the audience

for Maya Plisetskaya

there are good men who want to be princesses:

lipstick and mascara keeps them from the medium. Perhaps

that's all it takes for life's management, easy, felicitate utensils.

Dolls that speak. A Kit Kat wrapper so red

and wanting, it reminds you of the so named six pints of

blood we all carry around like the bookcase

that fell on Aunt Stella in 89. I can still remember

her screams like Lazarus, the big stone layers

you cant chew thru. Arguably, any day

you don't have to drink your own urine is a good day.

And that pattern left on her leg, aside the seven stacks

of pain medicine like the seven pillars of faith. Don't

I wish now, as I dust the broken twigs from her headstone,

that the grave digger not point out my plot

as if pointing out the way to the Seven-Eleven. Are poems

the only beautiful things left alive you can go back

weeks later and repair? Tell me spirit,

whom and what now to believe?

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

In your house there must be a special medicine cabinet where alongside the adhesive bandages and cold remedies there is a special secret jar of poem lubricant. That lightning white grease that makes your words slide seemingly without effort into the psyche. Those pesky grave diggers, why are they so impatient for employment. They have entered the only vocation that's forever a sure thing. Just you wait and see.

[Clara]

You're an incredible writer, Dana!

Loved this! X

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear Lara....dana

[Beccy]

The reference to Lazarus is sublime. To believe in a miracle is to make it real; our little plot of earth no more than a gateway to the heavens where Maya is doubtless still dancing.

Loved this to bits. Beccy.

[Terpsichore]

Memories are also beautiful things; they mostly repair us more than they need repair.

Perhaps we believe what we need to and no more. T

[CD Campbell]

You and Delmar seem like old sparring partners in the ring. Each one delivering a poetic punch for practice. Great write Dana. With the Lazarus reference you set me off on a religious quest. The last two questions needed not to be asked tho. I believe we know the answer to that. CD

[h d e rushin]

thank you my friend.....

[W.k.kortas]

What the wise Delmar has said. There are secrets hiding in the everyday, the seemingly mundane--the Kit Kat wrapper, a headstone in a row of so many others--but there are few who can find those secrets, the path leading from the humdrum to the music of the spheres. Well, lookie here...

[h d e rushin]

I use the Middle weight Marvin Johnson's method of writing. I just jump inside, throw haymakers, and see what falls......

[jacob erin-cilberto]

love those kit kat wrappers and what's inside, and love what's inside this poem...yes, we can go back and repair poems about life...but life itself happens as it does...and we can only look back with a smile or a regret...but as you say...no matter how bad it gets, if you can get through a day without having to drink our own urine...that's definitely an okay day.

the first part of this reminded me so much of "take a walk on the wild side" i was humming it.

"Steeeeeelllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

[h d e rushin]

love that Brando reference......who I consider as the finest character actor of our time...
thank you brother....dana