The Mouth that Roars
Just the sound of his voice,
Awakens memories of fingernails on a blackboard,
Of tires screeching outside at midnight,
Of coarse sandpaper on raw wood,
Of babies crying and crying and crying,
Of a neighbor weed-eating at 3 am!
It’s an audible recording
from a medieval torture chamber.
Without even considering the stupidity
And malevolence of the words:
Point guns at Liz Cheney,
Paint Kamala with “low i.q.,”
Shoot at him
through the dishonest media,
Vow revenge on all who disagree,
Proclaim “rigged”
even before the votes are counted!
How can the most immoral man
In the universe
Get a single vote?
They are wrong, those who say we dissolve in connection, as if we have worn special clothes, handmade shoes, paid for unneeded lessons, all to lose individuality.
Maybe it’s the separateness we crave, the remembrance the song will end. We will be free to return where we laid our wallets and purses, our IDs, keys, lives beyond
the dance floor we will never abandon for bed or bank. The mouthing of words soothes more than the meaning: how wonderful to regain the infant’s unmediated cry,
or, like a cat, live by instinct, not by choice, free of the burden to make our lives what we desire, irresponsible, for a moment, ourselves given, in total,
to a rhythm, a melody, a touch, a body, a god, that has taken control and absolved us of sin. We want only so much freedom. It’s too much to bear.
Some of us hold on too long. Others, too brief. As if touch were a measure of our commitment to one other. There is always a reluctance to betray the embrace.
That is why we rely on patterns but praise spontaneity. Even the virtuoso dances sequences yet unrecognized. We are like lovers trying to make memories,
looking forward to a future that is not yet when we will look back at a past that no longer is, discounting the present as a means.
Dreading silence, some of us never rest, as if motion were truer than stillness. This is wrong. So what does that leave us in our needs?
I say, the dance is in the emptiness, the quiet, the balance that reminds us we are mortal. We always want more. That frightens us. The staying of time is enough,
one step, held for itself, its own entrance, its own resolution, unconnected to a before, or an after, yet unseparated. It’s in the stasis where we find the dance.
No dance floor is ever empty. I see them, the ghosts of past dancers. They left the touch of each step, each turn, each embrace pressed into the wood. You can see them, too.
Look, in the corner, the couple falling in love. Besides them, that pair already fallen out. Here, to the side, the forlorn who clutches a partner like a fetish to ward off an overwhelming loneliness. Across the floor, the married one who dances to return resigned to a spouse who is content, functional, incomplete.
There are the comfortable, those who know little of sadness and suffering and are perplexed by those who do. Even they leave bits of thin souls underfoot.
When you are on the floor, give your attention to them, the ghosts. You can feel them brush against you, see their invisible shadows, hear the softness of their voices. It is they who fill the void between us.
Listen to me, my friend: you, too, will be a ghost, you, too, will leave a trace of your dance. If you are blest, someone will enter the dance floor, someone born after you have died, and will see what you have left. They will know, at one time, someone danced here and gave what there was to give.
Leading is like writing a poem, isn’t it? The amateur constructs plans, sets milestones, identifies goals, chooses an end and steps backwards from there. I’m that, at times, with an idea of where things must go: a brilliant image or turn of phrase; a cleaver pattern or adornment; an intention to display my brilliance that will elicit a smile; a somewhere where I think the line of dance or of metaphor should end. When I try, I succeed, unfortunately. We all confuse what we desire with who we are. If I’m lucky, then I’m lost, a child in a dusk woods, the shadows, the trees, the calls; the music, the dance floor, the body of another. Some other thing, some other self, not me, as I think I am, but some part of me I cannot, will not, name, chooses me as its object. I follow. Could I say my life is really my own?
Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region. His work is inspired by dancing Argentine tango.
THE DUNES
will see it differently: not a bird,
but violet is an invasive species
she can’t fly
i think if i palm the pulse of the waves long enough,
they will erode the hard parts of me
crunch iceplants between my canine teeth
and dig my toes into the sand,
the tide rises and falls
and with it shifts my surety
tugs a fistful of my tangled hair,
wretched with saltwater and iceplant- flower perfumed
sand leaks into every crevice of my body: it permeates the motion
the waves of my brain
current pulls back from the shore
baring naked the beach
she is stripped loveless
droplets of judgment collect on my lashes and sting my eyes
an invasive species
nested high up in the dunes, i bury my naked body among the sand and limestone
you’ll never find me.
MARY
Mary had a little lamb.
It gave her indigestion.
And everywhere that Mary went
she had to use the restroom
LEPIDOPTOURISTS
Folding these my genitals into the soft privacy of the parched cocoon. Careful, Lust! Do not disturb that gentle dust. Lightly, precisely, park your eternal lips against my forever mouth, fasten firmly in place. Yes! Twin thoraces fixed just so! to allow free articulation of limbs in the moon's easy breeze, And, now, our skins unzip along spines, splurge toward the distant vacuum beyond the edge of the sheet, until your wings purple lurid under the lunar fluorescence iron themselves indistinguishable into mine (soft-yellowed).
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. More leaves in someone's unremembered book. All, the rest, is settled. Only our eyes bulge up, multifaceted and questing, from the petrified flatland. Until mourning dawn shakes again the pin loose and fossils rewake.
WHAT YOU WILL
You intruded my soul--
the whirlwind
amidst my feathers,
the typhoon
among my waters--
Some might call it love and, some, religion
but I’m satisfied to call it passion.
And then our thread despoiled,
the balloon
discovered fetters,
our garden
became our desert.
Wild/still. Static/ecstatic. Push/and/pull.
Anarchy/enchained. -- Call it what you will.
HERBERT’S REVELATIONS
Ancient George Herbert
--an only poet
known for piety--
when he was dying
was able to put
out another tome,
TEMPLE: SACRED POEMS
AND (it said) PRIVATE
EJACULATIONS!!
Oh, what a volume!
--The hypocrisy
of pious clergy
and their secret sins!
Exposé I sought.
But this was not that.
Just more holy din.
Honest George Herbert,
patient preacher-poet,
proved his piety
even when dying.
AMANUENSIS CUNNILINGUS
My tongue is your servant
you keep at your desk
to dictate to fingers
the words from my mind
in praise of your beauty,
in praise of your worth.
If only my body
consisted of tongues.
My tongue is your serpent
you keep for your cleft,
whose electric tingle
wiggles and entwines,
for love and in duty,
and promotes this verse.
If only my body
were made out of tongues.
