Blues for Kim Addonizio

Sometimes I go looking for a poem to post, and sometimes they come looking for me. This poem by Amorak Huey knocked me over while I drowsily drank a cup of coffee and read emails. WOW. Now I am awake, at least, if not awakened.

Kim Addonizio is indeed a poet worthy of a love poem. Read one of my favorites in September 2007 of this blog.

Here's a glimmer of Huey's:  
                                  ...Desire's 
just another word for mourning--

Do not pass go. Stop and read it now. You won't regret it.

http://www.contrarymagazine.com/Contrary/Amorak_Huey_Blues_for_Kim_Addonizio.html

Nancy Drew

Ok. I LOVED Nancy Drew when I was young. I had a copy of the latest girl detective mystery with me at all times. I loved the original books and the more contemporary ones. Honestly, these books are what began my love affair with books in general. Plus, I also love poems with some moral conflict as this one seems to indicate in the end. Enjoy, Super Sleuths!

Nancy Drew
by Ron Koertge

Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.
And she got to say things like, "But, gosh,
what if these plans should fall into the wrong
hands?" and it was pretty clear she didn't mean
plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but
something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.

In fact, the handsome exchange student turns
out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches
Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he
has something more sinister in mind than kissing
her with his mouth open

Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,
Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.
Pretty soon the police show up, and everything's
hunky dory.

Nancy accepts their thanks, but she's subdued.
It's not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans
a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows
there will be a suspicious waiter, a woman in a green
off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.

Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:
the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way
he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,
those feelings that made her not want to be brave
confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.

What Do Women Want?

The eternal question, huh? I, being a woman, don't know either. Great poem though by Kim Addonizio though. I love when a poem ends with a smack and this one certainly does.

What Do Women Want?

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

Dreaming in Blue Linens

This, like most poems, was a long time in the making. I originally wrote it as an undergrad at LSU. At the time it was entitled The Color of Longing. Well, many moons and many, many drafts later it found its final resting place in the 2005 issue of Ellipsis. Enjoy!


Dreaming in Blue Linens

I shouldn’t
because you’re much too young.
You’d come too quick
and leave too soon.

Still…
You push me up
against the bedroom wall,
one hand up my skirt,
pawing at my body
like climbing a breaking ladder—
clinging, frantic.

Buttons pop off
like bunk fireworks, as the smell
of your hair and breath fills me. We stumble, laughing,
almost fucking
but bound at the ankles
by our underwear.

Until our laughter becomes
sighing, moaning, those gentle
but forgettable declarations
of desire, love maybe, something dirty?

In the dark I stutter the name,
(and it sounds nearly like crying for help)
of a god I won’t consider in the light.

Then it’s done
and life is ordinary again.
I look lonely
past the miles of blue,
miles and miles of pale,
blue empty sheets.
I light a smoke and think
Baby, you should have been here.
You were great.