August 2011

VOL XIX, Issue 8, Number 220

This Issue Editor: Heather Ferguson

Editor: Klaus J. Gerken

Production Editor: Heather Ferguson

European Editor: Mois Benarroch

Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter

Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena

ISSN 1480-6401

Rose Lucidé

by 
 
Jack R. Wesdorp

When you get to dance only once
it's of majestic importance
but if you get a second chance
pay attention: it's immortal.






Rose Lucidé
 
I become aware
someone’s in the house
but there’s no one there
I can smell chinese
cat-foot up curved stair
tendrils on the breeze
Sure the gates are locked
tremble through my knees
frozen mantel clock
I go spook the hall
sometimes feelings knock
or ghosts in the wall
Open bedroom doors
maybe I should call
fragrant soft color
I liked Peking duck
kitchen creaking floor
I hope we will fuck
 
 
That old geezer cracked his gourd
word is he’s a millionaire
careful when you deliver
just give him his chow and walk
talking to him ain’t no good
wouldn’t spend no time with nuts
but food he can understand
hand feeds busted cats and birds
murdered his wife we suspect
sex and loot cut a stiff row
if he did it he’s clever
they never found her body
goddam he grows nice roses.
 
 
Mister Luce, are you up there?
I brought your grocery stuff.
Getting through your garden’s tough,
I got burdock in my hair,
some thorny thing tore my clothes,
and I don’t like that at all.
That old pine tree’s gonna fall
on your porch next time it blows.
Mister Luce, can you hear me?
Tomorrow I’ll bring some tools,
whack back those weeds after school,
and you won’t hafta fear me,
I don’t believe what they say,
I stuck your milk in the fridge
and lowered it a smidgin,
gotta go, have a good day!
 
 
I don’t like the way it looks
inattentive with her books
why’s she going over there?
dirty knees and matted hair
straggles home stinking of cat
you know I’m not fond of that
what’s our neighbors gonna think
should we truck her to a shrink?
ain’t that guy done in his wife
with a fucking butcher knife?
maybe I should send a cop
to threaten that bent up wop…
 
 
Shuffle mumble spook
leaves cash in the hutch,
really needs a cook
and pays way too much,
seems a sweetheart gig
daily round the bend,
so it beats bigger
sailing deeper ends,
jambalaya prawns
old champagne on ice
heavy lidded dawns
loaded devil dice.
Overwhelming dope
for a nubile rose
who’s been short on hope
and designer clothes.
Funny how her dad
let the matter slide,
why should he get mad
with a rich man’s ride,
the kid seems to be
doing well enough,
hell, she brings home free
patronage and stuff…
 
 
Unlimited loot
weighs a drudging ton,
first off it’s a hoot
cause it buys you fun,
but that’s soon replaced
by a vapid stare
when you find you’re faced
with a vacant chair.
Money can’t buy friends,
fortunate or bliss,
so it tends to end
on a precipice
wonder should I jump
ain’t no witty boys
then there’s the speed bump
of expensive toys
after that it gets
apathetic fast
and, love, we’re betting
that loot’s a bastard.
 
 
Heard the latest Rose skinny bop?
Filled a cart at the Stop & Shop,
quit her job at the Lobster Shed
and signed up to take drivers ed,
blew me off for a movie date,
got a lotta stuff on her plate
been getting home late, dunno where
must be dirty, real tangled hair
saw her at the SPCA
guess what, she’s gonna go away
that’s what her nextdoor Abbie said
I don’t think she’s going steady
with any one, that’s just babble…
 
 
Hi?  I swept the kitchen path,
trellised up that thornbush rose,
and I brought a garden hose
to clean your pretty bird bath.
Dropped the fridge another notch,
it’s not running cold enough
that’ll spoil your milk and stuff.
I don’t wanna do too much
or change the way you survive
howcome upstairs is shuttered
rumor is you’re a nutter
I’m just glad to be alive
maybe you could leave me notes
and rattle off the real scoop
what it’s like to stay cooped up
maniac freak episodes
next week I gotta bone up
for finals in chemistry
poisons are my specialty
your supper’s on the hearth stone.
 
