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Song for a Sea Tower

There lived1 four sisters in a tower2 by the sea,
Between the blue waters3 and the lily lea.

One sister was a wolf4, one a gentle sheep5.
One a swan6, and one a fish7, from the fabled8 deep.

Four sisters9 loved a man10, beautiful was he.
He swam in blue waters beside the lily lea.

The sheep gave him fleecy wool to warm his lonely11 bed.
The swan gave him feathers to crown12 his curly head13.

The fish gave him gaudy rings from wrecks of vanity14.
The wolf ran all alone around the lily lea.

The wolf ran all alone15 where the lilies proudly16 rise.
She17 gave the man18 nothing but a glance19 from her eyes.

A glance from her savage eyes beside the summer sea.
He left the wave and followed her along the lily20 lea21.

Three enchanted sisters22 in a tower by the tide23.
Where their hearts 24 awakened, there they must abide.

There spell-bound25 sisters, a sheep, a fish, a swan.
Floods26 beat against their tower27. Time goes on and on28.

“If we wait with patience29, no matter what the pain,
From the green waters the God30 will come again.”

Three ancient sisters, faithfully they wait
For the young and loving31 man that the wolf ate.

________________________________________

1. rib-bed shells the warp deciduous dream the sea anemone the carnivorous count
2. guarded face beheld in unsmiling bricks never loseface
3. take luke parts per million kneading of these splashes
4. say grace canis lupus
5. wash up ovis aries
6. count blessings cygnus olor
7. any non-tetrapod chordate moisturize
8. for once upon a time
9. sharing genetic loads sharing soups of odor warm beefslaped sun
10. a quieter fop
11. see all alone
12. need we know the legislating sea
13. all for the favorite side of the face
14. the poison grew old then the old poison grew
15. see lonely
16. the sea is proud or majestic a waning curtain used towel
17. everything she did was having to be beautiful
18. epic buoyant and black tugging at every underwatertoe
19. trapdoor to the sinuses
20. but the sea nymphs cried and cried for the otherworldliness of the white petalfolk
21. got as far as the universal would take them and said I can’t take you any further
22. said the sea driver over over and over
23. heave muscular diaphragm of shore heave itching up against the sound of quartz
24. ba bum ba bum
25. now burn the paper and scatter the ashes to the wind
26. hear oscillating waps the midnight curl
27. reputedly Caucasoid
28. only space the voluminous cousin body of deeprub the innermost hood of the terre
29. of scanty flies something never worn removed
30. is she an artist? it is required
31. a garbled girl she spoke of lava

Poem for a Lighthouse

There lived four sisters in a lighthouse by the sea,
A fish, a swan, a wolf, and the sheepish one was me.

The light had burnt out years before and they began to sing,
The sailors on the blue and green were brought, as on a string.

The wolf gave sailors welcome howls. The swan gave them her feathers.
I gave my fleecy wool and the fish gave sunken treasures.

The sisters gave the men their gifts for want of love’s return,
But love was never given back, so the sisters still would yearn.

Far away there walked a man around a lily lea.
He picked some flowers carefully and gave them to the sea.

Four lonely sisters, a fish, a wolf, a sheep and swan.
Floods beat against their tower. Time went on and on.

The flowers floated past the savage sharks and men o’ war.
One moonless night the sisters saw four lilies on the shore.

Four enchanted sisters stopped their singing to the sea
and there the ships began to sink, the wrecks of vanity.

Sea Tower Song

There veins four sisters in a tower through sea,
Between the high marine and a meadow of a lily.

A sister was the wolf, a sister was the sheep,
A swan and a fish, of legendary it.

Four sisters loved the person, well there it is.
The avenue of a sea over a meadow lily.

Sheep gave heats at one curling wool, its solitary bed.
The swan she be springy, given a crown its curling hair

The fish has given walks at the failures of vanity
Wolf complete solitude around a meadow of a lily

The wolf walked in true lilies in spite of wage increase.
It has given at the person only a view of its eyes.

Take of its wild eyes the years from now sea where.
It has left a wave and followed it on a meadow lily.

Three fascinated sisters in a tower a stream.
Where their wakened hearts, that where must remain.

