Beloved

God is wherever two or three

are gathered, like at this recovery

meeting where one regular

is drunk and two have brought their new

twin girls. They have dubbed

my friend Uncle.

Our facilitator, diagnosed

with PTSD today, has asked us to close

our eyes and pay attention

to our breath and to the music

coming from her phone.

It feels to me like a Quaker meeting

again and also like winter recesses 

again, spent indoors playing 

those guessing games 

of who touched me. 

This is the best part of my life

now, sitting beneath flickering

florescent lights with these people 

whom I want to call

my family - 

Eyes closed waiting for God

to tiptoe in, to choose  

me, to make me 

beloved.

A Baby and Someone Else 4/8/18

to look at a baby
is to look at yourself
for a long time,
for years really,
before you
realize
she is not
a baby and somebody else
anymore.

she is just
herself now.

you had no idea
who she would be
when you looked upon
her face,
face to face
for the first time.

her hair was so much
more than you thought
it would be.
it was so black
and it had that curl.

her fingers were so much
smaller than her brother's
or any other baby's
you'd ever seen
up close
or imagined.

her nose was perfect.

her mouth was perfect.

and when you spotted
her tongue
you felt like
you spotted
a dolphin
on a day cruise
you took once
but couldn't
afford.

you were twenty-six
and she was
your last baby.

she was the baby
who made you
the mother
of a whole family
while you were
still in your
twenties.

all around you
it was the
twenty-first
century
and you'd never
believed
in a sexist god
or voted for
a republican
in your whole
young life.

weren't you a curiosity.

wasn't that
your thing
for a little while?

she was the baby
who made you
a young woman
with a baby
again.

she was the toddler
who made you
the young mother
of a certain kind
of toddler,
the kind that
is hard to raise
feels so much
is some kind of fairy -
beautiful
magical
not of this earth really
with dark hair.

and then suddenly
you are a woman
all of your own
for the first time
all alone
for the first time
realizing
this baby
is a person now
and you aren't
more than
her mother
necessarily.

it's just
now you aren't
even
her mother,
not completely.

because
this baby,
like all the ones
who came before her,
is writing the stories
of herself
and you aren't
on every page.

wilderness 1/4/18

Where have you been God? because I've been in the wilderness.

In the old days, the wilderness meant Missoula, MT, walking around Walmart at midnight with our food stamps and our WIC checks and our wedding rings and our boy. I had panic attacks in the check-out line.

I first noticed you in my baby's face on a sunny day at a Quaker meeting.

Me and my husband, all alone in that town, thought we invented parenting. We thought we invented routines and bedtimes. We thought we were the first people to ever clean shit out of baby clothes.

Two years in that town and the only friend I made was that beautiful boy with buttery little cheeks, and you

We settled Missoula - the most beautiful place you'll ever starve to death, where you can't eat the scenery, where no one ever lived or thought of having a baby before we invented the whole thing, where God finally showed up.

But this wilderness, three states and 12 years later, was settled and sprawled out and then frozen hard. I came here once in the middle of the night when I was 19. Out the car window, I saw a colony of bee boxes and a low moon. I felt like I was on another planet.

The bible I read said nothing about other planets, but it talked a lot about hell. It was my friend Jenn though who said hell is just separation from God.

I miss you, God, in my new wilderness. My boy is so forgiving - of me, of the miles I put between him and homes left behind, of the nine city blocks I put between my home and his dad's. But he doesn't believe in you anymore, and I wish I knew when you were coming back.

Jesus Year 12/11/17

Here I am, Jesus, in my Jesus year, and I am transformed.  I have regressed and I have returned to places that have grown much uglier in 20 years - places like emotion, like vulnerability.  Where did you go when you went away for 20 years?   Were those the years you filled with building a good life, and then it got destroyed just like that?

