molly arden says so

The birth of the day. . .for MA

2011-07-12T13:45:00.000-04:00

I completely agree with Lord Charlie:

The birth of the day
and the mirth of the sun
makes me want to stay
in a bed of cool green
or on a blanket of grass
under a palm tree watching
you walk into the sea, watching
you sway admiring the view
of you walking toward the sea
knowing you'll return to me.

Molly thanks you, Molly's feet thank you, Molly's shoes thank you, Molly's butt wiggles sexily for you as you, Sir, watch!

Old things

2011-07-12T10:08:00.000-04:00

The birthday happened yesterday. Today there's the leftover wrapping and a throb that says "too much" with each pound. Molly has a confession.

I bought an antique yesterday. Not like Molly. To want old wood around. But the idea amused, intrigued me. So I found a small sewing chest in dark stained wood with dainty flowers painted on its front. Not in any way a thing I would normally look at. But yesterday it seemed the thing. So it was finagled from the dealer. And it sits in my bedroom and looks lost. My birthday gift to myself.

Golden-berg dinner

2011-05-21T01:00:00.000-04:00

Whole edible cow
not holy
I paid for you by check
split you among
two neighbors
put you in ziplock
arranged
freezerspace.
Grass fed and
Pasture
I tasted none of this
under the A1.

2011-05-20T00:03:00.000-04:00

BAP
showing off a little skin.
thin.
Some stern.
Fellatio even got
a mention.

Tease

2011-05-18T23:02:00.000-04:00

I just rattled the shell.
In the most taptastic way.
A dance of knowingness on the vellum of it all.

miohmyohsaycaniseeoh

Molly's such an expert
egg spurt

on the fucking black whole
of not knowingness.
Wrote about write right rite
and who was writing right.

I just wanted to say that I love a round faced lovely egg. It's all right.
Flag waving, lovely little egg I hardly know. I'm calling you Humpty.

Suited Up

2011-05-17T22:22:00.002-04:00

I'm in my bathing suit.

On the velvety brownness of the sturdy sofa in my new two-piece.

Golden rubby yummy brandy in a stout fat glass and outside is all ellipses and runny tires.

Won't you guess the color?

I'm coming

2011-05-15T09:55:00.002-04:00

It's been so long since we've come together.
I'm at BAP all week. Come see me?

Funny you should mention it

2010-02-14T23:28:00.003-05:00

To celebrate this night
let's get lost
where you are missed where you were kissed

and thanks for the sandwiches
for the idea of sandwiches on the shore
where the sun burned a hole in my neck

and you wore what we bought at the store
lingerie (lace) and stood at the station
in the rain you cried and I saw your face.

Thanks for the turn it's better when it's
not just a memory as if we were the same people
we were then and we are now.

So let me hold you tight
because you are
the ghost of a chance

that will love that will live
and will type live and mean love
or type love and mean live.

eat ham sandwiches with little gherkin fingers

2010-01-11T00:53:00.003-05:00

I miss us.

Would you still do that

thing which always revived
the in-between time

if we were
laughing or just loving

or if it was for the sake
of something else or just for the sake'

it would be quiet and then you'd do it
and color would dust back

onto our laughs
or into them.

You'll name some wonderful song
which will remind

me that there are
figs and rye bread and stilton and ham.

You'll ask, Does anyone remember sandwiches?
If so, do you miss me?

Let us eat, Amen.

Wet afternoon in a Haberdashery

2009-07-04T16:20:00.003-04:00

I am not ma'am, young shop boy with the tight can

whose waist makes me hungry for denim.

Oh, retail captive, let Molly free you; teach you to read.

Let's start with every man's primal: woman's skin.

Amber oil, reminiscences of cocoa butter, honeyed sweat.

Pick any book, it doesn't matter.

Let your tongue touch the page, lick every letter.

I'm no madame,

but Molly's hungry for a great read.

And if "How are you tonight, ma'am?" can fold legs

like he's folding shirts, we'll be reading Dostoevsky by morning.

Molly in the Alley with Flats

2009-04-07T02:27:00.004-04:00

When Molly writes a letter she knows who.
When Molly wears a hat, there is that.
When Molly has a drink, she's not flat.
When Molly has sex, it's not with her ex.

And for a genuine special bonus
here is my furry pussy not bogus.

I love Molly in the alley.
I love Molly in the sun.
I loved "the man" at goddamn le Mans,
the rebel yell and the rebel belly.