 
I once went to a masked ball
down at the masonic hall
some rich guy sprung for the feed
it was very good indeed
wine I’ve never tasted since
I dressed as a courtly prince
in that candelabra place
mortal color danced with me
but I didn’t see her face
she wore a black panther’s pelt
I can tell you that I felt
like when a man proposes
because she smelled of roses
nothing underneath thin fur
it could only have been her.
 
 
Well I see you’re still eating,
the old icebox works again,
so I guess we must be friends
and the heart goes on beating.
Sometimes I can hear your blood
rushing typhoon through the ear
when we’re given in to fear
in a maelstrom corkscrew flood.
Then we would be wondering
just who it is that’s insane,
it must be you in my brain
where eyeblink goes blundering
sure we think I’m paranoid
but you haven’t poisoned me
so perhaps we can be me
how do you do doctor Freud?
Actually it’s not so hard
being one or two or five
just so long as we’re alive
with roses in the garden
oh the hose yes that’s a snake
see I know symbology
curled round limbic hollow tree
am I sure that we’re awake?
And the thorn, whose blood is that
which drips from my finger lick
so for god’sake am I sick
hidden in my belfry bat?
Rose, oh rose, can you forgive
us in our extremity,
release me rose, set us free
deadly met that we may live.
 
 
Rose commuted to Tulane
and took her degree
in veterinary
toxicology.
Graduated magna cum
thirteenth in her class,
plugged in with the brass,
and plenty of snazz.
Drove a sixty six corvette,
pretty forest green,
pearls over frayed jeans,
best we ever seen.
Did exactly as she pleased
brazen and brilliant,
lived in “that killer’s”
mansion on the hill.
And who are we to gainsay
what is burned oblique,
go thou wreaksome and
gather what ye seek.
 
 
Rumor circulated like:
psycho fester killer crap
trapped our best queen teen age whore
sordid revelation beast
feast on beezelboobs for lunch
hunchback yes I swear I seen
green enough to own a bank
frankly that at least is true
voodoo zombie caterwaul
college transcript goddamn A’s
casement eye sulfurous reek
weekly deliveries of
stuff we can’t believe it’s love.
 
 
I bet you wanna fuck me.
All old men remember when
we ran our mill set on ten
and filled a firkin bucket.
Twenty year old harlot slick,
leading with bejeezus eyes,
fast in bed, adept at lies,
enough to kill a man quick
or slow, whatever he wants
just so long as he don’t blink,
until he wakes with a stink
in his head about hot cunts,
paralysis in his balls
that can stay with him for life,
the other way is a knife
or blindness inside his walls.
Those who cut their wieners free
usually are so twisted
that even a simple miss
can geld off their fantasy.
So how about it old man,
you still wanna fuck with me?
We wonder if you can see;
maybe not, maybe you can…
 
 
Eerie laughter shakes the walls
perspiration sour soaked clothes
indigo reeking roses
frozen aching in his balls
unfold origami past
bastard shadow dripping crap
shrieking nails drawn from shiplap
sinking leaking clipper glass
last meal slash mile cyanide
cypress weeping catafalque
church-yard sleeping orison
saline running color drum
booming birchwood boulder baulk
how old are we really now?
Still seventeen in his head
body damn near heavy dead
maybe hell what’s in a vow
and what is it worth to stay
on earth where mirror fractures
replay endless lurid acts
on a meaningless fragrance
dancing to oblivion.
Grasp the pen!  Take a letter,
make it your best one ever,
aye then better to be done.
 
 
Rose knew right away
that something heavy had gone,
wandered off the edge
tentative from night
into the half light
and then into day
maybe, but she wasn’t sure.
An empty kitchen
one mug with suspicious dregs
smelling of morphine
or some alkaloid
could be paranoid
god I think it’s hope
hitching up his transience.
Look, he left a gift
spider scrawling on a trunk,
monkish fare thee well:
my dear, allow me 
this is your dowry
hold it to yourself
swift be thy course on the deep.
Rose lifted the lid
gingerly while standing wide.
Inside it is stacked
rubber neat banded
his even handed
enough there for life
hidden in the pearl of love.
 
