We Don’t Live Here Anymore
The dogs eat all the dinner and always
sleep through sunday mass: No Fault Of Mine.
That city was no city at all
(this house has Sometimes Walls)
These walls
And these walls and baby jesus won't cry
for these walls are
nothing but childeyed crabapple,
Arsenic and endless white sugar
to feed the rent,
Last month's dirty christmas, and
We haven't seen yellow in years.
(a canary is permitted only to dip his beak into one spoonful of
freedom)
The itch, the trap, the one good eye
that hides like a thief.
Tin cups; tin birds go like water.
Everyone's head aches; everyone's
teeth cut clean through
These walls,
where nothing belongs before or after.
O Suitcase; O Sawdust; O Sweet Virgin Mary,
(Whose Linens Surely Had Closets)...
These walls are safe prison
That exist in life only as a very tiny
splinter and privately documented
Milk ducts. Fulled up
Fruit trees that dream in Front Porches.
We cowered seamlessly under the broken
Nose, Fence, Rosebush
(whiterussianwash)
And we never actually said it:
You Killed Us.
And with these three central pillows
(everything turns to sleep)
Like change and light.
Like tunnels-
Passed on from one miscalculated rib to the next.
ALL IT IS IS CLEAN THE HOUSE!
CLEAN THE KITCHEN!
SCREAM ALL DAY!
You Killed Us.
At The Market
It's an impossible ceiling, really-
Since the dog pile bookleaves drip,
Tick and span those molten studs.
(and see the red buzzed about) squatting
Like old tribal glories
Filling the room
with their
with their (verrry hungry daisies). inquisitive oatmeal corpses.
Their sweaty, flapping spectacles.
Gumming, gnashing, yowling: the slump tooth megamouths
Called only the History of Man.
QUALITY! ONE DAY ONLY! SPECIAL JUST FOR YOU!
Noblest blue fingerbones (tightest red chuck)
Only jars (only tiny numbers)
And it's bound to build itself a silver ladder
someday
Because.
COME ON SWEET
THING
MOVE ASIDE!
Perfect horses, pushy sand.
(dishonorable as drainpipes, impartial as brown potatoes)
Forget the paperspace.
Unexplained fantasy stockings. And black spider
eggs. Hundred and one.
Good introductions and family kneecaps
(lock and repeat) to paint her face
Exactly blueeyed.
Sing us dumb as daffodils,
Spoiled and stillborn as ivy.
(happy always to crawl and curve at the hip)
Instead,
Count backwards:
The heavy tongue and foot
Of elysian desire.
Of peasants.
Of triangle gods.
I thought I smoked ten cigarettes
last night
Because.
Spoonfed gray matter
(of fact)
Nut-hollow
Heavenly bodies but
Ain't I a woman?
Led right from the bilious choke,
Gobbled green masterpieces.
Fast-spinning moons named
with grace
A, B, and C.
I gave myself a headache,
So I'd have something to heal
in the morning.
Because.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?
The archaic, stinking couch of ages: Not velvet or choking on pipe soot
(the color of sleeping housewives)
Because.
It Was Never Even There.
Only the wet cereal and soft fruit
of natural blond boys, who awaken
Chiseled lip to the sneak-ooze clout
Of the many-seeded pomegranate tree.
IT'S ONLY HAIR! IT'LL GROW BACK!
But you'll never hear this poem. Just as
(I'll never dance again)
Thumb-pink nipple to navel ratio:
As you like it, Polyclitus.
I thought I was predictable
last night
Because.
Cait Rappel
is a poet, composer, and cut-and-paste DJ who applies the same stream of
consciousness philosophy to her music as she does to her poetry. Her
chosen method of loose-association flashbacks, mental relapse, and
inkblot mashups is one she explores in all her art. She would best
describe her creative direction as an attempt at transcribing the random
noise of the mind. Her next literary project will be a collaborative
video-poem series with artist Peter Yumi, and a collected works with
poet Christopher Sullivan.
Editor’s
Note:
Cait’s
poetry first appeared in the third issue of Siren.