And there was Too for Whoo

2008-12-09T10:00:00.003-05:00

There were wanted and needed or had
Maybe listed if thought of and said

I do not write a letter to Santa or you --I write letters to authors and Sinatras
make cookies with fruit and ginger to give to Fruits and Ginger.

Anyone'll fuck a baker.
Star Fuckers will fuck a Maker.

Someone once told me that.
Once, someone told her that I had made it with whoo.
Quippy conversation, we were protean,
one missed meeting and a Lesbian drew conclusions without cunctation or substantiation.

Molly will not climb on les genoux de santa.
No chuchotement of parfume or laughter.
I won't even have to désir un visage je sais ou un scarecrow brain.

I am only do do do doing and
no wish no want no lists no Ella Fitzgerald singing haunted hearts into iPods.

We are not who you said they were

2008-11-02T20:26:00.002-05:00

They were or seemed to be
kiss kiss
born with a clever hand
in Cleveland
absent the Miss
come softly or go with me.

They are or used to be
bang bang
dead with a silver hand
or tragic wand
present the gang
go stiffly or go to sea.

They will or not to be
sing sing
noon with a spectral band
who also ran
between the fling
die freely or live free.

love Loves to Love love

2008-10-16T01:46:00.002-04:00

The new surveillance.
Was there a time.
She missed more than anything.
Consider her point of view.
She lost her job because.
Because of him I mean,
Had a girl in his room.

Four shades November gloom.
Get out of bed, off back.
She got it then but it was.
She got it on her back.

Stashed fear, cocaine.
Something else is
Running around her brain.

(Sonnet for DL)

Never Gonna Dance

2008-09-17T01:18:00.003-04:00

Who's it gonna be girls, Fred Astaire or Cary Grant? Or is it Clark Gable? Or the Marlon Brando of the 1950s? William Holden? Steve McQueen?

Who here thinks that the most manly of these men is Clark Gable?

Who can hear the voice of the morning dawn in the chorus of birds at the end of the portrait?

Who hears and knows it's the voice of Helen Forrest?

(Possibly the greatest of the Helens though the competition is stiff: Ward, O'Connell, and Merrill to name three.)

And she who is abducted by the Trojans returns in the pocket of a man who never uses a condom, the red-haired champion of Sparta.

Could Helen have been happy following a spartan diet?

The warriors of Sparta were the heroes of the day. Just look what they did to the Persians.

Yet the magnificence of a man for a woman rests not in his proud display of manhood but in the subtler arts: the brain and the heart trump the sheer joy of muscular prowess.

Look at it this way. Each orgasm lasted forever. But the act really approached the act of love in its recklessness and greed when no contraception was used and it was the will of god biology whether you got pregnant or not.

Such strange couplings resulted from that initial attraction, evidently irresistible, that caused the male to enter the chamber of the female and to deposit his seed.

Yet the knowledge that Molly could cause a steep rise in a man of years, a handsome man, charismatic, complicated, accomplished, made her feel pretty damn fucking fine.

O morning on a drop of few an ode to the morning spreading itself for you.

Molly's Folly

2008-08-27T02:06:00.002-04:00

The desire to write
the night was on fire
the morning star was a liar
yet showed me the light.

Let me not tire
of watching the fight
between wrong and right
or what the birds require.

Humans are the species that love
the sexual organs of the opposite sex.
Some of us are nervous wrecks.
You did not bend to pick up my glove.

The difference between masculine and feminine
is slender but not as much as it has been.

Male Enhancement

2008-07-19T03:04:00.003-04:00

I can't stand the commercials for "male enhancement" on TV -- bad acting, fake script, "real science."

Viagra is a net plus from the female point of view as far as reliability of erection maintenance. By and large.

I do not believe that the concept of "cock" can be fabricated with a toy.

I believe in the beauty of the female body and its relation to the reproduction of the species.

Somehow it always sounds like consolation when people tell women how powerful are the mothers, how powerful are they,

The mother of a son will love him better than anyone, but let's look at it from her point of view.

She has tits and every painting is a tribute to her tits and her hips and even her belly.

One committee is as good as another for constructing the anatomical destiny of the race.

