May, 1998
Unexpected Antlers Grow
Margins of your Gucci life have
taught me something of the dawn.
Sorrow's cave a lonely one.
Fountain pens are whittled feathers
destined to be dipped in blood.
I was such a shy, shy doe
that couldn't bear the
inner journey of a body
cut and patched like denim jeans.
Didn't know that Clorox tears
were answers to this inner dripping.
Didn't dare admitting, yes, that
muted faucets pressurize.
Unexpected antlers grow from
pitchforks picking, overhauling
easy motion's tablescraps
like ditches full of tumbleweeds.
Craters in my thwarted bones.
Potato eyes among the storms.
Riven limbs and toppled trees
have lessons in their cavities
but nothing can reverse the shape
of willows that were meant to weep.
A flood is wet no matter what.
Shrinking souls like tennis shoes
on cotton cycles in a dryer.
Pain is knocking at the door.
Art, I pray, will answer it.
I have miles and monologues
to cry this agony to sleep.
Using Art
Tell me why I'm wet cement
and crematoriums of tears.
Tell me why I'm double-parked
at pity's circus tents collapsing,
smitten by the falling rain.
Romancing stone and stanzas cold.
Using art like prostitutes.
Transcendental syllables are
glitter-ridden evening dresses.
I am wearing tennis shoes.
Dreams, they have the upper-hand.
Body parts are dunes of sand.
Shaking fists at looking glasses
right before the fever starts.
Emotion's sweating bullets stick.
And poetry is surgery.
Berry-picking. Inward going.
Sometimes ripe and sometimes green.
Once invited to the prom,
I didn't really have a choice.
The only constant is restraint.
Like horses for a cattle drive.
The life I lead upon the page.
Well, honestly, it has the reins
and always carries me away.
A necessary waterfall
I'd rather call an inner-voice.
Crushed Oreos
The whistle at a railway crossing.
Irritated rushing, gushing obligation.
I was wet within the clouds
of violating nature's throne.
Birds had settled on the pavement.
Gathered like a group of ants.
Someone thoughtless opened doors.
Dropped their trash and scraps of food.
Set them up to waltz and die
like bugs that meet the hoods of cars.
All their eyes before the slaughter.
Almost perfect Oreos.
It was not intention's bones.
Still the axe was in our hands.
Put yourself in beaks of pigeons.
Then consider hunger pains.
We would watch the train approaching.
Didn't bother warning birds.
Summer's boogie was in gear.
Our stereos were blasting ego.
Shook the moon like
pictures crooked on a wall.
Righteous muting of a treasure
meeting death like pimples popped.
Rain would wash the blood away.
I wondered why I wasn't noble.
Sometimes human nature seems
the cousin of a dirty mop.
Fountains in the Deep
It was a garden
Rappaccini's daughter
would admire.
A secret spot
where those who lost
a leg to war,
an arm to whiskey
spilling on the road,
would have a place
to chew the cud
of wishing they were whole.
The hammock fear
a cradle swinging in the air.
Staring eyes the needled evergreens
in pity's forest standing tall.
The heavy scent of all the trees
they might have climbed and
races they would never run.
Their crutches weeds
that grew among
the easy lilies of a day.
The turning wheels of sally forth
a chair that rolled from base to base
because the carriage others had
wasn't waiting at the door.
It was a coming out of sorts.
A cable wrought in faith.
The tears in bottles corked
by years and years.
The milk that fed
the lurid shrub of tragedy
and filled the fountain hope.
Depressing Wheels
Limping right behind the pain
of wearing thin mobility.
I watch you move like beavers
calling stones to them for
building dams, enduring days.
One arm on the grocery cart.
The other on depressing wheels.
Back and forth maneuvering.
It is the dance of fate askew.
Tires more like rubber bands.
Stretch too far. Your health will snap.
Granted toes belong to others
sunning on the come and stay
of bones that do what they are told
and follow wishes of the mind.
In the chair was "in my face."
A cobra in the jungle fever
sweating, very sweating truth.
Sunk so low. Distilling eyes.
Change the focus with a smile.
Move your stares to other skies.
Drink the fire of gratitude
and leave my aching soul alone.
You thought my eyes belonged
with theirs, but nothing's further
from the truth. I know the
clench of agony and legs
like soggy carrot sticks.
The rusted valves of irony.
Those who see the lace of life
are rocking on its edge.
Copyright © Janet Buck
All rights reserved.Janet Buck lives in Medford, Oregon. She has a Ph.D. in English and teaches writing and literature at the college level. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The Recursive Angel, Pif, In Motion, Conspire, Green Cross, Allegory, Ariga, Ceteris Paribus, Dream Forge, Gravity, Oracle, Masquerade, Voice, Poetfest, The Gazette, Pyrowords, and many other web-zines.
Janet's poetry sites on the web have received more than thirty awards, including the "Predators and Editors: Author's Site of Excellence" and "The Circle of the Muses Award of Inspiration."
You can check out more of Janet's work at her A Poet's Pen and Scars and Roses web sites.
