| Dark Poetry |
Break the Surface
by Kathi Stafford
i.
The tattoo man's code is clear.
Don't date the customers.
The sign says so.
Even if the skin, taut,
smells of honey, cypress leaves,
lime peel, peaches.
ii.
The spare map to the forest was lost. A leg of the tunnel ran under the house,
but no one
knew its location. Between forkfuls, the sisters would speculate on why the stars
had
gone bad. Rogue twinkling fell on the groves at night. I want to hear the straight
story,
the oldest one would insist, but they knew they were all cowards who closed their
ears. The Russian motorcycle men tried to go out with them, but the three girls
turned them all
down. They would hem and un-hem their skirts according to the fashion, but
never with
an eye to catching a fellow. Flesh can be taught, so they needled their shins
tight while
bee stings formed scrolls on their wrists. Guys came and went-a child born here
and
there-but at the end of the day, they were still selling pints in a vine-covered
tavern,
unable to shrug off the gravity of the underground and the card-playing dogs
painted on
the wooden beam of their father's sky.
iii.
Tattoo bruise rains down
my side. Baltic waves contort
the Slavic tongue so that only
the Cyrillic alphabet
still stands. Nietzsche
would have spoken
to my brilliant scars,
all blue and purple.
From which stars did we fall
to meet each other here?
He hugged a horse in the street,
then his family called him crazy.
Note: Nietzsche quote comes from the words he spoke to Lou Andreas Salome
when he first met her at Saint Peter's Basilica.
Seven Keys
by Kathi Stafford
Finger in a door
yesterday: today's rare pain
slams the shame again.
The moon rode backwards
as I packed bags of departure
with grief in both hands.
The strap of the bag
you used on my bare
back twice. I pull it firm now.
The red door of dawn
after a piercing night. Paint
it blue when I'm gone.
Engines play gruff rounds
in a coddling hall of gain,
while bass notes hit low.
Whistling tone tells me
about a pass through valleys
where I'll bind my own feet.
Gauze and tape braces
my shaky fingers. Pain rolls down
train windows of silence.
Route 5
by Kathi Stafford
He made a note on the map
but I held back from asking
for any particular detail.
It might say: Here is the point
where I gave up on you-or
at least on us. Don't show me
I don't want to know.
When I was young we turned
down the sound of the Sullivan
show and the tenors
were left with contorting faces
as they wept through Puccini's
arias. We laughed at their
histrionics. How they could laugh
at me now
as tears course down my face
behind the windshield wiper's veil.
Kitchen Poltergeist
by Kathi Stafford
Even the lumpish cat notices.
Toast flies out of the toaster,
sails across the room. Towels twist,
then vanish, as dish water drips
from red edges.
The white bowl bears tomatoes
on Monday, but by Friday, eggs
take their place. Spirit
makes us whisper. We talk quietly
around the sink. I mop blue counters
every evening. The day I die
I will still have a list of chores.
I'm no gypsy, no Farruca dancing
in my past. That ghost screens its antics
for me on gloomy mornings. I scrub
grainy cleanser into grout, wipe it out.
Hiss
by Kathi Stafford
Jenny is eye to eye with the snake
when I come around the comer
of the garage. Father by her side.
She is on her belly, her four years
concentrated on the baby serpent, who is poised
to strike. I say, Honey, get away, without much force.
The two of them ignore me on a daily
basis. I carry the worry beads
while they are free as cotton candy on a boat ride to the sky.
Santa Monica mountains, all around us:
sudden stillness, sun is so hot that all views
are bleached of light, my joints, muscles,
blood stream frozen, like in dreamland,
can't move, have to move. That snake,
miniature in size, looks all wrong, too much girth,
but I can't take one step.
My husband and I see the tiny rattles at the same moment:
oversized Nigerian beads, magically smooth
and blank and new, like baby skin. And he
slides arms under her, lifts her up, pirouettes
away in a single whirl.
Snake wheels off,
races down the hillside.
Jenny turns to me:
Mom, why'd you have to scare the snake?
And then she begins to cry.
by Kathi Stafford
i.
The tattoo man's code is clear.
