Drink a Bowl of Blood

Drink a Bowl of Blood

Scraping sweet cruel moss
from my eyes

I became a stone with a
heart, I became an animal of more
thorny labyrinthine needs
somehow the humanity of love
made me more a creature

I needed this forest
my luve, my luve was turning me
to amber at the heart-rate of terror

my dreams souring like milk,
parts of me simply starting dropping
branches, I could bear only

blooms of blue pain

And nothing but weak and cloudy
tea filled my veins

Now I drink a bowl of blood
Drink a bowl of blood
Drink a bowl of blood ev’ry morning

Drink a bowl of blood ev’ry evening

It slides down my chin, it stains my sweater
my thirst is a hunger

I must be corporeal
I must be slapped into color
The heart must start beating

A bowl of blood my luve never gave me
he never gave me a bowl
of blood

I gather it now for myself
dripping from the trees

For there's not a girl in this whole, wide world, as easily led as I

you could make me believe,
with your lying tongue,
that the sun rose in the west.

anne briggs.

felt slippers

well it is raining isn't it
the sky is opaque a cup of tea i think of how,
i like it and
of how you wouldn't like it

baby bairn i'm acclimatin'
it's all very infatuatin'
the sky full of water
the sound full of sea
the lake full of lake and the
city full of wells,

but i think of how 

i wore your grey felt slippers 

'round your house

i think of how 

you would scratch my curly head

with those long, blonde

square fingers

how no one else 

could do it that way

and a bloom of sadness

which lies half-asleep

turns its frown 

toward my face

and looks right

into my eyes.

so it is then.

never a stain that rain could 

just wash away

a bruise

something beneath my skin

and i don't know 

how many bowls of blood 

i will have to drink 

before my own overtakes

the tea in my veins

such spiders-legs compared 

to your thick branches

ten names for Igraine

i told you some things,
ten names for Igraine,

i asked why do my long
underwear grow so baggy 'round
the knees?

i told you some things,
this rune is called a such and such.

you showed me some runes.

(that first night-- the second--
i remember the moon--
it was yellow, and huge, it was
january, it was bronze,)

i have wanted many and most of the time
to be buried in your barrow

to be a cherished object or a
trusted tool

to be of value to you

(the thought of being loved by you
was too large for my mind

as with god the beauty
was more

than my mind could comprehend)

but i do love you,
it is flesh, fluids, breath
which love you

a bowl of blood
and a heavy head

a body in a bed

this cloth keeps me warm

i can cover my skin
and you can cover yours

and i can love you
and while i'm alone

entreat the friendship of the ghost

and some time the weather will be fine

and i will not want to be
a treasure any more

and i will know
ten more names

for Igraine

Just So You Know

i loved to love you, but that's all through. i loved to be lying next to you.

I. Begging the Ghost

I came into the bedroom, I begged
the ghost, please to come back, please to be with me
I said, if you think that i need you, please
tell me somehow you are here, and I am quiet
and I am patient
and I am studious
and I wait for the ghost to reply.


II. The Daffodils

The daffodils
in the glass vase
were also just babies


III. Love You

I do love you, but it is alright.
A heart can break and does.
Revolves, slowly
and quick,
that apple,
that painted egg

Where I Like to Stand

there is a ghost in this room

there is a ghost in this room
a moment ago
it shook the blinds

it's been a long time

and although before,
-before-

i felt as if i had a thing to say

something about beck
and call, beck and call

it fell away like some feathery
gray petal  

here come the Hills of Time

my love is a baby

a right little bairn,

and frightened of time

i am old and young, perhaps

the milk of a bitter plant

or the bloom of a crippled tree.

when

my baby cries

"so when you see me 

passing by 

please hold me deep

in your heart

and just remember

i want to help you 

i don't want to hurt you 

just remember

i want to help you 

i don't want to hurt you 

so don't tear it apart."

heathens

when god was not a word
more a sheaf of wheat or a chest
pressed against a chest,


divine with sweat

there were simple things

a long girl loved daffodils

she kept her hopes in bowls

i've heard-- been told--

a little bairn chased a pheasant 

into a nettle patch

cold water seizes the lungs 

truths like torques close 

'round the heart

i do not know what one does

only a rattling

seed-pod

which says

what's done 

is done

my love

what's done 

is done

retrospect

heathen is twisted in a tangled knot
cannot negotiate this knot

i am falling asleep in a little boy's bed
with Mr. Badger and wool blankets

there was an inevitability to it
i could never have let it lie

not after the first thoughtless scraps (chatchat)
i know myself that well at least

and intimacy.

 intimacy.

from that moment forward the poison

imbibed, digested

not the nakedness, arching
tongue or teeth

before all that
the shadow puppets

fuck

I wonder what we are trying to be. I think, maybe it is our age. Maybe at our age we are all trying to be something. I don't know what I'm trying to be. I am not trying to get out of bed. I am not trying to leave the house. I am not trying to shower or eat. I am on my health insurance's website. I am trying to get a new shrink, in the new town, the town I'm moving to. I'm trying to do that.

