these inconsistencies (don't cry)

.

(Maybe it is true that I am an ugly girl.

An inconsistent, selfish woman.)

There is a mirror in the corner and it is watching.

There is a mirror in the corner

and it is a tape recorder.   Your step-father will know everything.

I look at my chin in the mirror and see it is too big.  Too big for you to love me.  Not big enough to keep you from fucking me but definitely too big to keep you from holding my hand on the street.  I am a simple and inconsistent woman and such an ugly girl to boot!  It’s true!  Don’t argue, it only makes you look stupid.  And every now and then stupid is worse than ugly.  Ask anybody.  My sister and I learned early that the best thing we could ever do is win the love of a man.  Our mother beat it in to us with her big curls and big lips.  Her big lips all done up in Yummy Plummy lipstick.  Don’t forget your push-up bra.  I was never beautiful when I was around her.  Who would have thought so?  Look at her.  Look at her lips and her hair and how tall and thin.  That isn’t me.  That was my mother.  I didn’t even come close.  And then she died.  It wrecked my eyes and my heart and all of my soft, aching insides.

I look at this man

his blond hair

and think    don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry

Such big, beautiful words falling

from his big, knowing hands.  Hands

that have turned so many

pages of the sacrosanct and

fell so gently upon

the nipples of so many

aching women.

How I ache!

How I ache!

Where are you?  Where are you now?

When there is nothing I’d love better than to waste away below the sweat of an angry hand. 

Let me shy away from your gaze.  I want to feel afraid of you. I want to be crass below your touch, say all the horrible words that embarrass me later in the day and cry your name out against your tangled sheets.  I want your fist in my hair.  I want your cock up my ass.  I want you to slap my face and smile against my hot cheek.  I see myself becoming a corpse and so I want to get fucked as hard and often as I can.  You seem like a man who might see the necessity of all this. 

It’s been so long since I’ve cried in front of anyone.

.

as always, critique is welcome.  angelasimione at gmail dot com

i want to be good at this.

the forest is not to blame.




yellow leaves spin. screeching hinges. the pig-sounds
of wind snared in tall trees.
my breath goes a loose white.
swaying.
limbs are coming down.

yellow leaves spin. an awful determination.
sparks radiate. crack my palms. catch in a crescent, this
lowly rabbit. the transparent virus.

last night i lay awake a long time. my thoughts were angry.
polluted and skittish.
the scent of too many deer.


i want to think of the forest.
i want to think of my mother and
the forest behind her,
behind her roses. her roses
behind her iron rods:

deer-bitten.
slowly frozen.
the cracking-sounds, her upturned palms.

my mother will not die in concrete.


the death of frozen things- people
held down, cars
flipped on their side.


i wake to find things on the ground that weren't there before.
black branches, black burl, bits
of litter flung from the highway. i wake
to check the calendar. i wake
and well up my Fear Traditions.
the silver and the shards dug in.


the moon is white. full in the little window between the tall trees.
full-blown. this cold, unclouded thing.
yellow leaves spin.
there is a gaping eye to push through. a solid white.

the wind is to blame.

it wants our doors. splits its knuckles.
toys with our hair-delicate hinges. fingers creeping
against the dry seal of so many mouths.
fingers like thermometers. cold. cold. and sharp
against our fevered pink.

first thing, i look up to the little window


i am lonely. it is a black morning.
aching. windless. an awful veil.
stolid as a dried out fish belly.

apples fall out of the trees, thickly black.
no time to cut the bruises out.
wrinkled and twisted. i lock my eye
on the tiny shimmers of gold below the cracks,
wilting on the inside.

my mother will not die in concrete.


yellow leaves spin.
limbs are coming down.


here
is the thread end

and the needle cut loose.

a solid eye to push through.






.

.


ever a new name






if i had been Perfect at birth, i don't remember it.
soap
in my slithering eyes.
or:
soap in my slither-eye.

how opposite of Beautiful.


i have eaten cotton candy
and made my Red-Work angry.
i have been afraid of your desires.
(because they are not like mine)
i have been afraid of my own desires.


don't tell me anything.

don't tell me there is a spider on my earlobe.


capitulating,
faltering grace.
the severity of my body.
and the potential.

poor baby, poor baby.
don't tell me anything.
finding safe hiding places is hard enough. and
a steady black. black cloud of starling. spite
the wintertime. the little lamb's
delicate eye.

i am cupped in her full blue skirt.
the unexpected
walked-through spiderweb.

