Why don’t we just quit this?
Before I get hurt
She’s obsessed with falling
Her needs are too intense
No one loves her like daddy
She thinks she’s so special
or willing to fake it until you do
Her mind deserves to fall
into orgasmic chemistry
with yours
From now on, I’m standing up for her
Her eyes get lost behind his walls
Pining again for the emotional
equivalent of juxtaposition
to need and want
She wants the idea
that you need her
you need her to want you
and she wants you to need her
she wants to feel your need
more than rooting around
looking for a hole
to pound out your own satisfaction
denying her the intimacy of climax
crawling around in a dried out shell
molding in salty water
I got so caught up in laying you down
I forgot how to lift myself up
so focused on you giving me the love
that I needed, that I deserved
I forgot that love isn’t always naked
sometimes it’s dressed with a little
humility and grace.
I keep reliving my childhood
trying to find the place where
I missed something
so I can fill it with what it needs
to be fixed
trying to figure out what stage
of my development didn’t get nurtured
or loved enough
And why there is a compulsion to love and be loved
Why it determines my self-worth
Why it controls my actions
Impulsive urgency
almost to the point of
of obsession
I’m looking into her eyes
wondering where she got lost
and why she still pulls at my heart
why it causes me to
need the skin and eyes and hands
of someone else to feel fulfilled
editor's note: That need for love is best fulfilled when we start with love for self, 'cause it's hard to love the unlovable. You go, Girl! - mh
Monsters
I will fight wars beside you
Dig in and perfect myself
So I can stand strong with you
As you slay your haunting hunters
I will wait for you to be brave
I’ll set the example for you
Show you how to conquer your monsters
All those past bodies to which you are clinging
Ghosts of guilt, do not matter; they are illusions-
I am strong enough for both of us
Have faith in my will
My pure heart
I have seen the broken book of stones
See a goddess in me
Believe in my power
Tomorrow I will make your sun rise
With out fear or judgment
I give myself freely to your heart, dreams, and desires.
I will believe and hold you to becoming real
Whenever you go, look to me as true as North
I will manifest love from the creator for you
I will be your little sun goddess
When you are a dark star crying
Into the nothingness of collapse
When all that remains
Is the crave of empty skin
Night I sing to your moon
Ache to your howl
Even if you don’t want to be saved
Even if you are not ready
I will be silent for your weeping
A warrior lion's heart
Worth beating for
Worth the beatings
We receive.
editor's note: When your goddess offers her strength, it's time to line up your monsters like shooting-gallery ducks and let fly with her dead-eye mojo. Yup, set'em up, knock'em down... epic. - mh
The words of a photography shaman
from beauty, words of native healing
I shed my skin for them, flayed awake
I am not a sheep
I do not adorn my lion’s mane in wool
I want to paint him
This lion taking over me
His stealth is only equaled
by his roar
I quietly listen
but force my jaws of fangs wide
in a bored yawn
against futility of society
and their attempted sheep dominance
When before, I covered myself in wool
to hide among the herd
but I was not hunting
I hadn’t any clue
I was not sheep, goat, or cattle
I did not belong to a large body of
mindless followers
rather a small pride of equals
instead of stifling and hiding in my roars
I embrace my spirit
scratch my claws in the dirt
raise dust
and transform
into serpent
shedding as many skins as it takes
after wearing them to frazzle
heavy magic I hear my mother whisper
creative fertility awakens
I lay many eggs
leave them to become their own magic
I slither experience and oneness
with the cosmic all
burning off my skins of scaly dragons breath
wholly embracing the fire
becoming rust
I effect and change them slowly
I am frog
My water fuels the cleanse
in with the good
out with the good
all breath is sacred
airs to another
our exahale
the breath of trees
sacrosanct stages
so that I may sing
personal power arias
and call the rain
If there was a beginning
She was of emptiness
nimble hands created her skin, and
she existed as geometric perfection
even yet, this was not the beginning
bare planes of existing space
cantilevered between
oeuvre revolutions
his gaze and hands move over her
A lacuna in perspective
attempting to stroke
waves of sound
between the white
stubbornly staring at each other
instantaneously spending
twelve lifetimes
waiting for god
their names devour obsession
fervidly arguing over language
Her denial cuts across his mouth
and he bleeds on her bones
tip-toe dancing
between
torture and passion
visionless white eyes
thought whose chains are blank hands
We write our minds naked
until blinking and rubbing our eyes
finally see her stretched skin
permeating last light shadows
defining contours of her shape
his hands become her eyes
they sway into a triumphant rhythm
he moves around her
fixed on naming an idea
though she is not yet born
he sets his feet
he relaxes them again
languid paces back and forth
folding into the all of her form
writing pieces of himself
in a layered language
only they can understand
unspoken promises
in pales of a whisper
- Desmene Statum
(added 03.26.11)
Shut Up and Fuck Me
Don’t tell me about your childhood
Shut up and fuck me
I don’t care who your family is
Shut up and fuck me
I don’t want to know
how old you were
when you got your first
fist fuck
Shut up and fuck me
I don’t care what you do for a living
What kind of car you drive
Where you went to school
Where you work
under what tree where
you did something with or to someone
at some point in time
Shut up and fuck me
I don’t even give a fuck what your name is
You don’t have to buy me any drinks
don’t even look at me until
your cock is in my mouth
Shut the fuck up and fuck me
We don’t have to kiss
I don’t need your number
You can’t be serious
Shut up and fuck me
Pull my hair smack my ass
put on a condom
and pound it
the only sound I want to hear
is you shutting the fuck up
and fucking me.