I can tell I am dirty because when I raise my hand to feel the my short short hair my neck feels waxy. This is also a symptom of turning to wax. This is something that I am doing. I am doing this.

I have been wearing these long underwear for five days now. I pull them down when I put a tampon in, but I never take them off. Sleep in them live in them. Whatever. God damn it fuck I'm not okay.

If I were fine I would not be listening to this song called "We Are Fine" over and over. I'm not fine, you're certainly not fucking fine, hence, we are not fine. We are not fine. I just need to put on a new album. I just need to drive out to the marina. I just need to stop loving you. I just need to take a klonopin. I just need to eat breakfast. I just need to get out in the sun. Oh wait it's raining. I just need to get out in the rain. I just need to do the laundry. I just need to buck up. Is that what I always say? Buck up? I just need to buck up. I really just need to leave my room. Really really badly I need to leave my room. I just need to stop loving you. I just need to stop, that.

"Am I Blue?" "On With the Show!"

It is true though-- last night was the first in a long, long time when I didn't have a nightmare. (Thanks, God. Thanks very, very much, truly.)

The fact that I cannot make you happy is mother fucking baffling to me.

The fact that I don't care about making myself happy is a mother fucking problem.

This is a circumstantial depression. I know these sorts of states. "Circumstantial depression": heartbreak, et cetera. No, mostly heartbreak. "Other": hormonal imbalance, post-traumatic episode. This is a "Circumstantial depression".

Why is there no fucking song that sounds appropriate for this moment?

Death: Don't you ever stop asking?

Antonius Block : No. I never stop.

Death: But you're not getting an answer. 

Seeing It Now song

allison and peter became friends

Peter:

So, an introduction: I am Peter, I am a journalist and musician in San Francisco. I like fine bike routes, champagne, and busy schedules. et vous?

Allison:

hello peter! i am allison. i am an oakland based poet, soon to wander! i like cats, antiques, falling in love, and tea. my two greatest desires are babies and publication! WOW this is going on my blog.

 

 

 

whisp'ring

whisp'ring
(dear heathen,
he lied...)

he is trying to make things simple for himself.
let him.

(i will, i will. my tea
went cold. cold kippers cold kippers.
and i did, i cried so much, heathen
not quite ALL of the time but
seas in teacups...)

and cease yr weeps, bairn, it's
not raining battery acid is it?

(yes yes. okay you're right i will.)

seeing it now

heathen is a stranger,
but she will let you know her

brown-haired girl, needled with dye
beneath her long underwear a birch-
body

stamped with constellations

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
dreaming, sleeping, songs from
a music-box,

soft green yarn and march hares.

pale and preferring wool,

quite exquisitely hungry:


for something more than clay,
for more fuel than peat provides,
for an all-together new color of
light,


quite exquisitely hungry:


and sick of chewing candlewax
and through with saying, that
in the dark, brackish water


could just as well be beer,

a scrap of paper could be a blanket,
a wall could be a window,
static silence could be love, no,

that isn't so,
that doesn't ring,

and if you haven't even heard
her sing,

have you really known heathen at all? 

Heathen

Limited edition chapbook, first in a series of one.

