SPOT OF BLEACH & other poems

SPOT OF BLEACH & other poems

This dress is older than my son
5 years older, to be exact.
I bought it from the Indian shop
down by Columbia University,
made of light cotton muslin
nicely fitted about my waist
a bright fushia, opaque
my body outlined in the sun
falling gracefully to my hips,
down my big legs.

A spot of bleach fell on that dress today
leaving a white spot in its fuchsia wake
That dress reminds me of Sharon
who had more than I ever had
or ever needed, or could even dream existed
And I had been around, she less than me
But she was more widely traveled
in more fortunate circles than me

Still, I thought she was my friend
even when she said, "I can't help it,
I'm jealous of you in that dress!"
"Why?" I said, "You have so much more
than I could ever hope for or dream of..."

"It doesn't make sense," she responded,
"Somehow, you look prettier than I,
even though you're not as slim,
as tall, as Anglo, as cultured
as educated as I
I can't figure out
why you look prettier than I

"Sharon, whose cards I read,
two dark knights appearing ahead
one reversed, whose pursuits
I told her to reject
Sharon, whose need for company I met
at 3 a.m. while my husband coughed
bitterly in the room next to mine
when she refused to go home

Sharon, who told her tales of woe
about her latest love, her foes,
her rape when she left N.Y. for Florida
and returned to seek my solace
I thought she was my friend.

A spot of bleach fell on this dress
Still I don't wish to let it go
Perhaps a crocheted flower
will cover that bleached out spot
I could just throw that old dress out ...
I wish I could my memories
that cling like the smell of death

And I wonder if that's how long
it takes to let go
Why even when we begin anew
the old never lets go...
Miles of old lives travel within
our thin, threadbared own.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

Over the last three years,
three women tried to steal my sperm
one was true, she really loved me
she wanted to birth my baby,
I agreed cause I loved her

The other two said they were on the pill
They just lied
I'm tellin you this
cause I know you're concerned
and I have to get it off my chest
you're my very best friend

And I'll tell you right now:
I forbid you to put this in a poem,
I have dominant genes for some
recessive disease,
that although I don't have it
my children will

Almost all the men in my family
are blinded by this malady
It's a plague that eats away their sight
It starts in mid to late thirties
they're stoned blind by fifty

So when Renee, the love of my life
says she wants to have my babies

I had a feeling I never had before:
that overwhelming primal urge
to shoot my sperm within her loins
and watch it swell into a baby
but when we tried
the seed failed to fertilize
And I discovered I was sterile

God help me, I was despondent
Either way, I couldn't win genetically

Now I'm brokenhearted
Renee I loved and would've married
But she returned to her former lover
and implored him
to seed her female garden

Since then Renee begged me
to remain her friend
and I did because I
didn't want her to think
I wasn't man enough to do that
And to this day
I still love her

Now, I've got three to take her place
But don't worry,
Let me set your mind at ease
I can't be tricked into
being a blind progenitor
and I mean that both ways

I know I should be grateful
But none of them excite me
And although it's satisfying,
I'm very lonely
for the woman of my dreams

MAYBE I'LL JUST SUICIDE OUT

Maria tells me, "He's a chancre sore in my life.
He's probably with some other woman anyway.
I gotta get outta this depression
I put on 20 more pounds I can't seem to shed
Maybe I'll just suicide out"
She's sobbing and she's crazy.
"He's not home yet and it's half past ten.
He said he'ld be here at five." God damn!
What a scene! She's screamin' at him.
He's drinkin heavy. Tells her, "Get Lost!"
She finally gets him out the bar door,
home to the waiting bed.
"He has a hard on," she cries,
"but he won't fuck me."

"Patrick says, "It's the way Maria's
shaped by nature or fate."
"Look at those two," I say to her,
"playing with their fruits.
That guy with that girl got his hand
on the other girl's butt."
"She's just no good," Maria says, mad,
hands on her hips.
"She's messing with some other girl's man."
I say "You just feel bad cause you're thinking
of your man messing with some other woman."
"Maybe I'll just go for a pedicure," she says,
"get my hair blown out straight.
I wanna lose that 20 pounds.
I'm so upset I sold my gold watch
for 5 bucks worth of crack
Maybe I'll just suicide out."

"I need to call him, see if he's at home.
I gots to be with him right now.
Otherwise I'll die."
Maria goes in my room. She uses the phone
All private like in hope and pain,
Almost like a prayer
"Write about me," she says, "bout me and my man.
We're talking just like poetry, you know."
"Yes, I know. It's all poetry you know.
Your outfit's perfect, coordinated so well."
Thank you very much. I think I'll have another go.
Or maybe I'll just suicide out.