 
There’s no grave stones in the mind
when you know just who you are.
The eyeblink stores what it finds
like fireflies in a jar.
On the hill a mirror bends
low in curtsy saturnine
while a panther apprehends
his lewd rider’s finery.
The universe tastes of red
slit seeing wormwood double,
in the master’s chamber bed
mistress rose formidable.
How many lovers can we
spiral through a needle’s bore,
what enchanted family
works its ancient incest lore?
Of the royal mien there’s this:
laws and customs don’t mean shit
in the claw succession biz,
just survival of the fit.
An apartment in Paris,
visit to the Vatican,
camping with the Kalderash,
tight with Dominican nuns.
Rose went round the world three times,
itchy footed gotta roam
don’t get in my way or lines
nor hang me up when I’m home.
A lotta living under
her baileywitch lightning flash,
probably Mach two thunder
contrails and sufficient cash.
Sixty six but who’s counting,
certainly not her bent glass,
when you drink at the fountain
some one else will watch your ass.
Pssst, past her prime, that’s the word
round town, then the flicker flame,
fewer men play on the board,
stale mate, is that the end game?
 
 
In the bottom of the box
lies a letter sealed with wax,
the same spider fountain pen
that has left her all those bens.
A centipede of hour glass
patter sifts wentling to pass,
upstairs attic floor boards creak,
it’s the last time they will speak:
 
My dear, I’ve watched you grow tall
he calls me ‘my dear’!
while I went crazy upstairs.
Sometimes I made your skin crawl
frigid fingered fear
with raving bent through your hair.
God saw you wash those flagstones
magick garden bed
you were kind to battered cats
left my privacy alone
until you were dead
and I’m satisfied with that.
There is no way to repay
I need no reward
the charity that you’ve spent.
I am bent low every day
rose garden altar
when I stare at you, my friend.
Seven years is thread sublime
weave no wedding ring!
to unravel what’s been skeined.
May you have sufficient time,
to do everything
Rose, I leave your bed unchained.
 
 
Even New Orleans gets cold
when descending into frail,
fingers refuse to follow
while you wend the world by Braille.
Rose, who could afford the best,
chose to live in a shelter
boarding with indigent guests,
working the kitchen and spent
many years in December
at that poor house wheel chair place
where witch women remember
forgotten names and faces.
Yesss, old man Luce the slaughter,
had a restless gypsy wife,
black haired girl named Rose Lauter,
hacked her with a kitchen knife,
confessed it to father Pat,
one daughter so I hear tell
but dunno what’s up with that,
bastard hope he rots in hell…
Rose walks to the window sill
where snow drifts against crazed glass,
she drinks her fill of brilliance
all things present come to pass.
 
 
How is it that two      Can it be that who
can exist as one        we cherish is planned
in a single flame?      in the chain of names?
 
 
Rose Lucidé went away,
we’re not sure exactly when.
Just what happened we can’t say,
nor if she will come again.
The old house fell into ruin,
stolen slates, foundation cracks,
home to stray cats and raccoons,
then it sold for back taxes.
A developer burned it down
promising to build condos,
but he ain’t been seen around,
we heard his check book got hosed.
After that the hill went back
to better things and woodland
hidden stillborn trackless bent…
oh, kids found a skeleton,
the coroner’s report reads:
female, cause of death unknown,
case closed, lack of leads.  Then…weeds,
frozen moments cut in time,
toppled corner stone, no one,
forlorn dancing pantomime
where a thorn climbs to the sun.
 






Our finest flower worthy of stained glass
of immense power at a plainsong mass
sometimes perverted on a white house lawn
to assauge our hurt when the cannon's gone
would that we can taste the healing perfume
at your casement glass and the kneeling tomb.


*

Copyright (c) 2011 Jack R. Wesdorp

 







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