Hop a Train in November

Well, Stephanie.  Here we are having just made love on a train and we aren't even married.  And when I say train, I mean a boxcar and also that I will never marry you - never never.  Whatever is wet is also cold now.  You said the floor stole all the heat from your butt, Stephanie, but the whole front on my pants is frozen.  It's real ice.

There are always women hitting their little children on the Greyhound bus.  A good day is when it is just me and the parolees.  You could be there with me or not.  I think all in all, both ways of getting around have their minuses, even if I did just get a nut. Being on a bus, I just ignore the little kids getting smacked.  I go to sleep and try not to say anything to whoever might sit next to me.  It's warm there, and the seats are soft.  They smell awful, but on a train, I use one corner to piss in, so that doesn't smell too good either.  If you piss out the door, you gotta have one hand on your dick and the other holding yourself steady.  You could fall right off the train if it's moving, and who knows when it will stop, and sometimes your really have to go.  Other times your piss blows right back into your face and all over your clothes. Greyhound, they have a bathroom right there on a bus.


I regret we made love too, Stephanie.  So there you go - all points in favor of the Greyhound bus. Now that I think about it, a good ride would be just me, some parolees, and you in some city far away from me while I ride the bus in the opposite direction. 

I guess there's some things a person just doesn't get over.  For me it's all the shit you did to me last year.  I went to a Baptist school, Stephanie.  It was always your idea to get undressed.  You invited me to live in your room.  You got mad when I pulled out.  You left our free condoms on some sidewalk in Austin, Texas.  Now I'm going to Hell and you're following me around again talking about marriage.

Ryan Patrick

Home again and my face
slides
down my neck
in handfuls
at the thought of you
in a number of shirts.

One is red
and like a ribbon
and compliments your hat.

I think of stickers
you chose for me -
a yipping dog, perhaps,
with ambiguous genitalia.
Perhaps an orphaned
spoon.

I think of words
we called one another
like gamete, zygote, and fetus,
but not baby.

I think of your relationship
with the spirit world
and the things you predicted for me
in your bedroom.

I think of games we played
and did not play
because time got away from you
and Iowa loves
its prodigal son.

In my dream
you are not allowed to talk to me
or to feed yourself.
I tell you what you need to hear
in broken English
and piggish French groans.

I feed you and I feed you
as you gesture
with green eyes
and stiff shoulders
at plates of crackers, melon, and berries.

What on earth do we have
to be proud of?
Asks Nan Reagan
and a bevy of oversexed
children.

The answer is,
our bodies:
home of our spirits,
our love,
our human connection,
and the lizards.

Born in a Prison, part deux (or Matrimony of Self)

YOU WERE BORN IN A PRISON. Break the chains and marry yourself. Naked in a public park. Officiated by the fresh air that remains and the gawking millenials on their IPhones. Pledge nothing. Divorce yourself often and for free.

I/You/We All Scream for Ice Cream

I scream.
I am gravid
-as a lizard is-
with hope.
The fat eggs
of expectation
tauten my belly.

You scream.
Though you try
to contain
with gun to head,
your joy
escapes
like aerosol
like helium
to the ozone
and the world beyond
your finite reserves.

We all scream.
Hands within hands
knuckles of white
and orange
and tan.
To be unacquainted
not previously introduced
altogether strange
does not preclude
our touching
and anticipating together.

Ice cream is served.

Children's Poem No. 2

Long Lost John Long Dong
came along.

Long Lost John Long Dong
came along.

As it turns out
he had a long dong
all along.

As luck would have it
he had had a long dong
all along.

(To be set to a mournful melody)

Morgan

Two-eyed lady
in all your sweat
and strange shoes

Gentle lady
who learned Spanish
formally
and Chinese
in passing

Thin lady
with symmetrical breasts
in that party dress
we imagined so much

I call to the prostitutes
to the alcoholics
to the men who did
unspeakable things
when there was no war
to excuse them:
Come and get 
your soup!

God will never love
such a sorry lot
such a harried lot
of harlots
but Morgan
can make them soup
from a burrito.


