Inspiration in Strange Places

I have been reading a lot of literary reviews, film reviews, etc. as of late. Some of these ideas have become mental seeds, burgeoning into odd little narratives and poems.

Here are two that were written after reading Todd Swift's latest posts, with particular inspiration drawn from the Black Dahlia review.

High Altitude

She was where they could not be.
So they desired her heel, the point of castration,
the syndicated shows about divorce, the other D word,
then the lull of sidewalk lines.

She would have them enter after breakfast –
Lost ladies with the aftermath
or the boneyard –
the dark visitation of veiled mistresses.

Something about winter makes men fall.
Could be the cold that drives them
forward or the black ice of complications.
She has plenty

of money, you know.
She doesn't need to boast – the kind of rich
that puts sailors to bed.
Songs play softly in the background, “Lie to me…”

She says, “If you are here when this is spoken,
find comfort in the cruel season.”
Here there is no blonde that can take away humiliation;
No wife to return to when she is done.

----------------------------

Eighth Day Diary

To meet you is to meet enormity; that vacuum believers call destiny
or reiteration.
Hummingbird wings could beat slow motion – a camera still –
or the atomic bomb, whatever differentiates.

You breathe in
the world on its axis. From here – oceans are puddles are afterbirth.
You can pretend to be removed,
askew or still in bed before the arrival.

All the constellations have been registered.
Formulas have been answered, the burning call.
So you have nothing to solve or name
except an old El Camino you got when you turned 16,

and this.
What name will you give for fingers cramped, licking
envelopes, a basement stairwell full of week old laundry.
In the arena of your mind,

you become her, then obliterate.