Laurie Blauner

Day of Nothing Else

Inside I tried to pick a side,
stay with it, while you decided what
you were doing.  This was
someone else’s house. 

You were the biggest part of our dark life,
a name attached to the darkest face there. 
Don’t stop.  Don’t forget me here.
I believed in that word over there,
the one caught between your fingers,
something valuable for the taking.

I was laughing, knowing what we did.  Outside,
distant streets, birds pretending to be angels.
Ideas disguised as dreams were pressed against
these windows, looking in. Afternoon climbed 
in with its ugly, little feet. You sighed,
belief on both sides of you.

The owners couldn’t find the pleasure
I left behind, the ceiling in my throat, the corners
creasing our skin. Who entered?  Who exited?
Even my hair, draped across your shoulders, took nothing
for granted.  Try and find the body hidden here.

Warn the Others

I desiccated letters, dispensed prescriptions, wrote strange, wandering lists. The inexplicable rushed into my sight causing indecipherable utterances. I practiced the artist’s life: becoming somebody else, a figment, a zigzag mind searching for an exit. I addressed everyone. My end increased exponentially. I followed my lack of logic and fell in love with ruined ideas. I consulted prehistoric thoughts like a dinosaur caught in a stranger’s headlights. The startling lies, television, sex, food, drink, none of it mattered. I wanted what I wanted...

The wife within me was on her hands and knees, chiseling away at our evidence. Nothing was nourishing. We grew hungry and howled at irretrievable days. One list began:

        speak to
   countless cans
                of food
   guns 
               with small screams
   at the end
                   reckless days
              of aftermath
       fusillades of tongues

   What I received: 

   abandoned galloping hair
         circling in wind 
     beautiful weeds 
             in numb streets 


   I still want and more of me are coming.

Laurie Blauner is the author of six books of poetry and a poetry chapbook from dancing girl press as well as three novels and a novella.  Her newest book is It Looks Worse Than I Am. Her web site is http://www.laurieblauner.com