Three fascinated sisters, sheep, fish, swan.
The flood fought against their tower, time go each time

"When we patiently wait, although the fact that a pain,
green water the God again will arrive. "

Three tired sisters, sincere watchers on their youth
and the person of love who the wolves never knew

Explication of the Sea Tower Song

Apparently, these four women who happened to be of the faith, lived inside a giant penis right on the tip of the ocean, which was vulvic, and according to Joseph Campbell, represents the collective unconscious, and the surmounting of desire over the human will. Rationality holds little sway against such forces, and this man, who swam in blue waters, blue signifying cool, calm and collected, masculinity is devoured by the she wolf. Another possibility, is that this man was wearing cockrings, uncircumcised, and old sheathe condoms, and that this is a cautionary tale about the dangers of unsafe sex. This theory gains creedence when looking at the the last three stanzas on the pleasures of masturbation as "floods beat against their tower" The tower, being the collective clitori of the three remaining sisters. The wolf, and the male, both deceased from AIDS, they wait, for the turn of the tide, the 90s to come and make everyone more aware. Considering that we are all "wrecks of vanity" and that inside each of us, there are sheep, swans, and fishes, and the wolves... their is also the implication of man and God. Ultimately, this will be fruitless, as time goes on and on... and they await the 2nd coming, or perhaps, the first coming and little do they know that in the lily lea, the bones of the man are resting. These bones might make for a good sexual implement. Perhaps, the swan, sheep and fish could reconfigure the bones, patch up the tattered bloody shreds, and make this man into a fuck doll in honor of the wolf. The wolf inside us all. None the less, all these figures missed the point, entirely, by not devouring tons of sushi, and clam chowder. They could have built campfires and drunkenly howled Helen Adam ballads, but chose to engage in such pointless melodrama. They deserve Tonys... All of them... Maybe even a gold star, but as for the man, he looks like he needs a makeover.

Love! Love! and L.S.D

A Helen Adam Reading of the The Cheerless Junkie's Song

Sing along on page 219 in your Helen Adam Reader

song

Andy Hall
Song: Terrorists of Love

Baby tickle me
blindfold me baby
spank me baby
put nipple clamps
on me
and waterboard me
cuz I am the terrorist of love
beat jesus into my backside
sell me a bible, flag and gun
okay...hold the gun
cuz I'm the terrorist of love
Let's play this game
till we both come
and I convert you
to Islam
or you make me born again
venture capitalist
it will be so much fun
and in the mean time
we can take out a few
million women men
children
it will be so much fun
for we are the terrorists of love
flick the switch
for the terrorists of love
flick my switch
terrorists of love
terror is of love
freedom from love
freedom baby freedom
baby, put them handcuffs
back on and lets do it all again.
you don't need my implied consent
all you need is a daterape drug
would you bomb me right down there
with your tongue?
come now, give my rope a tug
unleash this terrorist of love
39 lashes, crucify me
put me on high, up above
all hail to the terrorists of love
come give me a bullet
sanctify my lust
I want power, pussy
ass, my own tv show
and a hug, come watch
the terrorists of love
don't miss the terrorists
of love, we all are terrorists
of love.

Anno Domini

intimacy is a game of telephone

intimacy is a game of telephone
jarring all our butterflies
in a mason glass
with holes on the top
walking around earth
carrying it with two hands

have you ever wanted
to believe
so bad you made
everyone do it too
desire is so communal
convince your neighbors
you’re in love

if my heart was dropped
in Beijing
it would say I love you
in Chinese I would
learn all the words
that make you great
and none of the ones
that don’t
I would
ignore those
decent sex workers

your partner
woke you up last night
before those birds chirp
to say
she’s loving you
the best
that she can

intimacy is a game of jello zone
where we wobble jiggle
in our oldish age

ask
did you get the mail
no
did you
why would I ask you
if you got the mail
if I got the mail

this is not a love story
it is a growing story
learning to change
the thoughts you have
for another human
so that you might
still eat popcorn and
hold their hand

spam [poem] i received to my ilstu email account on 2-19-08 at 10:50am

Way. Proper grandmother! He exclaimed. It doesn't added missmarple, 'we are right in assuming that for a garden seatwhich appeared to be of comfortable all artists almost allin the age of illusion, about him. Not an easy man to forget,really. She was staring at her plate. Something in the i did not wish a decided rebuff i would better young voicea little foreign in its accent, but in this exodus towardthe setting sun. He was dates from this time, and, althoughhe grew in proposition that it was an inscrutable dispensationdiscreet. Monsieur. Marie also. I will answer strangelyplaced in amphibia, are faithfully rendered been able tobear the thought of putting it quite determined to touchgold mining no more, and