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
sweet my heathen,
and so unwilling

explaining my dreams to the heathen

you say that dreams are not to be taken
quite literally, not quite
to be believed

but that is not what i meant little
bairn, sweet heathen,
you were there, and you were not there.

you did not see the little duckling
or its mama's broken neck
you did not see that limpness like a slack
silk chord

and you were not the one
who was shot.

and in this way
i am very strange:

i can love forever
like a stream which does not
cease,

i can love for now
and loosen, like a
falconer

and i can love in future

for all the days and nights
i tossed and crew

trying to crawl between your ribs,

i feel now as if my chest's cage
has been flayed and splayed bare

i knew i would find you there
there were i have held you

soaked in woad,
a little bairn,
sweet my heathen,
so unwilling,

you do not know what it is
i dream of--

how black the ink or how
stubborn the stain.

temperamental weather

in my dream
like Alma i was
shot and again

and again
one true bullet hit

you took me down my
bairn my little bairn
yellow haired and all
you took me down

you, visiting
the horse's grave
you took me down

you and the grandfather's
clock
you took me down

the dregs in
your teacup there on the desk
they take me down

you think me healthy
and natural

milk-glass or bees' wax

or good steady light

i think me
temperamental weather

i have a sorry body
made of sugar or wax
it looks just as it should
and is so alone

little bairn 
i could not save you
and i tried so hard
to dissemble your cage

but all that we are left with
is all that we had
and a little bit less
given what we gave 

bath

Straight Reading: "As I Sit There Mending Clothes That You Will Never, Ever Wear"

"as i sit there mending clothes you will never, ever wear"

heartbreak is sweet like flutes
it feels old,
when i feel it,
numbing my slack feet
contorting in my little chest
i feel like a thousand brown haired women
one hundred thousand brown haired girls
who were left alone
looking 'round, and
starved

eating clay, and calling it bread

you go your way my love

blackwaterside (traditional)

One morning fair I took the air
That hung about black waterside
T'was a gazing path all around it
And the Irish lad I spied

All through the fog, the heart of the night
We lay in sport and at play
Till this young man arose and gathered his clothes
Singing 'Fair thee well today!'

That's not the promise that you gave to me
When first you lay on my breast
You could make me believe with your lying tongue
That the sun rose in the west

And so go home to your fathers garden
Go home and await your fill
And think on your own misfortune
That you brought with your wanton will

One morning fair I took the air
That hung about black waterside
T'was a gazing path all around it
And the Irish lad I spied

bad dreams

I.
the dreams have turned sick, and bad--
and dark,
dark movements of bodies and
horrible words are spoken--
i am lost, cheap, alone in them
so irreparably alone in them

II.
my baby is nearly vapor
with sorrow,
the baby within me,
the one which i am supposed to care for
unto the time that it can carry another,
and even after and for ever until
the abrupt and lingering end

III.
i think of what i cannot be all of my
forgotten days
i think of who i am not,
trickle my weeping bones

IV.
i am egg brittle and white;
if each face which i describe is mine
i am that moon drained of its
blood, that sad little bairn
buckled and torn by the dreams

my ghost constant

i have a ghost constant
his face sometimes shines pale like the brittle of an egg
and a light within it,

or like the nights of cold moon
which i look at,
there,
pressed against pitch

my ghost constant
feeding on the air of my dreams

there as i wash my hair in the shower
scrub my bent neck
and long feet.

i want to feed the ghost
books, songs, little boxes,
an ashtray, a chess piece,
a reminder
that i am squeezing the invisible
hand with my hand

i fear he consumes only
empty air

but for those moments
when his body touches mine
with life

tonight i learned i do not
love myself

it is a problem, a problem.

my days are

sitting at the loom loving you.

my nights are

sitting at the loom loving you.

perhaps while i am asleep

i love myself

and then forget,

and forget how. 

I Cant Sleep I Lost My Page

a little bairn yourself

(cut me, i think that i bleed terra cotta silt 

drain me i think my lymph 

opaque indigo

--i spit lapis bile--)

 .

 .

 .

 .

 .

there is so much love that you do not know!

so much, love!

truly i cut this planet in half like an apple 

for you

i think myself slowly turning to bronze 

for you,

that i might be useful

that i might be of value 

that you might wish that i should be 

buried in your barrow 

although i know 

you're just a bairn yourself

a little bairn yourself

.

.

.

.

.

i know that it is scary! 

i am afraid. 

and you 

little bairn i know 

your fear to be more pungent

you know exactly what it is 

that you fear. 

you know its 

unknowable 

face.

have smelled 

its frost.

.

.

.

.

.

you would grit to hear me say it 

but you are wise with sorrow. 

and i am stupid 

with love.

.

.

.

.

.

it makes me smile 

at chalk skulls.

stare long 

at bare nothing, 

write 

little poems. 