FUCKING BITCH I HATE YOU
EVERYBODY HATES YOU
and i always believe it
at least a little bit
when someone says something like that.

if i had been Perfect at my birth.

cracked actress. poor baby.
a knot of opposite interests. the ghosts
of so many school girls. heavier now, carrying such hearts.

the sadness and the smells. i lumber
under a vocabulary culled
from dragging silence.

my remembering happened much later.

and what i have done.

draft #2

.



it wasn't good enough.

or maybe it was just forgotten.

the white that folds down.

the envelope. the ceiling.
the wide eyelet curtains.



.



degrees accumulate.
sometimes rescind
like a promise.

sand in the sheets.



.



she lays under the big windows. there are two of them.
two windows in the same wall. a diptych. perpendicular
to the south sky. the light is good. the light falls
down. open mouths. warm as breath. and soft. she lays
on the floor. the curtains do not sway- she trembles,
lights a cigarette, and quietly closes the door.



.



i know sea glass was once nothing more than regular glass.
still, i want to be polished just the same.



.



on the other side of the windows are stars.
blue marks in the sky big as fists.

she stands close to the door.
she listens for feet.



.



we've hated each other for as long as i can remember.



.

poem

*





she wants to know about the wings we hide.
she wants to know if there is blood involved.

(her question is a speculum)

-


she asks questions.
the whole world goes

black and white
like a photograph,

like a Victorian.


-


once a month i find
blackberries on the inside.


-


when i'm thirsty, i drink my milk
straight from the gallon jug.
let it spill across
my face. my entire life
trying to suckle, stains
reaching down the front of my shirt.


-


she asks questions.
i want to take my clothes off.

show her
the Daughter Body.

hair growling
at her rosy hope. her

misty concern.


-


thin lines etched in white
across skin stretched too hard
around and across
new hips during puberty.

the marks i hide.
the marks i am ashamed of. surfaces
i know are ugly.


-


she asks questions.

when i'm sad, i can't keep the wings hidden.


-


there is blood and yellow
milk stains. accidents
drying toward black.

i wash and wash and once
a month i find
blackberries crushed

on the bread of my thighs.








*

*

sweet as anything





-the panic first welled up in a train tunnel. i drew a heart-shape on my hand and didn't look at anyone-


when we were little, mama gave us the carrot shaver and we peeled the paper off our crayons in soft, undamaged lengths. we set our nimble papers on the table. we took the naked wax outside.

the curls of their bodies dropped in ribbons, fell sweet as snow as children on a sheet of wax paper held down by our feet. we shaved them down until their thinness made them snap.



-i saw the photograph of her ligature by accident-


-in the photograph, there were bruises everywhere-



periwinkle was my favorite then. burned down to dust-wax clumps on my fingers and dolls. i learned to save it for last. the pointed edge. wished upon waited upon. a star, still possessed of its steeple.



-the skin of her neck, an odd tin blue-



mama laid another sheet of wax paper on top and carried off our anthills to the ironing board.

the iron was ready. you could smell it.

she pressed our curls flat
mottled bleeding blobs, orange flooding green, red
stretching across everything.



-red, stretching across everything-



we couldn't touch them right away. my excitement stippled my pink. burns all over baby fingers. eager as anything.

our curls, ironed out, the wax went hard. we cut out heart shapes. one for you and one for me. these are our pretty things. and mama got out the string.

we put them in the window. mama said kaleidoscope. the shadows centered on our beds. heart shapes scurried from wall to wall to forehead. we held out our hands and grabbed the shadows like butterflies.



-the coroner's report said there was a heart-shape drawn in red ink on the palm of her little hand. she had put it there herself. right in the middle of her left-






-boxes of periwinkle shoved under the bed-







.

envy


i walk around with her name on. a sock on the hand. i say 'i'm blonde'. i say 'look at my dress." i collect the tiny tatters turned to glitter against the baseboards. the dust of bodies so old it sparkles. our feet have polished all the crumbs. she wakes up slowly. scratches her eyelashes. i find one on my breakfast plate. i pluck it from the egg. wear it on my cheek. snatch the wish that accompanies such things.

pity party in the bathroom





the little girl voice begins its refrain:
i just want everything to be okay.

on and on and i get sick.
the endless list of I deserve
tacked like a cataract to the insipid eye.
the stupid face
in the stupid mirror
in the goddamn bathroom
in the goddamn half-light.

the mirror is Collapse.
the sour shine of ridiculous dreams.
the little girl
clinging
tight, red faced,
to the shangri la of the un-had.

she begs: stick a diamond on me
so i'll know which one i am.

but the diamond fell.
went down the toilet tubes. my arm
went in after it, got stuck
in the stinking hole.

and ever since, just shit

glittering in my eye lashes,
freckled across my nose.