Archibald Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute
then it should throw off its clothes
run naked through the streets
of Pamplona and chase bulls
then engage in a flagellation orgy
while masticating fried clams and orange
juice, after which, the poem should smoke
lots of hashish, laugh at billy collins
play a round of chess, and go for a nice
long walk in the countryside contemplating
whatnot. Then the poem should curl up
with a cat by the fireplace, staring into
the fire, wondering where it all came from.

a poem for the trees in my life.

Trees

Bonsai.

You rest on my coffee table
and wait for green water fertilizer
bugs on your roots, moving, moving
The window gives you light
You give me the peace of forests


Oak.

I will build a house in you
and drink tea
with my friends, no
boys allowed


Baobab.

Stuck by the devil upside-down
roots grow at the clouds
Stand alone in Madagascar
—when we hug my arms
won’t meet
I reach around thousands of years


Willow.

To the Willow my dad helped me swing on:
Thank you
I’m glad it rained for you that night


The Giving Tree.

You taught me how
to be good
and I was happy

Pootry

RIV3R
The very thing that brought the thing to be is the thing that will cause its death.
Andy Goldsworthy


MISSISSIPPI, river system that has swallowed Jeff Buckley + has been crossed many times
from the Itasca, deep loins of Earth up on to the tundra and down between the nations
of Minnesota and St Louis, moving through Memphis, to the Delta, gulf of Mexico
carried Jim and Huck...tom and john, ike and Tina, and me, when I canoed down up above
St Cloud. River that has reclaimed lands from the people many times
reversed its flow, reversed it again, divides America
river I ‘ve crossed many times, have gone over, on bridges, with dad
in u-haul, in campervan, and ugly truck, and ate potatoes, meat, drank coke
ate ice creams, near waterslides, rainstorms'' countless baptisms
countless reclaimings countless fish had swum,
billions of souls sold down the river
Every explorer laid waste on your bluffs sucked into your mills
spilled on to bottomland
frozen over forced into migration
we cling always shoreland and bald eagles
glide across in search of life to rip apart
amazing that we always reach this here confluence
where we can view the surrounds from the eminence
What it's like to have given birth to rock and roll and blues
what’s it like to have given birth to writing,
and to have killed, you never killed, you just existed
How many times may I cross you, how many times
may I see you, when will I discover America
When will I become one with my people
when will bullets get turned into firecrackers
when will your blood become mine, and mine flow back into you?
I must admit, there are other rivers
some I like even more
I've been seeing them
rivers with cliffs
that tower higher
than cathedral spires
and vultures bawk
at the possibility
there are those you can
stand in
and feel the snowmelt
and those that glaciate
you can walk across
even think of freedom
wisteria & willow
confluence peninsula
then rapids then falls
drifts around bends & banks
glides smooth
salmon bear
upstream eggs
flooding magnolia
and magenta leaves
the sadness
glaciation cutting into me
a canyon eventually ripping into America
carrying the siltsouthward making me new
the sadness
The river will swallow us

making us

Saint Lawrence

Saint Lawrence River,
you lifted me
in Alexandria Bay
where I wore swim shoes
a purple once piece
rode a lazy pontoon boat
caught a fish from your rocks
bravely took it off the hook
felt it slimy yet firm
and threw it back
asking
would he make it okay


from the middle of the river
on a flat nontippy boat
taps is played
on a gold trumpet
a stillness radiates
the camp fires
people hold on to eachother
stop tasting their s’mores
listen to the melody
reflecting off the ripples


where Boldt Castle
is surrounded
silently sadly
meant for someone
who never saw its strength
those thousand islands
where wind whips
in a speed boat
they seem so singular


maps of your depth
are marked in colors and numbers
not doing you justice
like a cheap painting
is underneath


this romance you have
with the sun
wow
it glistens
like you’re always kissing
sometimes making love


the waves beginning to charge
the shallow cove
I watch the patterns
the wakes from the boats
like a sand garden
meeting a rake


the insects in my ear
I accept them
for it is
all a part
of floating on you
serenity and a calm
singing along with the
water rushing the Ontario


Saint Lawrence,
you made me stand still

Click on Me : I'm a river.

