Lyn Lifshin
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curiano della floreste by Steve Ely
they seek him here TELL ME YOU MOTHERFUCKER well chop your sons arm off stick a poker up your daughters ass nail her cuntlips to the table TELL ME they seek him there im warning you well saw off your wifes head with a bread knife shoot its eyes out in the piazza TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK IS HE
a monk is left on the other side
still holding the weight
of the fat lady.
and chains.to write a poem is to make an assumption
that words can do things they can't,
like trapping time in a net of lies,Disgruntled employees
are finding satisfaction
by discharging the boss
with a firearm.my real
education
came
from
an
armchair
in
a
public
libraryWhat I Don't Know about What I Know
Did Coltrane eat eggs or oatmeal for breakfast?
Did Robert Frost masturbate with his left hand or his right?
WEIRD MOTHER DREAM
my mother and the cleaning woman
who of course never met, my
mother dead 17 years, Delilah in a
city five states away but for the night
they’re chirping, somehow, disturbing
any quiet. Clothes aren’t in the places
they should be. Suddenly two men
from my past call or e mail. Probably
it’s ESP. I’m trying to think what to
wear. I’ve lived in loose clothes
all summer, a wound, but it’s not a
loose yoga pants day. I need leather,
something even if it hurts to sparkle.
I’ve been in mute clothes. Nothing
glistening like a wet horse in rain.
Give me what clings but not as one
of these men said I had. Even then,
leather pants made men look in
the way sweats, even as a beauty,
tho I didn’t know it, didn’t. Leather,
it’s going to take leather now in a pile
to try on for the Salvation Army,
leather, digging at flesh, at what one
of the men called my “cougar body.”
I don’t have a mirror but they feel ok,
a little tight. I’ve got on a red jersey,
a little ragged, not my color and it
won’t go with the caramel hugging
my skin. But the door rings and
my mother and the cleaning woman
seem to keep opening it. I want to
go upstairs to change, but the
stairs, I’d have to go by them. I have
not been in a place men come to
for so long but suddenly two of are
in what Tennessee Williams would call
the parlor. One whose name I hardly
remember is frail and shy. He half
turns his body to me but the other, the
handsome stud, the one who scorched
and taunted, lured and javelined me
away and then flung me back to him is
taking over the room, a king, his thrown
a wheel chair. All the “when did this”
clot. Somehow, more vulnerable, I can
let what I held in a ball, tight as a
hair ball I can spit out, let flow. Now he
can’t hurt me and as he tries to go
and make me a drink, I am sure he’s
a little awkward but tamed, this eagle,
this womanizing dude, this wildness with
its wings clipped. This thing there in the
gauze of machines and rags and brooms
wheeling toward me in chaos, sure
he’s going to stay
BROKEN DIAMOND DREAM
somehow, tho I was
only trying to
make it more
beautiful, my
diamond catches
fire, all that
seemed to
astonish, glow
now is a
smudge of
dust
WHEN GETTING A BOOK ACCEPTED IN TWO DAYS
ought to make me
high and of course
it does, especially
on one of those
crisp Virginia
early fall September
days when the cat
hasn’t pooped in the
wrong room. No
thing is hurting.
It’s one of those
days nothing so far
has gone wrong, no
body I know is
sick or dying. It’s
a silk day, a wildly
smooth day. I should
want a glass of wine
or champagne, still
dazed from those last
days, cutting poems
and editing, too numb
to do anymore. I’d
mailed it out on a
Tuesday night, got the
phone call Thursday.
And yes, for about an
hour I’m floating
over the computer,
the cat and then, like
finding the drink you
have just toasted
to who you thought
was your lover is laced
with cyanide. The
glistening, the news,
the what I never
imagined could happen,
too horrific to even
start to tell you
any of it here
SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS STILL ON THE GLIDER ON THE SCREENED PORCH
before traffic was no
more than a soft lull
beyond the elm trees,
ice clinking in frosty
glasses, my mother
still in 4 inch heels.
I’d like to be young
enough to coil against
my mother in her pink
dress with ballet
dancers around the
hem. I was trying to
hear thru whispers
about cousins who did
what they shouldn’t
have. Then, the crickets
and dragon flies. It
was a cube of time
about to melt when I
didn’t care that no boys
I liked liked me or that
it was much too early
to know this hour of
fireflies and leaves
rustling and the lily
of the valley smell of
my mother’s arms hold-
ing me would ever be
everything I wished
I had
If you don't know Lyn Lifshin until now, you're a lucky reader. She has recently released 92 Rapple Drive (Coatlism Press 2008) which may be her most autobiographical, intimate work. Lifshin may be the best poet writing today in the English language. She has the title "Queen of the Small Presses," but as her career continues to flourish she's becoming Queen of All Presses. This book is captivating not only because of the quality of her poetry, but also because of the books narrative qualities. "I responded strongly to the narrative element in these poems, the disjointed memoir of a woman who has seen the wine bottle break on the wall and wonders if the stain will bleed through, a woman who wants peace and a warm blanket by the fire, the fingers of an imaginary lover, a cat purring softly in the corner; but has felt the thistle in the garden and knows that the cat is already diabetic, sick and facing that same challenge we all face as time speeds up and we are whirled around the sun year after year in our living rooms and yards."
