Not Alone
For Audre Lorde
Your words are fire in my fingers, but I’m afraid
to let go; unsure if I’d ever feel brackish water
close over my head or know how asphalt tastes like resin
mixed with gunpowder and ragged wounds.
I saw the boy you described,
pooling an urban maze with rusty heat;
could only imagine puncture marks,
the echo of a bass line
thumped hard in that chest,
and the dark thirty that would come
a little early—
mistaken for the shade of tall buildings
or the shadow of a slinky cat.
I patted his hand in reassurance,
pulled back before tiny grip slackened
and told him to sleep—there’s school in the morning
with the word “Vindication” written in block letters
on the chalkboard.
Will I remember where I am
when I notice my palm; a raw tingle of pressure—
how it fades, but is never gone? Like a page
flung out to greet the wind and how it floats
down
with every stark word, littered in bold condemnation,
down;
a Sunday-Best suit, split across the back.
Down
as a flame, and I’ll watch the city burn.
- Kim Keith
(featured in the poetry forum 04.16.11)
This is Killing Me
Licking flames nervously await the bounty I’ve set forth—
small oily shards offered to the bubbled glass.
Slowly they surrender their crystalline form,
transcending to exhaled toxic plumes slipping through parched lips.
Eyes sewn shut against the outer chaos: all the better for
quickening-pulse-experience-the-rush only to
Awaken; grimy bathroom with only one light bulb ballooned
above the mirror obscured by chemical residue
revealing pinched features and counter-sunk eyes that avoid their own stare.
Flickering below the surface of tangible thought, the epiphany awaits.
- Kimberly Keith
(added 11.08.10)
On the Edge of Awake
Regret is a morning embellished
with the heaviness of plums
broken open and scattered sweet.
A hunger pang gathers my dreams
like rain coalescing in puddles; enough to savor,
but not swallow each added scent
that laces my sleep in a scallop-swirl:
gently frayed whorls,
whetted down-chin
to quench and quell these silent fires
aching in me; fighting to stay shut
and make another choice—
a better choice than I did yesterday.
But eyelids arch against me
to watch a lizard pushing up against
a summered brick fence to cool its belly:
self-preservation. And I twist in my sheets,
down with the reptile and reflexive to rise
—even as reluctant as I may be.
Still longing
for the slit-eyed linger,
the way I groan under throw pillows
before combing my hair. Before breakfast
and the inevitable chewing of pride,
the kind that nubs mountains to pebbles—
and I think I’ll just flutter instead:
hover at a halfway point
of wherever I’ve been;
maybe pluck up the nerve
to fluctuate my feet over lines
then stutter back again.
Eventually.
And eventually I’ll let this be a lesson,
to pat my prickled soles
so that maybe I can feel the floor
as I stand up or melt down;
to find an instep I can step into
and walk around with some dignity
(or at least a better sense of direction).
And even as pinned as I am
to the alarm clocks and apologies,
I’ll allow myself to float quiet;
unencumbered by pitted plums
or the undertow of what could have been.
- Kimberly Keith
(featured in the poetry forum 11.08.10)
Varying Degrees of Marginalia
Hunger is a shadow lengthening
as the day grows; intensifying,
folding in its edges to blacken the line
and thinning away to wan. Spilling nothing
to nothing, but needing more.
Needing is pockets pulled out for all to see;
more as though bearing the holes
makes losing everything natural,
like the scattering of crumbs
is natural to the want
of scrubbed shades in doorways.
Want is like knocking where unwelcome;
answered by haute and fanning hands
that scatter flies and other pests.
Flickering “not good enough” like a motel sign:
a neon finger stuck in the eyes of the tired.
Tired is a single mom counting change at Christmas;
tired of three jobs, tired of clerks shoving pennies back
and shaking their heads, tired of choosing dinner over dolls.
Of knowing the faces of disappointment
and kissing them goodnight—even though it won’t be.
And the tired-are-wanting-are-needy-are-hungry:
the shadow stretches further, further to breaking.
All in step-stages,
diluting black to grey to white to empty.
Percentages are probabilities of moving;
the continuum only flows in one direction.
- Kimberly Keith
(added 11.08.10)
’s Only Crazy If You’re Caught
Inspired by “The Swing” by Laurie Lipton
Alone allows.