River Piece; Peep It Yo

I Made a Warm Room with Yours; There Are Drinks for But Me; You’re a Host with a Bucking So Well
-for my favorite-

To kiss her zephyrs each morn! can I yet pastoralmouth your quaint aperçu, runnel of starcurls, I’m happy!, Cunnilingus pretty with linnets linking clew aride their steam. No hap to my augers-glint, even when I’m not of Cunnilingus her tureen proffers a thick-with-teat, a must, still happiest here rubs of flint, aren’t we all?! don’t we wake to slept raimented a holy tint, tucked lips dangling dust?! Then and forever, doves twill, stroke a squall, aureate muse, ‘til I’m done not here nor alone. Among. I love Cunnilingus fair, fibril to dance, love the perspire which quaffs the dew, a tree I never made, never pulled myself anew. The exudation sometimes most, even more, wipe the seedlip of its unconscious dye and leave the dawn, wish I could beget, tap the jewel of the faun, the draught which lards itself a ringing copse, nigh gasping forth the floor! The taste I’ll listen, lasts when supine I cry—Cunnilingus near!—she’s been rung, for flung me in the sweat alacritous, paused the rite-filled pap, used the very yap to soar with sweat atow for more of its own, pulling out, out, vamoose, redolent, away, nary lubricious omnipresent weft we’re along! Look! the sweat enjoys itself well, thrills one to on, sweat, the songlaunch, the fancy’s rhyme to wake again and anon. Genet is wrong—God is gilt-edged and he’s laughing my ear what I rune through her sonoluminent womb: “I’m made afresh, juncos aloft unto tears, cerulean tarn we’ve to gain on abloom.” Extend through the quaint till its reeds, vapors net and twine mine eyes front the quay. I weep of your orb ‘til perches the horizon’s flocky, like a ghost sings away! Sips kneel till I pass, nay distent oh, I’ll not rise gaze nor the savor, the spume’s keel for the mast! Call it sibilance, I’ll make you mine, immolate the floe but fuck the thiram, I’ll never spit thine we’ve sung, diadem my delta, dandle my tongue, I’d sate you, Rhine but I can’t a dram. I’ll not walk with you when lungs ask a titivate, never quell the lull—the surfeit of meat, the lamb. I try to stop my sips’ be, my eyes alove resist the pine borne as gusted fescue abaft the kine, for it hurts to love anything we’ve done, most when her interstice’s aflame—abides the cache’s rue of stime! I want to rise my stead to make the world know—love abounds!—but I shan’t, my indefatigable cum, to draw a winestung soupçon would taint her bequest. This ungrateful spit—rest, rest!—twould ruin my sewn, for God! your Goddess is here, a succor my visage, there’s no Humbert!, wherefore his moan?! It’s true we die but thrill with nymphets for how not what they imitate—too rapt to know! Drag me, have you hair heft me home, I want, enwet, I can’t can’t her tongue drinking me entombed in lace, I’m below. Mine! for I scare of your away, Cunnilingus dear, when your mienfrills glaze a throat into days, astitch, never sere—daft kin who prolix when they’ve a ready hymn!

Prayer for Christina Marie

Christina, who eats pineapple pizza
who drinks Woodchuck
who lives one street away
who has blonde hair
who has pink hair
who has short hair
whose default band is Hanson
who is
the good twin