 

A Third Marriage

The aura of our love
radiates,
sags in the air,
drips from my glands
like gonnoreah
like hunger
like an odor:

The beautiful browns of oblivion
The powerful reds of sex on crack
The silken blues of a subtle winter carjacking.

I revel in the lukewarmth
of your affection
on a crosstown bus.

I recall for you
that we
were never new at this.

With you
I only ever felt as young
as a 12 year old vagrant
as a rejuvenated vagina
as a Depression era bride
as a dog of 16
as an orphan boy dressed everyday like some kind of a
clown.

Almanac of Illinois

In Illinois
there are no lakes
to make your young heart
angry.

In Illinois
there is no good or bad marijuana
and no masturbation hidden by
pinstriped overalls.

There are no old houses
restored right
for a good price.

There are no midwives.

There is no snow.

In Illinois
there are no greyhound buses,
no runaways,
and you can't paste porno magazines inside
your cupboards.

In Illinois
there are no cute boys
to kiss you well
and screw you like you
imagined it.

There are no hobos.

There are no hippies.

In Illinois
there are no cafes,
no bicycles,
and no cigarettes.

There are no third generation Lebanese.

In Illinois
you cannot sit in a defunct sauna
or learn to knit.

Neither can you find
the right shade
of red hair.

In Illinois
there are cracked stoops
upon which to growl
at the good things
that stole our hearts
in younger states.

The "Hark, Behold, and Keep Doin Your Thang" Haikus of Tamp Bombadil

Tamp is an excellent poet.  In addition to fathering the Hark and Behold genre of poetry (demonstrated repeatedly in the poems on this site), she has recently conceived the Hark, Behold, and Keep Doin Your Thang school of haiku.  I hope you will embrace my moist labors to bring these juicy peaches of literature to this forum free of cost.  Tamp, you are in inspiration to the pen and to the poon, to the pencil and to the penis, to the paper and to the privates of those who wish not to disclose their sex.  Enjoy.

Hark marriage partner-
Behold the fleshy pilgrim!
Keep doin your thang.

Hark! You got it dude.
Behold the lithe Olsen twins.
Keep doin your thang.

Hark my soul's hot tub!
Behold, bitch, and watch it swish.
Keep doin your thang.

Hark! My man's big dong.
Behold the glistening shlong.
Keep doin your thang.

Hark! I'm down to snort.
Behold the odors abounding.
Keep doin your thang.

Hark! Mud stuffed fluff butt.
Behold my fun and haircut.
Keep doin your thang.

Hark beautiful gams!
Behold their walking powers!
Keep doin your thang.

Hark the nosy man!
Behold my healthiest pubes.
Keep doin your thang.

Things Gone Awry

Hark the shitty underpants
of our biggest mistake!

Behold the walking nightmare
of youth unrestrained,
puberty on display,
toddlerhood at its own devices,
infancy in an opium den,
childbirth
with pants on.

You have held me
like hosiery -
curling fingers
on gamey sausage
or greedy tongue
on mouth, feet, anus, best friend...
-and promised me
many many
many things
that do not exist
in the greater midwest.

Our dream
(gender roles
and businessman porn)
is a red rash
on my sagging pap,
angry bumps
on my worried sup,
lucky mutations
on a Pretty Woman.

This, old man,
began
with too much
lube.

In some ways,
it is already over
with chafed cheeks
and chapped ego.

In other dreams
I endure,
the batter
of our indiscretion
a glaring reminder
of the simple BJ
you originally
bought on credit.

The Marriage Poems of Tamp Bombadil

Tamp Bombadil is an amazing and agoraphobic friend of mine.  She is hungry for life and has an abundant afterbirth of knowledge regarding past life experiences to share.  In the following poems, she addresses a number of somber issues regarding marriage.  She has agreed due to force to allow these poems to be displayed here.  I hope you will thank me for my courage in bringing her heartsong/truth to this forum in order that we all might stand in it, moistly.