Don't date the customers.
The sign says so.
Even if the skin, taut,
smells of honey, cypress leaves,
lime peel, peaches.
ii.
The spare map to the forest was lost. A leg of the tunnel ran under the house,
but no one
knew its location. Between forkfuls, the sisters would speculate on why the stars
had
gone bad. Rogue twinkling fell on the groves at night. I want to hear the straight
story,
the oldest one would insist, but they knew they were all cowards who closed their
ears. The Russian motorcycle men tried to go out with them, but the three girls
turned them all
down. They would hem and un-hem their skirts according to the fashion, but
never with
an eye to catching a fellow. Flesh can be taught, so they needled their shins
tight while
bee stings formed scrolls on their wrists. Guys came and went-a child born here
and
there-but at the end of the day, they were still selling pints in a vine-covered
tavern,
unable to shrug off the gravity of the underground and the card-playing dogs
painted on
the wooden beam of their father's sky.
iii.
Tattoo bruise rains down
my side. Baltic waves contort
the Slavic tongue so that only
the Cyrillic alphabet
still stands. Nietzsche
would have spoken
to my brilliant scars,
all blue and purple.
From which stars did we fall
to meet each other here?
He hugged a horse in the street,
then his family called him crazy.
Note: Nietzsche quote comes from the words he spoke to Lou Andreas Salome
when he first met her at Saint Peter's Basilica.
Seven Keys
by Kathi Stafford
Finger in a door
yesterday: today's rare pain
slams the shame again.
The moon rode backwards
as I packed bags of departure
with grief in both hands.
The strap of the bag
you used on my bare
back twice. I pull it firm now.
The red door of dawn
after a piercing night. Paint
it blue when I'm gone.
Engines play gruff rounds
in a coddling hall of gain,
while bass notes hit low.
Whistling tone tells me
about a pass through valleys
where I'll bind my own feet.
Gauze and tape braces
my shaky fingers. Pain rolls down
train windows of silence.
Route 5
by Kathi Stafford
He made a note on the map
but I held back from asking
for any particular detail.
It might say: Here is the point
where I gave up on you-or
at least on us. Don't show me
I don't want to know.
When I was young we turned
down the sound of the Sullivan
show and the tenors
were left with contorting faces
as they wept through Puccini's
arias. We laughed at their
histrionics. How they could laugh
at me now
as tears course down my face
behind the windshield wiper's veil.
Kitchen Poltergeist
by Kathi Stafford
Even the lumpish cat notices.
Toast flies out of the toaster,
sails across the room. Towels twist,
then vanish, as dish water drips
from red edges.
The white bowl bears tomatoes
on Monday, but by Friday, eggs
take their place. Spirit
makes us whisper. We talk quietly
around the sink. I mop blue counters
every evening. The day I die
I will still have a list of chores.
I'm no gypsy, no Farruca dancing
in my past. That ghost screens its antics
for me on gloomy mornings. I scrub
grainy cleanser into grout, wipe it out.
Hiss
by Kathi Stafford
Jenny is eye to eye with the snake
when I come around the comer
of the garage. Father by her side.
She is on her belly, her four years
concentrated on the baby serpent, who is poised
to strike. I say, Honey, get away, without much force.
The two of them ignore me on a daily
basis. I carry the worry beads
while they are free as cotton candy on a boat ride to the sky.
Santa Monica mountains, all around us:
sudden stillness, sun is so hot that all views
are bleached of light, my joints, muscles,
blood stream frozen, like in dreamland,
can't move, have to move. That snake,
miniature in size, looks all wrong, too much girth,
but I can't take one step.
My husband and I see the tiny rattles at the same moment:
oversized Nigerian beads, magically smooth
and blank and new, like baby skin. And he
slides arms under her, lifts her up, pirouettes
away in a single whirl.
Snake wheels off,
races down the hillside.
Jenny turns to me:
Mom, why'd you have to scare the snake?
And then she begins to cry.
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| To read other short stories, click one of the titles below. |
| To read Dark Poetry by Robert King, click here To read Dark Poetry by Stephanie Smith and Constance Long, click here |