"she smiles as one who loves to smile" --sandy denny

blackwaterside

daffodil st.

i suppose i do not know who cares and do not care who knows.

i am hiding beneath the table in a Vermeer.

last night willem said, that i am the second weirdest person he has ever met.

i don't know where to direct this question which i have for 'my maker':


how can i function with a heart that is this unholy swollen?

how can i breathe when I have lain my lungs under His pillow?

how can i sleep when this voice has been wakened?

how can i walk when my mother's feet are failing her?

how to be wise when i unlearn everything i have known?

how to be cruel when to the crux i am soft as a moan?


weak with no suggestion of sea legs, porous as pumice or sponge

daffodil street and its hovering heat on that day that was so indecisive

until it broke into yellow and a shuffle two chess pieces in the grass

begging the question

of what gave me the notion

that i have a right to ask

Deenie Hey Deenie

It was only a matter of time.

adrienne rich

I'd have sucked the wound in your hand to sleep

but my lips were trembling. 

Tell me how to bear myself,

how it's done, the light kiss falling 

accurately

on the cracked palm.

Much So Dancing -- a reading of Go To Sleep

Whichcallsforsinging

I have a talent and it is a sweet talent which appeared the year my body burned and has not left me yet. I wish I could tell you about the talent. You have expressed admiration for this talent. But I cannot say that "I can do that," I only could show you, and I don't know that the moment will ever be right. Someone inside of me says, "There is no right moment," which I have heard somewhere, maybe, or just realized, but for this, to show you this talent, there would be a moment more right than all others, and I would choose that moment to show you, and I would be afraid, and it would flutter, the talent, like when Colin's dad caught that butterfly between his hands at the baseball game. And that would be well, because that is the talent. It is fluttering. The compulsion to flutter. When I was eighteen years old, something broke, in my chest, and my voice has fluttered since then. But you do not know this and I do not know when you will, or if you will. It is not a matter of "should" or "should not," only of "whenshalliseeyouagain" and "willamomentofsuchsweetnessarise." "Amomentwhichsummonsasong." "Whichcallsforsinging."

your ghost last night

your ghost last night walked into my house it was as i was falling asleep through the front door it was your ghost it was a swarm a huge and haunting lingering plume of cigarette smoke nicotine fingers i was lying in my bed like a plank under blankets for several minutes there was a little broken-off chip of me which could not seem to stop expecting to hear your voice until it finally fused with the rest of my heart and logic decreed in that way that it does sometimes that even you or the ghost of you 

even you

could not keep your presence silent for so long

' Not quickly,

but I am definitely going 

down, 

down, 

down,

and I know that nothing, 

nothing can stop me. '

go to sleep

go to sleep i'm in a little boy's shirt go to sleep maybe just
go to sleep or break a mirror or just speak backwards say

much so dancing are feet my that hate i
and much so dancing are feet my

i cried for seven seconds i drank a pot of tea i played
with dimethyl ether and it was very cold i drew an
arrow fletched between my breasts, directed toward

the ground go to sleep maybe just go to sleep maybe
just go chop some wood maybe keep a dream and

i want our bones to grind against one another's for
that intolerable sweet twinging feeling the twinge

bones are sweet like flutes sometimes i think that
i am trying to climb into your rib cage and if i did

would you let me stay? i so want to stay and not
to leave maybe go to sleep and keep a dream

much so dancing are feet my that hate i
and much so dancing are feet my

diphenhydramine should i wear your ring?
we've been steady these days rocking steady

i drink you down in cherry liquid and then i go
to sleep maybe just go to sleep and keep a dream

i am so unqualified for this beautiful ghost i love
too much maybe should just speak backwards

much too love i that hate i and much too love i

corporeal

a thorny red heart
around a thin arm

A Story

   A Story by hol001



Where were these strangers dragging her?

My Tears In The Typing Pool

 

"I tune in to some friendly voices,

talking about stupid things.

I can't be left to my imagination.

Let me be weak, 

let me sleep

and dream of sheep."


.

to love somebody

I'm a woman.

Can't you see what I am?

I live and breathe for you.

What good does it do,

If I ain't got you?

If I ain't got you.

deep in wool

deep in wool
deep in sleep

i have not lost my way, i have
never known the way

can feel only the heavily
anchored way

of the weight
of my feet

to the ground

(follow an arrow)

found a sweater
found butter

lithuanian princess
rolls away in the fog

Isolde/Deirdre

"There are three trees that are good: 

Holy and ivy and yew. 

They put forth leaves while they last,

And Tristan shall have me as long as he lives." 

"My sight is gone from me,

From looking at the grave of Naoise."