I carry no water for
Thunder moon
The evening star
dances prophecies
into the phantasm
of the epic all
A celestial princess
Diamond eyes
Moon belly
Hair of the sun
Streaking light pillar rays
Tip-toeing secrets
Across your dream sky
Hiding them with whispers
Giggling mantras before
Daybreak Revolutions
Set my heart on fire
Sitting and talking
Blue twinkling
Distance is relative
Compare the heaven's
heart beats to mine
Meteorites wish their lovers
were that close.
I am only here because of the rules
I am walking the infinite grey borders
Between complete self-destruction
and utter amazement
Constant fluctuations of emotions
and desires
The days pass in great motions
of slowing insanity
Delighted one moment and fulfilled
Devastated and verklempt the next
Secure and confident for brief periods
Self-doubt and rejection triggering
old damages
That self-esteem widow down
in my basement thoughts
She rocks back and forth and creates
a mining tragedy
It seems just when I dig myself out and
lift this holy woman up to the sun gods
the temple shakes below my feet
and all the pebbles composing it
fall in smooth around me
I stay there suspended in stone
breathless and hopeless
retreating into visions of the end
gathering stones with arms made of
water filtering into dark puddles
I am only here because of the laws made
The structure of my towering hopes
is a tedious and consuming endeavor,
for I feel I have given beyond
what is asked of me
I tore down my own house
to build this tower
to lift this woman up
the solid foundation is
mired in murky dark puddles
the stones grow smaller
and more rounded
there is no mortar
to mix
for it is what I have been giving
of my temple
to those that are set before me
and it was my chore
because of the rules
the axiom set for me
by the firmament of my existence
- Desmene M. Statum
(added 09.10.10)
Blistered Guitar Fingers and Broken Note Blues
(If you were meant to save him you would have)
Mississippi at midnight
How many times have they been through here?
How many long night rides to gigs?
Smoking cigarettes, giving each other advice
avoiding the cops
avoiding the KKK
Broken jaws heal so slowly
When all you want to do is blow
Mystics in their own right
comparing
ex-wives, ex-dealers, and groupies
whittling the miles away
bullets fired by warm hands
compelled to ricochet
town by town
dive by dive
Cadillac’s with wings
into an unknown night
Something soothing and melodic about passing through small towns
The mystery of voodoo promises whispering broken bone harmonies with foggy lips
The man driving has a sweetheart in Dallas and a wife in Wilsonville
This is the road
where he leaves it all behind
the guilt, the desire, and all the tragedy of life
Perpetuation, destination, free and nameless
With out any identity
if only for a few nights
he can become someone else on stage
he can be a god looking down
Bedroom eyes and wagging tails
Send praises up to him
glinting in the lights
of lust and admiration
But it’s just another demon
with a pretty face
Even if it does look like her
it’s not the real thing
She’ll never
leave Texas for him
Just like he’ll never
leave his wife
for her
But sometimes,
The planets get together
and are aligned just right
and those two artists
become more than their separate lives
They become more than
sinners sneaking around behind god’s back
They meet at midnight
They meet like teenagers
Foreheads meet and inner-eyes kiss
Fog on the windows
Violins and guitars sing
A train keeps the rhythm
and the only witness
is some nameless and forgotten gravel road
just outside Montgomery
He begs for her words
Lyrics from a silver moon tongue
She knows those songs
are the only children
they will ever have together
He knows that their music
lives and breathes
Pick'n-and-a-Grin'n
the only life worth living
So he keeps on driving
The thing with growing is, it takes time.
Is there anything more painful
and exciting?