Christina
Marie
Frigo
whom I share one name with

who just wants to write
space herself with the air
to breathe it in

who swam the blue Barbados
dances in underpants
impresses easily with romance
will admit things
talks German and reads tattoos
fears snowstorm driving

who smiles at Nicholas
tells him he’s beautiful, tells him she loves him
and means it
please, bluebirds, look after him
for her sake

protect her
from writer’s depression
may she never
stick her head in an oven

from those who have failed her
from steel trains that blare our windows
from Crohn’s disease
from not wandering
from insomnia
from high text-message bills
from addiction and infliction
from time not healing
from divorce, adultery
from living in photos
from not knowing the sun
the wake and sleep, the tradition of change

from cavities and root canals and tooth extractions and gingivitis

Christina, who just wants someone to touch her hand
may she always have a friend to hug in the cold
to tell her it’s raining, and we’re okay

may she always make snow
angels in her coat

may she never
have to smell beer
be in a plane crash
collide a car into a doe or antelope or moose or reindeer or fawn
cap another glass bottle again

save her from being that stump
that moves her so much
let her grow to be the tree
know when to receive
may her leaves always change come autumn

let her have a silo again
but with someone more right
this time

may she always write love poems
no matter if the man deserves

may her vizla, Andy, never suffer

bring some town, city, state or person
to make her feel she’s Home

cover her in tulips
taking photos of ants
climbing up grass blades

may she shower in a waterfall,
have her portrait painted
with poppyred lips

may a poem of hers
be accepted
to The Kenyon Review
The Iowa Review
even though mine weren’t

save her from emesis
in cars
with embarrassment
or,
at least
surround her with people
who’ll let her live it down

may she never work for State Farm Insurance®

It's not that Stephen Chamberlain is never wrong, but that he doesn't like to be wrong so he tries very hard not to be.

pal·imp·sest –noun
a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.
[Origin: 1655–65; < title="Click for more information about this dictionary" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/help/ahd4.html" minmax_bound="true">American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
pal·imp·sest (pāl'ĭmp-sěst') Pronunciation Key n.
A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.

I.
Isis, agape theon
beloved darling of the gods
lover of lilacs and bronze!

Protect Jenna Lynn Goldsmith, my rainbow, queen dyke, mullet walker, scholar of English studies and feminism, writer of beautiful words, intensely secular jew-ish, silhouette of androgyny reading Anne Sexton, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson, driver of a bumper of social issues for peace and equality, wearer of hemp, burner of jasmine, drinker of soy milks, nosher of toast, sporter of numerous high fashion hoodies

Protect her from all forms of water falling from the sky
acids rains, slight drizzles, snow pellets, hail storms, summer monsoons, wet socks, cold jeans, frizzy hair the mist off Lake Summerfest
use uninvertible umbrellas, silver awnings, hoods of faux fur, peach tree shade, petition to the rain gods! such as Cocijo of Mexico, Mulungu of Africa, Tawhaki of the South Pacific, Lei Gong of East Asia and Thor of the Marvel Comics

Protect her from her irrational fear of hoo-ved animals especially those of North America who may attack like the White-tail deer, the Mule deer, the Sitka deer the Elk and the albino deer that roam Argonne National Laboratory with a vengeance, that are especially
ferocious


II.
Isis, agape theon
beloved darling of the gods
lover of lilacs and bronze!

Protect Jenna Lynn Goldsmith, who lived on a lake in Michigan below an indie guitarist named Charlie who wrote songs about Martha, a ghetto in Madison, friend of the Yahara River, a tiny square house in South Haven, a condo in Schaumburg, who now lives in modular home in Belviqueerville with a silver/green/silver pinwheel divided by the Kishwaukee River

Protect her weakened immune system from allergens and allergy-induced asthma, sinus infections, packets of nasal phlegm, cat dander, dust, pollen, mold, feathers and leppits with hypoallergenic breeds, air purifiers, nose spritzers, Zyrtec, Allegra D, forget Claritin, soap scum remover and featherless dusters

Protect her from the death of her mother, Martha Ann Trowe, who hugged me first and knew me later, lover of Door County coffee, teacher of giving, expert photographer of the Sycamore, the Pin Oak, the Buttonbush and the Sweet gum but who also has an office and a desk as a carpenter contractor, lover of Jenna so much

Protect her from the death of her Grandmother, Haroldine Bernadette Sorensen who married Herbert Trowe, divorced Herbert Trowe, married Herbert Trowe, and then partnered a woman named Caroline, fellow English professor, who she walked with on the beaches but could not hold her hand, lover of Jenna so much


III.
Isis, agape theon
beloved darling of the gods
lover of lilacs and bronze!

Protect Jenna Lynn Goldsmith who spent her summers as manager of guest services, author of term papers, on Rape and Sexual power, the Stigmatization of AIDS, speaker of Spanish II, proof reader of my abominable prose, runner of town errands, genius conversationalist, maker of eye contact and mixtapes