So Many Literalists

2008-07-11T23:53:00.003-04:00

There are so many literalists out there instead of "literalists of the imagination" (Marianne Moore).
I went out with one of them last night.
He looked at me and saw a pair of tits pointing upward good child-bearing hips plummy ass nice belly that could grow big with seed.
According to Baudelaire, the answer to "too many literalists" is "do many literalists."
A critic was walking beneath my window and I dropped a vase on his head without smashing the flowers.
He looked up and saw nothing.
The gods and angels were laughing.
The critic said: "Make life beautiful!"
The poet said: "Life IS beautiful."
Who was right?
I'll just say this.
The poet was a literalist of the imagination.
Reader, I married him.

Loving the Blues

2008-06-27T16:54:00.003-04:00

What is kink?
And why are we attracted to it?
What do we discover about ourselves?

Can you define that please?
Are toys necessary?
Which have you used in the last year?

Is sex with your partner an example?
Of what?
Of mutual masturbation?

What is a facial?
Can you get one at the spa?
Did your regular masseuse goes awol?

What happens then?
What do you mean you never?
Would you accept a substitute?

Would you let a man enter your ass?
Does it hurt?
Does the pleasure outweigh the pain?

Would you respect a man who let you?
Is cockhood a physical or metaphysical entity?
How about cunthood?

What about the word cunt do you hate?
Does your hot boyfriend whisper cunt in your ear?
Would he let your voice curl up in his ear?

So I said like why so he said like maybe my place?

2008-04-16T01:21:00.003-04:00

So he said cock so I said what
so he said like Cambodia like it was
like he looked straight
at you when he spoke of guns
versus flowers versus Picasso
versus twat
is hot is not
so I said typo
so he said type-A
so we fucked
or we balled
or we ambiguously
did the thing that has no name

Lovely to fuck the queen of the wards

Look look my heart is an open book

2008-02-16T18:25:00.003-05:00

Check out what they're doing:
Screwing!
Not rueing
in the ensuing
days after wooing.

Molly knows what Molly knows.
Look at yourself: if you had a sense of humor, you would laugh to beat your hand.

This is the sound of one hand stroking.

Not free, not bound. Prometheus, here I come!

We love Eros but Poe knows more

2008-02-15T23:13:00.003-05:00

Good golly, Miss Molly, Where have I been!
I been away from you a long time.
This is my theme for English A.

Don't be sore!
Smell the rose.
Don't be a bore
or spite yo' nose
or wear
fishnet hose
the mother vs whore
syndrome (she goes)
(who knows more)
here not queer
and her pantyhose
in a twist more
often than rows
of apple cores,
and all our woes,
and all our cares.

This is my imitation of Edgar Allan Poe
but not Poe's prose.

I'm back!

Molly has been reading blogs and breeding dogs

2008-01-26T13:39:00.000-05:00

. . . and leading logs . . .and greeting grogs . . .and fleeing frogs. . .and weeding bogs. . .and not heeding hogs . . .or meeting mugs . . . or needing rocks (off) and rugs (because bald is better). . .

Nin Andrews is a natural born blogger: http://ninandrewswriter.blogspot.com/

The contests and quizzes at the Best American Poetry web site are also worth a visit:
http://bestamericanpoetry.com/

Molly Knows the Roses Go round

2008-01-18T00:18:00.000-05:00

What Molly knows is not for your nose to smell like odor of violet or attar of rose if rose and such beautiful beautiful long legged hose she wears and the thorns that prick your prick do we not bleed?

O you men are all alike it's when they want something out of you like the muffin or a drive into the rough, a dive into the muff, they just want to struts their stuff and they expect the pearl to land on your tongue it's then they flatters you they say O Molly we love your pussy divine so sweet like the rose whether trimmed or grown wild O Molly O let me luxuriate in the folds of your flesh your bush the tips of the your tits your mound I will climb like the back side of the moon O let me nibble on your nipples.

Sure. I know. I can be patient. Your sperm well well but spare me your scorn your spurn your spur I need none. Just let me right.

Barbara, you're thinking of D. H. Lawrence's lady friend, the German Friedl who was a little older than he was, a cock worshiper perhaps but with more than a bit of the domina in her, nyet?

Molly talks of Roses

2008-01-09T10:36:00.000-05:00

(Deuteronomy 27:16)
Cursed is the man who dishonors his father or his mother.

I have been Molly and much writing about (not hear, of course)
about not assholes and not tacos but
about bouts of being orphaned or not phoned
or about being the scorned phone that scolds
untold of perfect days and life above the border.