THE MARRIAGE POEMS OF TAMP BOMBADIL by Tamp Bombadil copyright 2011


A Children's Poem by Tamp Bombadil

Eat a good breakfast,
Good Jim Genital.
Eat six eggs today.

Good Jim Genital,
Today is your day.
Today you will wed a large mare.


Your Inevitable Demise by Tamp Bombadil

Old Jim Genital
slapped his wife,
the mare he married on Monday.

He denied paternity
of her Sunday colt,
the son he fathered last Christmas.

Old Jim Genital,
you skinny prick
with the balls all danglin' down-o

no one enjoys your misogyny
and your dead-beat dad
shananigans.

Old Jim Genital
died last night.
He choked on his own
anus.

The Woman Poems of Tamp Bombadil

The following is a collection of poetry celebrating womanhood by the great and reclusive poet Tamp Bombadil.  I met Tamp, a lumbering and inappropriate clown, during a very bright time in my life but in a very dark place.  She hopes that her poetry will help others to either enjoy being a woman or to appreciate others who are engrossed in the work of being women.  Tamp is an inspiration to me.  I hope you will thank me for bringing her poetry to this forum.

THE WOMAN POEMS OF TAMP BOMBADIL by Tamp Bombadil copyright 2011

Huddled Snatches by Tamp Bombadil

The fragrant vulva
of tomorrow
lies crumpled in a heap
on the doorstep of dejection.

I alone
witness her
immigrant hope.

Take my hand!

Scents of iron, sweat, douche
penetrate the culture
of our shared
disillusionment.

We walk.

Syncranized steps
one by one
staggering fro

I must support
her weight -
this 180 pound vulva
hopelessly,
bonelessly
plopping down the street.

She tosses foreign idioms
like hay pennies
to the horrified orphans
of the scientific revolution.

I translate her
urgent beseachment
to pacify the anxious beggars:

Sometimes some air
gets trapped in the vagina
and escapes later
reverberating through the labia
boisterously.

Be not afraid!
Though it seems like I poot,
the air which escapes me
is fragrant.

The smell of feminized air
fills our hearts and noses.
We embrace a breezy baptism
of fishy self-determination.


The Odor of Salvation by Tamp Bombadil

I am a strong woman.
My ass smells like a pig truck.
My house is weird shaped
and it smells like a pig truck.

I see lots of money
and fat white asses in my future
and they smell like a pig truck.

I am a strong woman
with many delicate, fragrant friends
each a flower with large nipples -
nipples that smell like a pig truck.

Jesus died for our sins
although this cannot be verified
And he smells...like hope.


Breastfast by Tamp Bombadil

I am a woman
Breasts of largeness
Breasts of pancake batter
thin, heavy dollops
dripping forth


Proud of my Body by Tamp Bombadil

I am proud of my body
leaking fluids
like some sugary package.

Investigate, won't you?
What is this drip?
Who is this package?

It is I
the Candy Penis
vomiting forth.


Conception by Tamp Bombadil

Cocaine
on the table
Tongues
in one anothers' mouth
Our relationship
in a good place
to conceive the Dark Priestess

My womb awaits
your genetic contribution

Energetically
we stuff
your limp penis
past hamburger folds
of labia
into my dry, bumpy
abyss

Revolution No. 1: Freedom from that which Contains

The dissonant clatter of oppression
is muted today -
Pregnantly replaced
by the musical sound
of my urine hitting the water

It is free
from the tyranny of my bladder
its feudal rule
and its deafening political anthems

Today, my urine lives free
in a watery blue world
Free
to pursue its loftiest aspirations:

lawyer
priest
CNA

journalist
prison guard
pirate

It is alive with the jazz
of a first menstruation

the power ballad
of a sexual debut
with a clown

and the gospel
of an Easter morning
abortion

Dance free ye urine of great emmancipation!
and move to the rhythm
of your destiny