I have permission to find out the plight of my Windex bottle,
cramped into a cabinet, cross-legged and scrunched
into a smaller package than I was ever intended to be.
And I can peek out if I want, spit my tongue at the cat
or let slivers of light slice my face. I can dangle my feet,
pricking with gravitational pull: forward and backward,
high upon a rafter in my bedroom—at least where I used to keep
my bed, now pushed out into the hall
to make room for my ropes and pillows and flight.
A doorbell brings shoes with laces that tangle
and slap me around my ankles; knitting needles
that would surely find an eye socket, and a tea set
with a cracked spout and cold leaves stuck to the bottom
of cups and saucers, round as my words
or the doilies and handkerchief corners—worn to shreds
by the wringing of arthritis and go away.
Please, go away.
Alone allows.
- Kim Keith
(featured in the poetry forum 08.19.10)
Too Far, Too Long Gone
(Methadone and Schizoid Personality Disorder)
There is no justice on piss-stained floors
which carry the burden of every broken
body-broken-mind-broken-hash-pipe and halo dust
atop a thin mattress soaked with God-knows-what.
Cross our toes and mutter until the next
nurse with the next Thorazine trip in a post-nasal
dripping whine stabs us in the ass again. (Oh, baby!)
Not allowed to watch the television today
all for flipping off the government cameras
embedded behind the screens
while Barney sings “I Love You, You Love Me”
over and over and over will it ever end?
We know Barney is the Anti-Christ. And a purple pedophile.
Let’s pretend to be Batman again, flapping
our hospital gowns and shrieking for no known reason.
That needle might seek us out again.
We aren’t getting better days-months-years later
still on every med imaginable and some not even
scientifified yet—or whatever you Docs do
in your spare time. Roll in money, mix more
chemical compounds that we turn into more defiance
just to get more scientifified dope. Oops—
Big Bro knows our sullied secret now, but it’s still time for another dose.
Please pass the spoon for—umm—safe keeping.
Sure, rehab works for quitters. None of the “we” are.
So we sit in group session and talk about Mickey Mouse,
atom bombs, flashback nightmares and melting walls.
Oh, the pretty colors. Who said LSD wasn’t a beautiful thing?
We say we want to be Mickey Mouse, mousing through dissolving hidey-holes
in bricks of the basement while some Meth-freak asshole
builds another bomb. What a nightmare!
Ha, ha: got more Thorazine from that bitch with a beard.
Maybe it’s a moustache, but we can’t tell—too blurry
anymore. In a minute, she might blink her lips.
Ah, piece and quiet. Piece of ass while ball-gagged qualifies.
Maybe we can play ping pong tomorrow,
tell more lies for the effect we desire, tap-a-pat-tap
our veins for. Getting cranky is slow without Speed, but
give us a minute and we can accommodate those mood swings.
Just watch. No, not the TV because Batman (“The Man”) says so. Stupid cameras.
We’ll be on that see-saw roller coaster of binge and purge
and pills and withdrawal and manic and depression
and obsessing about the lightbulb blinking in the bathroom
since we know it’s Morse code for something.
Riding highs and lows with every-dose-every-needle-every-body
busted before we ever played ping-pong or swing set steeple chase
to see just who is the real crazy here—us or “The Man”.
Ten Kool-Aid packages on the guy who invented pills
to “cure” addiction. Any takers? We didn’t think so.
Snort the sugar lines and move it along so that we can
have our turn at medical benediction:
to receive the body-of-Christ-in-a-gel-cap across our tongues and rock
side-to-downside in the scientifified homeostasis chamber
while Doc-the-Man counts his blessing of bills in the collection basket
labeled Incoming and stamped with eagles. We’ve seen it.
No justice and piss again. Pissed again. And still, no checkmark on the chart
of getting better. Maybe Doc and Ratched-with-facial-hair
(which is still up for debate—moustache or beard?)
are close enough to see us for what we are: hopeless/helpless.
But we can play OCD once more if we all hum along.
Why? We forgot the damn words. Oh, crap—no,
don’t make us leave. Doorways are frozen places to ferment in
and it’s awfully hard to keep the candle burning
long enough to make everything right. To fix it all away.
Just for me; that’s all the “we” there ever was.
- Kim Keith
(featured in the poetry forum 06.25.10) |