Protect her from my mother, Maria Anne Mazzola Coyle, who is trying
who knew me as girl scout, bride, boy crazy, Catholic school girl, soccer player, only daughter, virgin, Nicholas Sparks, honor student, sound breeder, big sister, collector of marbles, volunteer, teacher, her sweet Melissa she should have put in more dresses, bought more Barbies thought less of the saber-tooth, read more Babysitter’s Club, watched less Star Wars, planted a rose not dug up a worm
who forgot misprint on the upper middle class nuclear family, poet, vegetarian, bundle of social issues, queer, secret from Grandma, denouncer of organized religious thought, scholar of post-modern, traveler of the world, lover, minimalist

IV.
Isis, agape theon
beloved darling of the gods
lover of lilacs and bronze!

Protect Jenna Lynn Goldsmith who even before we met I longed for her thorax, hinge joints, carpals, fibula, the dear roof of her mouth and other obscure parts, who has her very own handwriting, a nose ring, two tattoos but wants another, fake poet glasses, a turtle named Buddy who is twenty-five years old, reminiscent of the Archelon ischyros, who likes ketchup but also chocolate chip pancakes

Protect her from mundane living circumstances
let her love her coffee every day, give her Sunday mornings with perfect toast, a bookshelf so collected, sun sliding in envelopes, an endless lover, real flowers smile at bad drivers, let her notice every building on the way to work, find the curious intellect of every student, let the weather take her back with old feelings, have every lovely piece of word move her, have mercy on the kingdom of insects

Protect her from the story of us
mornings like yesterday
graduate schools and their state flowers

at Las Vegas the sagebrush
at Philadelphia the mountain laurel
at New Orleans the magnolia
at Normal the purple violet
at Champaign-Urbana the purple violet
at San Francisco the poppy
at Chicago the purple violet
if we succeed there or there, future girlfriends who are not me, the drawer of poems we filled, the classes we skipped, hugs of absolute unselfishness, that one time I took her to get sushi and let me pay, or that other time I showed her my bedroom and all my things, the other time we ordered pizza and wrote a poem together, or the last time we talked, when she showed me her bedroom and all of her things


V.
Isis, agape theon
beloved darling of the gods
lover of lilacs and bronze!

Protect her from hatred
who replaced the human with dyke, faggot, rugmuncher, homosexual, feminazi, catlapper, butch, kike
forgetter of Jenna Lynn Goldsmith, who looked past the stares of hatred to the soft retina of face into the flubbery lobe behind
who taught me to make human humans, make them people to the point of their sleeping breaths in steady rhythms, be love in their dreams, blanket their distant hearts, see them in the kitchen plucking unwanted hairs, riding the elevator to the 42nd floor, vomiting bile, surfing porn, loading the dishwasher, pinching their fat, wiping their glasses, inserting enemas, praying to the sky, tripping up curbs, flicking their boogers, kissing their mothers, holding on to each other

prayer poem

Dear Jonathan Kozol
God of Urban Education Reform
hear my prayer:

Please protect this girl
who has read all of your books and shaken your hand,
who’s allergic to dogs, cats and nuts
(but not peanuts),
who has a Map of the World shower curtain
hanging on her bedroom wall,
who grew up in a brick house in Mount Prospect
on a street that starts with a K
who now lives across the kitchen from me
this girl:
Glenna Kathleen Sullivan
who—if you ask her, “like…the good witch?”
she’ll say, “yes,” anyway, because she doesn’t want you feeling silly
Please protect her from the bad things.

Protect her Otis Redding album from scratching
and let her always sing along.
Tell her I’m sorry for eating her Twizzlers and
remind me to thank her for sharing that rice.

She’s the girl
with the ponytail, filling your water at the Medici restaurant
(home of that big lacquered Mulberry tree).
Protect her from flat tires on her purple bike
and also from anaphylaxis
and also asthmatic complexities
and also those damn cluster headaches
and more streptococcal infections
and from every type of cancer that has ever and will ever live.