Faces to the sky looking up
asking, begging, on their knees praying
for the next satisfaction
a paycheck, a spanking, an event
a birth, a life, a phone call
Waiting to perceive, receive, believe
seems like we’re all in need
before the message is corrupted
channel soul speak
complete the incomplete
connect and re-member
Chant with the higher
mind soul
release
strip away the preconceived disbeliefs
Touch the god inside yourself
Wishing cheeks
Evolve from dust
Become the burning
Evolve from ashes
Blow away
Have a sky rebirth
Movement, rhythm,
Molecular rotation
Inner planet shrine
Energies enter acting
changing, merging
opening accepting
giving or receiving
There are many faces in the sky
looking back at us
their expressions
are clouds
they keep waiting
for that same answer
we’ve been hiding
with in our selves
restless searching
for meaning and reason
logical explanations
in concise packaging
with definitions and guidelines
nothing more than the
compulsive need
to label identity
and disregard energy
consciousness comes
from action
from the belief in action
cast your light laden nets
into the universe
shine and nurture growth
reach forward in generations
and create wonder
while all along you were dying
and beginning at the same time
existence believes in you
acceptance is what you deserve
reflection and introspection
powerful observation
spectrum of interpretation
Joy, Truth, Love
undeniable laws
deities that deserve
expression
Language is the
reverberation of god
purified patient
waiting minds
empty
third eye blessings
embrace the infinity messenger
show your self in the ten directions
Blue Eyes still think about Blue Sky
A meltdown lifetime ago
Stranger dancing
Sundress stroll
Sauntering seduction
Water wells invent music
Starving notes
Kissing chords
Carved curved back
Smooth cool lover sculpture
Staring 3 by 3
Terrific terrible tease
Strict rules and nothing plays
Silence daylight
night is speaking
drumbeats and drunkenness
Freedom has nothing
but will
costs nothing
but courage
is nothing
but solitude
misty-eyed memories
molding protein
long gone lady luck
lucid lover
listening water forgives
is forgiveness
ask the dry tongue
Goodbye yellow yesterday
Goodbye Blue Sky
Goodbye.
The sea is in my ear
it calls me
waves of telepathy surge
and ebb wildly
seeking me
to run
run from the baking concrete
that I'm pressed against
I know when I hear the briny whispering
I'm free, I'm free, I'm free
wild symphonies of the seas
come into my ear
drowning out the city traffic
sickly birds
and the clicking of heals and hearts
on the street
the allegro pulls me under
my eyes close
to steady myself
vertigo
wet in my ear
on a dry hot raspy day
I'm always looking up
from the bottom of
a water-less ocean
deep in trenches of buildings that
I wish I could swim to the top of
on the crusty baked human ocean floor
it calls me to run on the body of it's beaches
and feel the salty wind on my sun streaked cheeks
the edges of the world
send sunsets
to beckon me
and let my feet pound the wet sand
while an earth heart beat fills my soul
I can feel it calling me
whole and beautiful
filling the emptiness
with healing vibrations
carried from my heart with my blood
I see the air around me small and desperate
shaking me awake from a hot afternoon lucid dream
even if this is cliché
when no more waves crash
and I'm watching the smoggy traffic
just trying to stay hydrated
I know one day
for one year
morning sunrises
I will run across the breaking tide
I will cast my mirrors
call the circle
and welcome my ancestors
giving and receiving
loved, pure, and whole
If I wanted to be nothing
I would have stayed in Alabama
probably married some no good johnny
baked myself a tasteless pie dream
I would have chosen selfishness
and raised my daughter alone
God, I would die
just to see her face
that would have been easier
than giving her away
and continuing the cycle
I was determined to break
teen mother with emotionally
unavailable father
Sometimes the hardest thing to give away
is control
If you are happy
you know
nothing can touch you
but wind
Libra’s daughter and her deviant lover
worshipers of melody
seeking a paradise
Singing two-fisted whiskey love songs
about fire eating eyes
to eighteen-wheeler emotions
Consuming each other
one gives to feel whole
the other takes to fill a hole
Each thinking
they lack something
necessary to live
They define their happiness
by the validity of touch
Void, devoid, and, afraid
selfish
both guilty in someway
not ever really knowing
what feels good
All they have known
is their conditioning
the constant paranoia
of lack
of never amounting to
more than an addiction
They construct a universe
of guilt, of right and wrong
and this is no place to live
Tangible intangibles
paradoxes of reality
pretending its paradise
Instead of making love
and making light
they mutilate their own hearts
and exist in a continuous state
of darkness and emotional disfigurement
When I was 18
my boyfriend and I
bought a trailer
and moved in together
This was after my daughter was adopted
during that time
I obsessed with an everyday life
couldn’t save myself from thinking
that my sacrifice was for nothing
I couldn’t let go
my thoughts of grandeur
that my purpose was something greater
than working in a day care
living in a trailer and
never having an education
Over and over
it burrowed into my consciousness
conquered my reasoning
After weeks of self loathing
I made a promise to myself
Then I burned that trailer
to the ground
and headed west
He stood like the sunset
long-legged rays of approaching darkness
stretching across the horizon.