true story

Gabriel





(all the white daisies in the field all the white daisies go crunch crunch crunch)

by the far fence, the little girl gathered lady bugs. so many her hands were all red. my eyes were big and my heart was full and i thought she would be my most perfect friend. i loved her for her hands. an angel in the wide field. gently gently, collecting and collecting, saving the tiny ruby bodies from the rain. then she smiled at me and said 'watch this' and quick quick she slammed her hands together. RED RED PALMS held up in front of my face. thrown in front of my face. crushed in front of my face, in front of my wide, wide eyes. i ran and my breath was fast and my heart was choked. i heard her giggle, small and pleased. the angel in the far field. i looked back as she bent to the grass and began to collect again.

this poem will be deleted but i want to know if it needs work.

.



week 3





first wool
now glass

the pancreas exploded
and every dirty toxin, all filth
seeping through

and Jesus and Jesus
Saint Genevieve
mama, no.


first glass
now wool
and hair falling out in clumps in the cup
of your small hand.


i watch him shave your head in the kitchen.
i watch him sweep up your hair.

wool and glass
through both our eyes, mama

Saint Genevieve, the clear

poison steaming
toward the stable vein.

the arm exploded. the tumor has not changed.

stupid





all morning all morning,
the wringing of hands.

yesterday afternoon was bright yellow.
i've felt like crying ever since

and spending money i don't have.
i am fighting the urge to fuck myself over.

to buy expensive clothes and plane tickets.
i go back to that canvas and stare.

i know i'll be told on again

sooner or later.

i know my silence makes it an easy thing.



all morning all morning,
the back and forth,
the wringing of hands,
the salt i hold,
the salt i spill,

and crying in the shower where no one can see and no one can hear,
soft and thin as a pencil scratch.

all morning all morning,
my thick embarrassment.
all morning, my worry.
my rosey showing.
that plague.
the need that goes on and on and on

un-met. all morning all morning,

for the life of me.

death day

today is the anniversary of sylvia plath's death. our fair radish king holds a bake-off every year in her honor on this day where those of us who have been touched by her work can trade recipes and poems and thoughts... a time and place of remembering and appreciating... a work of mourning and respect and joking around.

i thought of sylvia plath a lot this past week. in my sickness i've been cutting out tons of heart-shapes- a personal symbol of plath's. and i have strings of hearts hanging in my bedroom window. silvery and sparkling and dancing slow. they have been cut from "failed" paintings and drawings. i thought... even though the composition was wrong, there was still love in this work. let me at least save that part.

i want to keep that thought in mind today as i remember her... and as i remember her son, nicholas.

-

the first poem in Ariel is written to a child. for a child. it is thick with love, thick with amazement. she was not without love... let's at least save that part. draw a heart on something. cut one out. save it. hang it in your window. this is the new tradition.



MORNING SONG


Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.








october 27, 1932 - february 11, 1963




and here is my poem about her for you... since i can't bake. :)
(click the pictures to enlarge)






you know her
artist book
angela simione, 2009

transcript:

you know her


she wore the white dress and white shoes
snow-white
under the little wire clamps
pale, nondescript
harmless
her hand to her mouth
she'd had such trouble
cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting.

half way

in my sickness, i am making my way through Aase Berg's With Deer. it is either the worst time or the best time to read this book. it is infectious. or is it intoxicating? or does she cast such a net, such a spell as to make the reader intoxicated with the resulting infection?

i get a few poems in and have to stop. later, i write write write and the same fat maggots present themselves but their color has changed and maybe their shape... so then... not quite the same.

always crawl closer to the people, the writers, the artists you admire.

there is a Buddhist saying that goes like this: when the student is ready, the teacher arrives.

i'm no Buddhist but i know a smart cookie when i see one... and i know when a good teacher appears.

they are all around me these days. good teachers. everywhere and i am lost inside wonder and feeling completely undeserving.

yes, you.





level







i can only take her cells in doses. sharp acrid insistence. she scratches at my face and i wait for the "i'm sorry" but all i do is wait. i turn a page. i feed on the next cell. i install her breath in my swelling in my feigning eager mouth. red and pink and capped in silver. shame under the tongue and shame between the teeth and shame below the gum line and shame inside that great grey mass between the ears. a dog hung low. head on the floor. that sorrow. that beg. and i crouch now, i go low, level with the sad dog eye, pooling brown and spilling blue and sucking at the acrid breath. sucking at the cells and the pages and the lists of things that go on and on,

still,

without remorse.







angela simione, 2010

sicken

.