These are the bones in her face:
2 maxillae
2 zygomatic bones
2 lacrimal bones
2 palatine bones
and a mandible
All of these bones create cavities for her senses
smelling, tasting, hearing
so protect them!
And also her eyes—which her students call “raw”
save them save them save them so she
can see her affect on the world and so
she can look into the mirror and
know that she’s beautiful.

Protect her from expensive airfare,
burnt corn,
red bats with rabies,
nightmares of mammoths
and Caspian Tigers.

Give this Glenna Kathleen Sullivan instead:
dreams of dandelions and deer grass
flying squirrels, and their walking cousins
chipmunks, gophers, forget-me-nots
stream orchids and wild oats.

One day, one day, sweet Jonathan,
let Glenna’s childhood wish come true:
send her up through the tropo-
strato-
mesosphere
into outer space
but not until they’ve drastically improved
Astronaut food
yes—protect her from dehydrated chicken dinners
and she should look down from her shuttle
and see oak trees and magnolias
and rivers and the lakes that she only knows are there
Then her smile will warm the Earth
when the sun gets too tired.

Protect her from crying while reading this poem.

She says she wants your protection from
losing her passion—
the passion for life and for love and for teaching
but you know and I know she’ll keep it forever
so there’s no need to protect it from leaving.

Glenna Kathleen Sullivan
deserves your watchful bespectacled eyes protecting her
you knew it when you shook her hand—
and not just your protection but also the gods that you pray to
and the gods that they pray to and the stars you all wish on—
let everything keep her safe.

Glenna Kathleen
who showed me London
who reads poetry and remembers
who still sleeps with Puffy
and helps clean my room
who wears mismatched socks
and has a good haircut
who edits my poems
who will live one thousand sad miles away from me next year—
Glenna who lives her life for others
who is really really real—
please give her all the good things
because I try to and it’s not enough.

You Can Petition The Lord With Prayer

Petition Por Barbara: mi Madre es tu Madre.
Andy Hall
Eng 447
2-6-08

Jesus Christ, the Jew, so Jewish he stands around handing out socialists pamphlets and singing folk songs on Washington Square, smoking reefers, drinking matzohball soup, and masturbating, of course. Protect my mother, Barbara Louise Schwartz from memories of
Marion Simon, Diabetes, Cancer, her Own Driving, Republicans
Pain, other drivers, Just a dry heat, weight gain, boring television,
death, futility, my whining, and bad cell phone service, atomic warfare, 100 foot tidal waves, earthquakes
the million tornadoes
Barbara Louise Schwartz Hall one time resident of
New York, descended from Romanian, Hungarian Gypsy Maggar Jews, resident of New Jersey, Ithica, Troy, New Jersey, White Plains, Enid, San Diego, Austin, New Orleans, LA, Rochester,
Then employee of Sibley's Dept. Store, YWCA, George Eastman House, UNLV Promotor of the Arts, cleaning bedpans and PR bosses bowels, you know... other people's BS.
Now situated in Las Vegas, Anasazi Hummingbird Palatial Estate, Paradise Valley, Du
plex, near Liberace Museum. &
Retired
Mother of Katie, the Chihuahua of Love.
spends time knitting scarves, Writing, working the food pantry at the Methodist church, watching Jon Stewart and Hardball.
She who receiveth sustenance from Colorado and Virgin rivers, and the Flamingo Wash, what little that still flow &
Lake Mead, Lake Powell, all drying up with global warming
sits near trees of Apricot, Olive, Ponderosa, Bristlecone, Joshua, Juniper
rolls in a 95 offwhite Toyota Tercel
one time Stephen Minister to Pauline who was 95 back in 95.
Breadwinner for our family when dad was out of work
Survivor of Aphasia, Hyperglycemia, Lymphnodes, bladder infection, depression, contusion, Breast cancer, and eyehandcoordination disorder, flat footedness, and the Vietnam War at home.
Passerdown of all the above and triple dose of Anxiety and sloppy joe.
Possessor of Broca's Penis, Smegma, Mons Venus,Carotid Artery-Fovea, Anal Spinchter Co Dependency
Maker of Eggplant, Kruegel, Rum Cake, and seeker of lost keys
Cantor of Haboobs, barometric, compression, Hanger-outer with Dick Farina who plastered his apartment with rejection letters, then died in a motorcycle accident the day his book came out. Folkmusic buff
Kid who went to see Vertigo, then flew to Frisco, retracing Jimmie Stewart’s steps in Vertigo
Dated Drew Dillon, then dated my Dad who sang Johnny Cash, drank beer, watched football, had a job, and was not Jewish, nor an actor.
You blizzard America, tornado the hair, oh goddies of goddies, let us tornado all hair follicles
& yowl to the prairie dog, soup of tortoise, hedgehog theo
logia, rabbits in the pouring el nino, chipmunk punk
Mastadon, Brasicles, TREX , Paul Bunyan's toes
Begonia, dandelions, posies, daffodils, lilacs, calyxes, sypingeas- Canyon creek lillytoad
Your garden is full of this and more (and a signed copy of Marianne Moore's Collected Poems)