He was the yellow-blossomed Texas Cacti
nice to look at,
get too close,
become pierced
by the addiction of needles.
His hands were mapmakers discovering my body
and no matter how much ocean I put between us,
his desert was in my heart.
Eyes like forbidden water
broken glass reflections of
his shadow, his silhouette, his darkness
an unknown destructive loneliness.
My Prickly Paw sweet soft flesh
impaled by stinging needles
changed by his wasteland tongue
both sides of his mouth talking
the convoluted truth
more dangerous than a bonfire in August
He stood like the shadows of the golden hour
a man’s torso and chestnut horse
calling Apollo across the sky.
The arrogance of Cancer
his arms’ goose down fur--the burnt cinders of a million hearts.
Stirring my scorched desire
Cross-eyed godless lovers,
mapmakers discovering mountains
of ice and ash.
- Desmene M. Statum
GOOD LATIMER BRIDGE
The Deep Ellum of my day
was something else-
an indispensable lesson
of self-discovery and history.
But, even more so in the day
of great ones who were
inspired and moved
in the streets and alleys
of Commerce, and Canton.
The clever deviants,
writing guerilla poetry
before I was less than a whisper
in my grandmother's
ear.
If asked to censor themselves,
they would have spit
in your face;
the fluid of an artist
offended by censorship.
Indigent bohemians
punk rock angels
banding together, poet gypsies,
working behind the counter
of Inwood Theatre
so they could eat
and see free films.
Minds Clouded by the legacy
of insanity
24-hour candy flippers
day before and after trippers
the-kick-the-shit-out-of-you
in Deep Ellum Live, woman
with a shaved head and
four braids coming from
her neckline.
Inauspicious female
impressing
my fifteen-year-old self
tossed about
in the middle of a mosh pit
at a bad religion concert.
My first time out all night
first girl scout cookie shot
Texas inkblot…
Yeah man, those guys
would have read this poem
naked at the top of their lungs
covered in vomit
tripping their balls off
or better...
As much as I would like that,
it is not their time anymore,
and I'm too old for this shit.
All I want to do is write a poem.
Censorship?
Rules in a
no rules game?
Double standard
double Entendre
modifiers
amplifiers
echoing voices of lost generations.
Because our roles models,
are dead, dying
or worse...
Sold out,
that can't be what happens
when you break
out?
What's this game about?
Are you telling me I have to
change my story to fit your family?
Oh, happy little life we lead
successful expendable incomes
then they breed.
Expecting art to become childproof?
Collective expense experience
collateral damage in the minefield nightmares
of Picasso dreams.
How ignorant
sheltered bigots
can't stand to stain
those pretty white
curtains
in $500,000 coffins.
Are you telling me that
as long as I stay behind
the register, take your money, and
not open my mouth,
or interrupt your cell phone
conversation
during our transaction;
you will look through
that plate glass and smile as you take your
ticket to the show?
- Desmene M. Statum
Kinetic
I have been to your garden,
listening as the water falls
over rippled Terracotta walls
I have felt the flow of water through granite
hearing only movement whispering to birds,
and the chatter of children.
I have felt the sculpture of clay
moving over my body
defining my toes and feet
modeling my breasts
carving my eyes into eternity's heart.
I stand watching you,
watching me,
and when you turn your back and leave
I sing prayers for you
so that you may be blessed
by skillful hands that guide through the universe
I am no less than geometric algorithms
no more than the fissures of gilded
bronze, silver, and gold.
I am the imagined
where dreams and death are made, separated,
and given to creation.
- Desmene M. Statum
A bit about Desmene:
Desmene Statum, a poet gypsy from Alabama has been in Dallas, Texas for 10 years. She has published two Chapbooks, the first, Coagulation and the second, Two Fisted Whiskey Love Songs. She also has been published in Death List Five voice of the Lunatic Fringe, Mad Swirl VI: The Blue Issue, influenced by Octavio Paz, Allen Ginsburg, Rumi, and Rilke. She takes the ride of life at full speed hoping to find the poem that saves her soul. She’s performed in art galleries, bars, and festivals all over DFW. She enjoys doing freestyle poems with her good friends and never met a cowboy she didn’t like.