Just let me right.

Don't die me off,
to have a baby in your singular, pretty-how town
Miss me. Miss why oh you.

Miss Frieda Kahlo make me give your mirror back
and I will be resolutions for the new year.

Poets, etc.

2007-12-14T00:20:00.000-05:00

We're poets and we don't need to know calculus syringes
the legal implications of incorporating
versus a limited partnership in the English sense
nautical miles or the metrical system.

What an admirable ass has that hussy who just passed.

And we came and we sat and we waited.
Everyone hoped Molly would read what she had created.
But it was not fated
to be although the fates hated
to disappoint the community of the gated.

Not correct! Not correct! That is my goal:
O all you ass holes (two words, please note),
in the digestive system of any of us
this is what I wrote:
because
the boss is always an ass hole,
the ass hole is the boss.
So fuck you.

Give a thought to Molly or a "Frank" for her thoughts. Do.

Mexico

2007-12-09T00:28:00.001-05:00

What happened to the country below the border
of childhood?

What happened to the black cat?

The names of restaurants tell you little
but we continue to eat baked pussy
with caviar like a tourist
asking a blind man for directions
why did Edgar Allan changed his last name to Poet?

Yet I miss the life beyond these walls
this room a universe centering on my bed

Most people are either assholes
or pains in the ass
but I wasn't most people
frequenting the always empty sex shop
a front for drug money

after all Everything is a front
if not an insult

Molly's tits are a front to conceal
she asks two questions only
from the highest point in the town

The boys miss them and you, they say.

2007-12-09T00:28:00.000-05:00

Molly took a break

2007-11-27T00:04:00.001-05:00

Molly is back but not on her back.
She receives messages:

<< I wish I was a poem of the
48 states
and you lived inside me.

<< -A Kansas born poet >>

Who could it be?

You could put quote marks around anything and then everything and then nothing. Or start each line with quote marks and end each line with a cigarette and a question mark. There are women who, if you seduce them, will suck your cock for you, Monsieur Teste, and don't look so scandalized since you did take advantage of her rump. But you and he and we are not they and I am not the you that once lived and neither is he Henry or she am I July honeymoon birthday. But I am and was and not she nor he can make the greater claim.

They Were Being Assholes

2007-10-23T22:53:00.000-04:00

I have been jealous, unkind, mean.
It is easy to be an asshole
When you are surrounded
by human assholes.

Is it possible that this is what God hath wrought?

Is it likely that if the dance floor were suddenly lit
and those boys – grinding to Cincinnati-born rapper Dr. Dre -
their hands stuffed so far up the stiff prom fabric of women they
might be asked to go and might fall into the great depression
and leave the contiguous 48 states for good.

But this is what happened after the dreams and the prom.

The Man in the Elevator Got Fired

2007-10-18T01:54:00.000-04:00

She said it was my fault
I need to be alone right now
which is as unfair as
most bosses or games of chance.

I live in a poem entitled
"Poem of the 48 States"
by a Cincinnati-born poet
who couldn't wait to get away.

The girls were naked in Kansas
in a boy's guiltless wet dream.
But what were the girls in

their own dreams doing and what were
the boys doing before taking them
to the high school prom?

And death shall have no dominion

2007-09-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

What brave flower
-- and Molly is nude in her bower
-- and she is shampooing in the shower.
I am Molly and you can kiss my hollow or my holly.

What fair weather
-- as long as you and I fare together
-- you take the low road and I will take a sweater --
I am Molly and you can kiss me if it makes you jolly.

What pussy blooms
-- like jasmine smells in rooms
-- where you smell me and tell me

What cock will crow
-- like smoke or like a black crow
-- where I feel lucky because you're so fucky.

I Wonder

2007-09-21T07:55:00.000-04:00

I'm tired like the undershirt dried on high heat, worn to fray around the collar
and worn while painting the wooden boat this summer in the basement that filled with acrid epoxy stench on the humid August night when nothing dried -- not even the sweat on our arms.

Today, some things are very hard. A number five on a card, a thank you note not written for the gift too generous for words, conversation, lessons to be planned, books to be read in order to keep just one running foot ahead of the bolder about to roar over me.

Question:
Is it forgivable to live unashamed of your dreadful, human self if your life is now solid and loving and full of entitled decency? Especially, if you are a possum who can play dead and can barely see, who can sniff out a lie, and find a family in the dark.

