first I've had in years).
From the ocean to the trees
Then to the ground - we've moved a ways.
Now we live in condos by the beach
And waste our precious days
On hypocrisy, democracy
And the pockets that we're filling
Make the laws that keep us poor enough
To work if we are willing.
There's no mud between my toes
And my thinking's pretty clear
If I had to choose a different way
I'd choose to live in fear -
Of happiness, prosperity
Scared to death of light -
Instead of scared of loneliness
And those who preach the right.
The first move was a brilliant one
The second move a shame
The third's a move that proved to be
The move we'd have to blame.
Let's make our move back to the trees
Or ocean, as the story goes.
My thinking's pretty clear
And there's no mud between my toes.
Spindles
Neal Wilkinson
The spindles, that make up the railing
that stands along my porch,
are not very even-
they're even a little dirty
But that doesn't matter to me.
What really scares me is the way the leaves
that clutter up my yard in front
and back are perfectly
laid out to rest.
My car - the newest one - is not running
very well - it starts and
sometimes stops
but only when it wants to.
But that doesn't matter to me.
What really scares me is that the guy who
picks up y garbage has to
take a drug test every week
but the cop (with a gun) who
patrols my street can do all
the drugs he wants and can
sometimes
get them for free.
My cat doesn't much care for people
much
she hisses and sometimes
screams at them and they
look scared.
But that doesn't really matter to me.
What really scares me is that I don't
remember the last time someone
downtown smiled at me and
said "hi."
And that's the scariest thing
of
all.
Pockets of Immunity
Neal Wilkinson
I don't wanna buy no paper stamps
Even if they will be worth millions
just because she's dead.
My pockets are as hungry as yours
With only my hands to filll them and
you ate breakfast in bed.
I woke up this morning without a welcome mat.
I ate last Tuesday - best I can remember.
don't try and sell me on the princess.
Got any spare change? Of course you don't.
But that newspaper cost you half a buck and that
cup of warm coffee, 83 cents.
If I had something to give you - maybe a used jacket
Or a twenty by twenty flat overlooking the park
Would you listen then?
I can make you promises all day long
About making deals and selling souls
And my promises are better than yours.
We share the same blood, my brother,
But yours has been corrupted far more than mine.
I'll die of my corruption,
But you will have to live with yours.
Requiem
Neal Wilkinson
Alas and did my nanner die,
Just shriveled black and soft,
And when I tried to throw it out
The peel just fell right off.
So sorry that my apple's gone
It too came short of great
Reduced to naught -- inside my fridge
It found its mushy fate.
And cantalopes and strawberry's
And rotten vegetation
I think next time I'll empty my fridge
Before I go on vacation.