MEXICAN DELIGHT

Simmering sun
Suspended at the world's edge
smooth as gilded iridescent silk
Standing on la montanas de Isla Mujeres
Staring at Mexico's sun set behind her
Like a man at the rear of a woman
he sits behind her mainland
The sea glistening with day's last rays
flamboyant neon colors slowly sinking from view
An immense florescent ball
Radient orange, scintillating fuchsia
like my tunic of cross woven silk
We savor the hues with delight
feast upon this night
It will never be today again
exactly like it is right now
Beseeched by his eyes
Absorbing the moon's ripening glow
before mellowing occurs
And all is gone

COOL AND SWEET, STINKY IN CARACAS

It was a cool, sweet night in Caracas
the night Stinky and me met
Dusk slowly enveloping daylight...
That time of day when everything looks ethereal
surreal, colors disappear while shades of grey remain

My lover stood staring into the wide display
plate glass window of the haberdashery
at the end of the alley leading to the square
Where Bolivar still stands bestowing grace
on the space around him
proudly seated on his high stepping horse

Aristocratic yet arrogant, his demeanor
remains in all Public squares of Venezuela
everywhere, no matter where I go
A different elegance than Stinky who greeted me
on that street at the end of the alley

He was preoccupied with rummaging
through huge, black garbage bags
to put together his evening respite
When I said "Hello!" and he bounded
Over in two grand leaps, greeting me regally

Huge brown paws struck my shoulders
by way of saying How da ya do
Thereby creating the position
to devour me deeply with his

Big brown mournful eyes,
Reddish brown fur, long and wavy
added to his beastly allure
Such staying power in beauty
was in contrast to his smell

Shocked, I ordered, "Stay Put!"
Instantly Stinky slunk back
gracefully sinking back on his haunches
Again, when I moved my leg to walk ahead
Stinky pounced and landed on my Offending Foot

His two front paws covered my one foot
momentarily pinning me down
daring me to move any further
than that One Offending Foot

My foot pinned beneath his paws forced me
to laugh at the absurdity of this sight
and his cleverness in stopping me,
He was royally just a puppy
despite his size and doggy smell
which truly was unbearable!
"No! Stop!" I protested only because
I didn't want to smell like him

He removed his paws from my toes
stood up as tall as my five feet four
jumped up high and once again
put his paws on my shoulders
Finally conquering my resistance to smell

Overwhelmed by his allure and charm
So I touched his Stinky fur only
to hear my loved one's dismay
My sweetheart, Cye, yelled, "Oh No!
You haven't touched him
(thus denying reality as he's prone to)
"Oh No, ... God, That smell,
I'll have to hold your wrist instead

Cye grabbed my wrist gingerly between his
thumb and forefinger, dragged me to the
nearby plaza where I bowed to Bolivar's Authority
With his blessing, wet my hands in his fountain
which, I confess,didn't help the smell at all

Ever since that day long ago
My wonderful dear husband
Has never stopped discussing
That magnificent,most clever dog
we'd ever met and jousted with that day
He'll always say it was I who refused
to let him take the best thing in
Caracas home in his luggage

My sweetheart has driven off reality
Of that cool sweet night in Caracas
where Stinky joined our lives

LOVE AND LIFE INTERSPERSED & GUATEMALAN SASH

A bird flew across the slate gray sky
fluttered gently by my sight
then suddenly soared into a dive
behind lush green velvet vines

You're allowed to say you love me if you really do
And you don't have to say it if you do
but you can't say it if you don't mean it
Love and life interspersed

The sky is turning a brighter blue
Another woman's watching you
Don't send her any mental messages
To further her designs

By now it should be obvious
who it is you're really with
Awake, waiting on your call
a stagnant threat presides

Pregnant behind these thoughts
maybe it's just too late
no one person can do it all
Today I didn't see the sunrise

The sky turned fluorescent blue
the moon, a silver glowing crescent
they appear a fantasy
drawn from fountain pen ink

Look quickly to the horizon
Now, see that very same bird hovering

TAKE THIS GUATEMALAN SASH I SAID

I bought this for you all the way from Antigua,
Yeah, that's right, down in Guatemala,
I bought it for you but I didn't know it then,
Didn't know you existed
though you lived right across the street
The same way you hail from Tennessee and
I suppose that you're for me
Same way this sash is for you,
from Antigua Guatemala, just for you.

Take this Guatemalan Sash I said

I realized it was yours when
you took it from my hands
And said you'd wear it diagonally
crossing your chest Persian style
folded into the belt that holds your sword
Or maybe just sashed around your waist,
I said, "Oh Lord, this handwoven material
I bought all the way from Guatemala
is made for this man.

You took that cloth right outa my hands
While I was puttin' it on my own self
You said, "Let me show you how
a Medieval man would have that done."
I looked at you and said, "I'm gonna
have to give this man that one".

Take this Guatemalan Sash I said

I bought that sash almost three years ago
And although I parted with most my Guatemalan goods
I refused to part with that Guatemalan sash,
I wouldn't let anyone buy or take it away from me,
I'd look at this strip of handwoven cloth
Handwoven with 3 different purples, an orangy gold,
clear red plus blue and green and I'd say,
All these pretty colors are made just for me.

Then you took that cloth in your hands
working it to your cause and I said
This man came from Tennessee
to meet my Guatemalan cloth
To be wrapped in your medieval arms
and styled in your Southern sauce !!

Poetry by Joy Leftow: Contact me: Violetwrites@nyc.rr.com

More Than Romance
Tupelo Honey
Advancing on Satori