Lately Molly’s been busy doing possum-y things in the dark. Dark things in cities where people are dark and there are dark cars and strangers leave garbage next to Molly on the subway as if it is hers. Garbage should be explored in a possum-y way. Headlights beckon. My eyes look bright and surprising when you come up on them quickly in the dark.

Stay with me. I’m tired. I have questions.

Where were you?

2007-09-11T23:07:00.000-04:00

Twin Squirt
the war of Afgan desire rages on

1. Tom Brocaw

Recalling the falling, our failed mission,
no admission of contrition,
no immediate deaths, not not stressed
(or jest) just unimpressed or tested.

2. You Porn

Tonight it’s shooters, hooters
mechanical put-it-to-you’s.
Then or when, if (someone needed) yenned
a defense against, might portend the (your) end.

School rhymes with rule, fool, tool, drool

2007-09-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

Every year it's the same. Labor Day is blue Monday.

"When is she expecting? "Labor Day," her husband said.

Due diligence means I am driving my car into the past. Vermont fades in the rear-view mirror like the image of Eurydice abandoned by Orpheus.

The dirty secret of death is it stinks. There's nothing admirable in failure. I'm back and I'm alive.

You walk down the corridors of the school where you were once a citizen and now you are invisible.

But your tits remain alert in your sweater and you walk out the door when classes end and a new season of revisionist history begins.

And then you know how it feels when the fools with the limited tools talk about you with envy on their breath like salami.

But I'm back and I'm alive and I'm going to work on Tuesday.

You new Me

2007-08-27T19:29:00.000-04:00

I have been hiding. Folds of love, fasting, fever, and then last week was a few days of driving around Shaftsbury, some Bennington with the voice of an old teacher creeping out of the car's speakers. There's been India, death, sand, sailing, love so wrong it tasted like lime and pepper even the first time I kissed it and I kept on kissing anyway.

I might have plowed through the entire summer, eating cigarette butts and licking skin, but the impending return of Labor Day always brings out the insufferable teacher in me, the eternal hated shame of necessary list making and tendency toward syllabi. The cleansing realization that there is need for more than mango and that limping along on 3 hours sleep feels drizzled but tends to deaden.

There is hardly a space on Molly that has not been filled, explored and adored and slipped in and ginned or thoughts of thoughts bigger than myselves and men and endings and havings and gettings and although it is another summer gone it’s never a season wasted.

I’m home to dusty piles of mail and I’m not empty.

Bruno Walker makes an appearance

2007-06-21T23:46:00.000-04:00

Molly has a new admirer. His name is Bruno
And what he wants is you know
Which is what I want too.
A little earthly happiness would be heaven.

When we met he said his last name was 111.
That dog won't hunt, I said, with a fuck you
look in my eyes. But he was a go-getter
and he said his last name was Walker,

and before that it was Walter.
And he said he would write me a love letter
and compose symphonies in my honor

And he said he would do it right
or write me a series of love poems. Well, sir,
you ghost them, I'll post them on this site.

Bewitched

2007-06-11T02:30:00.000-04:00

Hysteria:

Wry heading (sip dream hosting) make
bone conversation about failed wake
and crimson (lush);
Al stays late after work (you trip) bush.
Eager, sea (not) ripples.
I don’t know what happened to my nipples.
Oh, there they are. Firm as rocks.
Lovelies for straight jocks.
Wish I’d stayed home and fucked.

Bothered

2007-06-03T08:39:00.000-04:00

Listeria:

Dry wedding (whipped cream frosting) cake
phone conversation about sales (fake)
any velvet (crushed)
always late for work (blue slip) rush
eager peanut nipples
tight clothes sausaging ripples
movies for eight bucks
wishing I'd stayed home and fucked.

Do I have opinions?

2007-06-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

Yes!
I believe in Romeo, as Juliet said
when she lay in the coffin pretending to be dead.
That Bush is no good, said the ambush chief
and I guzzling gas can get no relief.
The father figure resembling Charlie Chan
believed in the decisiveness of a fatal gesture.
As for me, I believe the most important news of the day is Lindsay Lohan
was an also ran (what could be truer)
a hundred years from today
when my reasoning, logically sound though obsolete as bonnets,
will have gone the way of Sir Thomas Wyatt's sonnets
Because you can't strut your stuff
when you're old and gray
amd there isn't time enough
There'll be some changes made
beside the hemlock tree in the shade
starting today
A change of heart or in the weather
in the bread and butter eaten by Werther
who has to decide whether
or not or not or not or not or not
nobody wants you when you're doubt and out
and this I know without a doubt
let the luck that was once a blaze remain an ember
I swear to be true to you come December.

