zzz(painters)

I always liked the poets
who spoke of painters
in their poems,
lyrical lines where
chagall and Magritte
popped up like
daffodils.

I have never been
like that,
though I might have
had I ever
lived with Chagall
and gotten sick
of hanging up
his shirts

that’s what we forget
that I’m not so sure
should be forgotten
I mean these guys
did make laundry.

I always wanted
to be fine,
like that
but was instead
as common as
the rain,
the smell of Tide.
following me about
eau d’ever day

Someone writing from New York
to say I am narrative,
as though I didn’t
know that,
story teller at the
wheel of a car
well, she was right
there.
how can I remember a chagall
painting when I can’t
even find my car keys.
as someone else
has said that even
the objects I make
have a tale to tell.
up close and personal urgent.

and ;then you try to make
tapes, exacting only
the songs you want
to hear, but somehow
it doesn’t quite work.
there was something
in the rhythm of the
wait that made the
good song better.
I hate the way
it gets like that,
supporting principles
I am committed to refuting:
that old duality deal,
pain and pleasure.

Personally I have to
get up everyday and
give up all over again
all hope of the order
I dream of, where all
my shirts hang in the
closet tops of the hangers
even, shirttails a uniform
length. Oh hhhh have I
dream of a world like that,
where my eyes can at last
relax.

f

my cousin says
I’ve forgotten
how to speak southern
when I use the word
jaunt, a word thick
with implication
for all its simplicity,
my absolute favorite
kind of word.
He promises to send
me a book to that will
remind me.
I want to contemplate
destination,
and destiny.
I want to walk
around in words,
as though they are
rooms lined with hooks
where I have hung all
my favorite clothes, the silks and velvets
I have always loved,
the jeans thick
with white out,
so that people thought
I was some other kind
of artist,
the shirts with ink line

I want to roll around
in them as though
they were any other
medium, smear them
across my face, lick
them from my fingertips.

I never like the liquid

you ‘ve gotta love
a red-haired woman
with a gray stresak
in her hair,
nad I i’m hopin
a gray-haired wooman
with a few red hairs left.
i start carrrying my list
of feamale rock and rollrs
I need to get.
I ‘ve got tos top bein’

so forgetful
hail blondie
lookin’ downright
middle-aged.

i get up every day
and try to reemember
to stop trying
to get over b veing
whyo I am.
just because no one is paying’
any attention
to who that is.
it can’t mean halth
if it demandds you give
up all your craziness.

everything is gonna
be all right
rock a bye.