thick orange juice mucus in me in my throat in every opening that speaks or begs or cries a little to get its way. the skin around these openings is hot and tense. a rope. a promise. an omen. sheets of disdain and waste curling down. a wall paper. rotten. past its' prime. out of date. like childhood. like the monsters under the bed. but they don't care either way. they keep coming back in spite of how unfashionable they've become. they tickle the skin around these openings. they pull the delicate hairs in fistfuls. they make sure the skin is taut and that every pore is shut tight. there is nothing to believe or disbelieve when it comes to pain. here it is. it will be back. cross your heart and fingers and legs. cross every T and hope to die.






angela simione, 2010

expiring

some poems need to die. or at least not follow you around forever. they need a time-line, and end-date. and this is why i like what ana c. is doing. she is RAD! and i was bashful about the idea at first but today while i was running i got a bit brave and thought that maybe it'd be a good thing to do... to let a poem gain mortality. it will expire. they all will expire. these are poems about expiring. i am number 30. you should be number 31. my fair rebecca is number 20. everyone is fair and wonderful: a number counting toward the end. submit.

help

i have convinced myself help is on the way-
i am cleaning up all the hair.

in fear.
for fear.
my mother coming through in my curls.

she shows herself.
falling down, falling long.

and baby girl's got her mama's eyes too.
falling down, falling long.
and black on the inside.

my mother.
my mother.
here, me,
her.

what will happen to baby's eyes
if mama dies?



i convince myself help is on the way-
a starling swarm.
an embolism.
a shattering.
every ocean against the sea. anything.

anything but the charge to carry such a hollow,
such ice.



what will happen to my hair,
to my eyes
if my mother dies?



i try to convince myself help is on the way-
a steadiness.
still as a chair.
still as an eye.
falling down,
falling long.
rimmed in red
and black on the inside.

what will happen in all this empty white?


the winter.
the swinging bells.
our hollow silhouettes.
the cancer curling and curling and curling
and black on the inside.


i am cleaning up all the hair.

in fear.
for fear.


i finger the loose curls.

blackbirds, wide-open.

a nest for the rats.

steady as a chair.

my brother crying.

the horrible expanse of white.

things are going hollow.

there are babies

rimmed in red.



i am trying to convince myself that help is on the way.








angela simione, 2010

new poem

that dead woman



horse hooves
and poppies
and
the color green-

my little list of your likes.

regret
and regret
and regret.

diamond-tipped.
classic.
a star left to dangle.

trash in the trees and all over the yard.

where is my wish list?
my minced oath?
trash in the trees
or stars
or poppies.

the facts got blurry and blew away.

i guard my little list-
regret
after regret
after green green regret.

smoke gives way to steam.
the white of me
running out.

hold your breath.
a star,
a closed circuit-

and wishing wishing wishing well.

trash in the trees.
a sudden green.


and the great grey hooves
of whose heavy horses
busting on through?

Blackland

the soft alarm of feathers falling will point you out
clear as North. we have vultures here,
a willing rottweiler. every stiff hair
a trigger. a black that waits to spring.
the vines twist and we taste
your scent on the sticks.
we will see you before you see us.
stranger.

slowly, slowly

i am late on The Jog because i've been scrambling around in my poems this morning. always playing, rearranging, finding. poems are strange. sometimes i love them, sometimes i hate them, sometimes they embarrass the hell out of me.

anyway, i have no clue what number draft this is or if this poem is even done, but i thought i'd give it a little breathing room. sometimes the work gets better once i decide to stop hiding it.



daily, daily

for Jared who goes on loving me even though i'm crazy





against a white wall without
portraits, all my hairs
in their proper place.

quiet as a candle
and ink stains on everything- i feign,
burned down to a stump-

i say 'please'.
i try
to keep my hair in place.

a thread
decided to dangle,
tickled

my red rims.
a lost lash
behind the lid.

fingernails in the paint,
hair in the baseboards.
and i've tried so hard to keep things clean.


(pretty girl, pretty girl, you are a strange water.
dark as carbon. your ships gone sour.
your hair is a wreck.)


the grapes fell.
turned to wasps.
i go dry of excuse.



he kissed my hands.
he tucked me in.

meekest.

mildest.

a cup of grass and butter.


he let my hair down.
he took the pins out.

the news

what's the good word?
the good word dropped down.
the good surgeon.
confirmed.
my pretty mama-

reduced.



fear.
fear.
fear.
lift your foot.
go.
you are asking too much.


not her.


not yet.


bake you,
scald you,
shrink you in my kettle.
scorch and sear
til the unwanted thing dies.

i'll fucking murder you.




what's the good word?

confirmed.


the good doctor
the good green
deer in the yard
bee sting
a small mass burning
a hole in the middle of my mama.



not her.