this beat in my bones
is just vibrato strummed
to syncopate
with rattlesnake precision
the pulse under my voice
nothing like strength, just
neurotransmitted lightning
struck synapse to synapse
in flashes behind eyes
some call brilliance
but really random hits
streamed through plain physics
simple polarity
predictable
but surprising
how energy
yearns for & meets
its opposite
stability is a coin toss away
he said, but magical thinking
went the way of daisy heads for me
when i stripped feelings petal by petal
hoping he did love me–
much easier to ask the man
instead of a daisy
and who needs magic when
if you give me 59 small stones for my pocket
i will skip prayers across my creek
for you in whispers.
that’s my faith–
not in any bald flower
but in stones and things harder than stone;
casual, common, and grounded
knowing pebbles can be a rosary
and prayer is not just inside a voice,
but in the skipping over.
this is no canned mystery meat–
who ever saw a field
dotted with grazing spam
or fed a flock of spam
or saw spam fly south
for the winter–
so anything cut
from a mythical animal
is a gift
from the gods driving
internet astrologers
and psychic friends
toccata: a composition
styled as improvisation
to show the speed and style of fingers;
the stroke and flutter of hands across octaves.
i want to flex language in toccata,
words instead of chords interlaced
to dizzy and dazzle air;
images brushed thick
in layered consonants
instead of fugued themes–
but how to catch
a progressive theme echoed
in words:
what i listen to
is the bach piece
the bach piece
is what i listen to
the piece i listen to
is bach at his best
toccata and fugue in d minor
the mad genius
pipes the organ
in the mansion.
in the mansion
the haunted genius pipes mad chords
on the organ
on the organ the madman
pipes genius chords
haunted
is the closest i can get
to that delicious repetition–
the chords i love warp and wrap
to suggest tightness
around your neck, or
the knife’s kiss against skin–
remember this
is a horror movie
so the suspense
will kill
but not quickly
so the knife is cold
but not cutting, not yet;
the threat implied but not
enacted, as something
darker than fear
frosts the glass of windows
with bars on them, intricate as that music
scaled and barred ascending
into fugued release
or is it escape?
watch the movie
& tell me
who makes it out
alive.
***written listening to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY&feature=related
that flat seasoning packet
with artificial chicken
stirred into ripple-pressed
perfect noodle squares–
the cardboard & boiling water
i lived on in college
because it was cheap
& i could cook it
in under 10 minutes
i can’t understand why
my children want ramen for lunch
because i ate it every day
happy hour didn’t include 50-cent beer
& a buffet
when i taste it now
if i close my eyes
i see highlighted pages
and notes for papers scrawled
on yellow legal pads
the same shade
as that broth–
just less salty
in your 30-year conspiracy of manners
he kissed your cheek in the mornings
and ignored your tears at dinner,
your life neatly arranged in boxes.
you should have been catalyst enough
to meet outside the script you both crafted
where everything became predictable
and those feelings in your heart,
thoughts in your head, your words
all belong to someone else;
the lines you wrote now so thick
you choke on them.
.
before words
i shaped worlds
behind my eyelids
framing stories
before i knew
there were tellers
there was an epic of ants
and whispered songs
of hummingbirds to butterflies
that needed translating
along with the cackling slapstick of chickens
bickering in their coop
all of it story, all of it mine
& spun in secret
Susan Daniels Poetry 