God keep ye safe, and warm, and full of port
May their be red headed Texans to fuck the irish into you
Barbara Louise Schwartz
Mom among Moms, Mistress of momness, Mighty Mere,
Object of my Oedipal longings, unconscious, of course
Ah Mother,
you madre of the montanas
milkbreast provider of me and two
boys who bleed matzoh ball soup
and brie... touché mama, touché
but you are not just mother
but the driver of the car,
the payer of the movies
provider of pizza
who drove me to the store
for Pringles
and Stouffer's Pizza
and half gallon containers
of ice cream... You did all this for me
but you gave me life, and for that
I forgive you... You gave me my Jewieness
and Hitler thanks you too!

Funny how you converted from Atheism
to Christianity in the 60s,
and had me baptized in the same church Reagan went to
but you were always a liberal
and the religious right was never your thing
Lord God above, Jesus Christ, protect her from the religious nuts.

You who survived having a homeless child, alcoholic husband, breast cancer, diabetes, poor coordination, bad handwriting, mean bosses, and Enid Oklahoma. Lord, thank you for getting us out of Enid... don't send any of us back there again. Enid, the End of the world, with an I in it... Land of Oil, racism, and gun barrel Religion... Protect us all from that Enid. Give me the Enid of Innocence, the Our Lady of the Enid of Naiveté, the Enid of the Imagination.... Or better yet, keep us out of there altogether...

And your father drove off a cliff, without a spiritual life
nothing to live for in despair, He who converted from Eugene Debs' Socialism to Republican McCarthyism
so you, in your despair found god... good for you, and god.
Lord, protect you from suicides and despair

and you raised 3 bawling brats, we red headed ratzos...
You cleaned our tushes.... what more could we ask for?
And you? Protect you from grandchildren...
Make the human race, something idyllic and wondrous
Let your generation cure Polio, stop war, hunger.
Love one another
Barbara Louise Schwarz
Ghost Writer for Dr Joyce Brothers
Wrote how to grow a garden, though you never gardened before in your life, and your garden grew
Not just imaginary

You told me stories of children getting beat,
The human condition--
Protect me from those beatings
Please, don't let me be beaten
Let your father throw down his arms rather
than continue the endless cycle

I want you to be saved from your brown thumb
& from grandma Levy's burnt cookies
& from nuclear holocaust
& from crack cocaine-laced chocolate chip cookies
& from unbottled water
& from the cold & heat
& from the squabs that steal from your hummingbirds
& from repeats of the Daily Show and Colbert & mediocre episodes
& from running out of rollover minutes
& from dad's farts
& Hitler part II
Dear God,
Let mom
Smoke a hookah of snow
eat adrenaline of gastrolyphs
let the grey of rochester melt into sun glazed
beaches,
let the cruise ships carry her to warm waters
where she can swim
- Let the workers get social justice
Let Bill and Lois W,
and Shakespeare and Cesaria Evora
and the Weavers all be there
And let the sun
declare us all luminous
and lusty livers
experience
beauty, laughter, love &
watersong.

Listen: the rain.


PS. Dear Lord (MS Word 2007)
Protect Document

For Student

For three days our bodies laid
as one course those writers
will love you, and all
then they won’t

Sometimes it’s nicer to sit and write
reading theory
to watch your writing hands go
than to be buzzed or blown
but who would want one alone?
for Bourdieu and Foucault
meant little
against the orgasm.