The History Girl

The quiet snarl of a gas oven smothers me.

Colorless strings, my veins bulging like meat in pigskin.

I hear only a slow tick. My heart that once purred -

Now reducing itself, filtering out all the blood inside it.

Me the feline, monoxide kisses, hisses to a carcass. Carbon dates the passing years.

 

An old cloth cat dances along the Whitehouse lawn,

His stuffing spills out all over the neat cut grass -

Bubba Clinton inhales both stuffing and grass, his nose as long as a Cuban cigar.

My piano tutor, a Brooklyn priest, tells me he is to marry the King of England -

He invites my teeth, my black teeth that is, to the wedding.

 

Blossom soaks a statue of my mother as a faun,

Its marble frosting melts under the weight of rainbow sprinkles.

Silhouettes on an unmarked headstone tiptoe alongside

Three Siamese fighting fish in red hunting hats, their scales made of one green eye

That stares at me, mocking my bed-head and last night's weeping eyeliner.

 

Out of this curious dream I am jolted, finally stirred as

The wireless wails Whitney. ‘... and I will always love you….’

Oh Houston, we have a problem. I really need to switch you off.

A moment or two of fumbling… and I recall adolescent sex,

Even more so as the wireless goes dead quiet; that awkward silence

As loud as Kansas thunder.

       

Inside my head, Mussolini and Hitler like leeches

Suck all the blood downwards.

 

It is the start of the working week.

 

Ethics decontaminate, they show up belligerent and tough -

What are we to think of Uncle Joe Stalin and the great incongruity?

 

This is my vocation, and it is this I tell myself.

 

I wear a cream blouse and a World War Two smile.

My lavender pencil skirt asserts a sensuous authority.

My Bette Davis spectacles suggest an enigmatic firecracker -

A steel needle in E minor. A medusa of knowledge. A heart of darkness.

 

My red painted lips hold an Empire of dirty secrets -

My body, an Iron Curtain, waits to be pulled apart by some uber undergraduate,

A Kapitalist nitwit spreading democracy and theories of free market grades.

 

I am ready for the twenty yard gridlock.

 

O such seminar disorder -

The lights are fusing like French resistance.

East and west, each front another war.

Valium wins the day.

Author's Note

Inspired by my sometime life as a college tutor of European history.

Reviews

[Shmoke-Sifted Heftlande..]

this dream goes so deep into the rabbit hole that it decapitates a
worm-hole-black-hole and jumps into the chest of Hollywood and restores the imagination of Palestine.
but yeah, your transition between the dream bridging a personal allegorical connection between history and reality and adolescence and adulthood in the paradigm of a fubar society leads nicely in to the ending.
it's an ironic twist ending that is both obvious if you were paying attention and completely unexpected (for the sake of comedy?) if you were paying attention. But yeah, I'm not one to admit believing in type-o's but then, I haven't been drinking either...god forgive me for being sober and Morgan Freeman for president of the USA.
I love the Family Guy reference, and I'm only gonna admit to liking American television because I like being the guy from Antarctica, because polar bears and penguins are not ready to hold hands just yet....prophecies have not fully come to fruition just yet..
this poem should be the poster child for universal metaphysical health care and I don't give those kinds of compliments every other day.
I thoroughly enjoyed the progression of the historical costume facade towards the end..that really tickled me. Way to go. High five!

[Rosalind Gale]

-xx-

[Owlgirl]

Wow great job! It's beautiful and amazing! I love the imagery and connections you used. Just wow!!!

[Rosalind Gale]

Thanking you Owlgirl!
-x-

[Mickey Hilts]

another blinding piece, you write so creatively and without pretension, other writers often seem forced, like they are trying to be different but you just come from another place. I have read so many poems on here but you are really one of the most exciting and clever, rich and rewarding. its a shame you are not read by so many more people.I don't know if you're published but you should be. thanks for this incredible poem

[Rosalind Gale]

Thank you -
-x-

[icaros13]

Oh. My. God. Incredible. I'm not sure what to write in this review. There are so many images swarming my mind it is difficult to sort them out. So many awesome lines and references as well as symbolism that is brilliantly genius. My favorite line has to be: "Me the feline, monoxide kisses, hisses to a carcass. Carbon dates the passing years." That is a loaded string of intelligently, tastefully, well chosen words. So clever! I also love the "World War II smile". "The lights are fusing like the French resistance." Your ending is the grass on the knoll, however, "Valium wins the day." Applause!!

[Rosalind Gale]

Icaros, your loving words mean so much to me; thank you my friend, truly, I am blushing. Thank you!
-xxx-

[Corset]

you are f*****g brilliant, and yes, I had to say the cuss word without the hyphens to lend the proper weight to the seriousness of my statement. unrivaled brilliance on this page today.

[Rosalind Gale]

Thank you, gosh, I love you!
-x-

[Mickey Hilts]

I have to agree with Corset , you are amazing

[...]

Your mind works in mysterious ways and I love it!!

[Rosalind Gale]

!!! thank you Lynn !!!
-xx-