The Last Shall Be First

2007-05-28T02:05:00.000-04:00

Tis I who miss you
said the double to the single
when the clockface cracked
and I turned back
and there you were.

Have you recovered
from the flu
and not discovered
someone new
to take my place?

To forgive is blessed
(your tits in my vest)
but an arm in a sling
is a wounded bra
and I get to sing
of you and your wound.

We might live in a theory
and drink in a bar
but it is your bra
for if you are Alice
(said the wedding guest)
I must be phallus.

Last Writes

2007-05-22T07:53:00.001-04:00

Too long sweets
since je suis ecrits
mon francais
is tres mal
so you will forgive me
toujours
and for the long spell
of calme.
I have un babe
with an brise arm --
abominable!
Voyons!

And for days je mange
just balloons and dust
and filled myself with
enough wonder to lift
off this livre
and morfondre
to deflate so to place
these thoughts ici.

Will you find them, lapin?
Have you tottered away
to nibble another pomme?

Oh chérie, fais-moi atterrir...

No one, no fun, no tell, no smell

2007-05-03T23:30:00.000-04:00

Don't listen, don't hear
Go tell in the hotel
Drink a cocktail
Pink and rock sale
Link and cock tale
Mink and sock, fail
Nobody is listening
My command of
Is in the land of
Cattle bottom love
Butt fluk the glove
Don't whistle, don't fear
Rookie is a chip cookie
And I am not a bookie
So don't call me nookie

Fat versus Phat

2007-04-15T14:28:00.000-04:00

I am fat and maybe phat.
I am not flat. I am fat.
My curves are curvey and that is that.
Cover your genitals with a hat.

What's the diff between this and that?
Between his and hat?
Between fat and phat?
Or is and at?

If a woman is a brat,
And a man is a rat,
Then it's as sure as tit for tat
That phat is not so fast. What?

Not so fat.
Show me your cat,
Say the boys at the frat.
The most ridiculous word in the language is twat.

Deep down the long dark country road

2007-03-25T22:17:00.000-04:00

My eye was universal.
You gave heat to sheer
nylon taupe so brave.
He raved or she craved
the oui of a Paris year
party girl or panty gril
and not named Sal or Jill
with a rack a hill and a ball.

You shamed wet there.
I loved silky hair.
Weep who will I share
your care for all I sin
for all why song
can't be wrong if you're
the swell of my azure.
Be czar my love win long.

Swell

2007-03-20T01:31:00.000-04:00

Tummy time again,
percosex and gin

I am prickly.

Cocksure surgeon
(no sturgeon, but
yes one purpose in life
and all upstream)
grabs the wrong spool
sews up my hole
with ragged edged thread
that does not dissolve
but catches puckers reds.

The last vestige of umbilicus
chewed and sewn into a hard frown.

Health, love, sisters, death, babies,
first year, spring, Easter,
work, wish I was here.

So's Yours

2007-03-11T12:35:00.000-04:00

Where have you been, sipping gin in
the inn across the street from the heat, beat?
I'm talking to the guy who eyes me in the window though
I've always said no go.
He's on a cunt hunt.
So I said to him, Jim,
Thanks but no thanks and you can wank
Upstairs where I can catch you unawares.
Who do you think you are, Beaver Cleaver?
You're talking to Sally, the gally across the alley.
Thank you for inviting me to your bachelor pad, cad.
Did you think like a kid I was born, say, yesterday?
You've always hedged bets and said let's.
This gin is no sin but a kiss for sis.
If you are my ex than what is sex, Rex?

Making Loopy (Who Me?)

2007-03-03T00:48:00.000-05:00

Another funny sunny honey
quim
for him
I mean for me
two moons for tea
one puss feeds three
ye shall see
and slip the money
in the crack
when you go
(w)ho
and don't turn back

To You

2007-02-26T02:41:00.000-05:00

To you and not about you, for you and not inside you despite previously announced intentions, in you but not of you, and the plumbing down there is very complicated and very female.
Thank you for thinking of me even if you write about you, and you are right about you, you are not who anyone winking would be thinking about even when out.
The closet is closest and everyone has something to hide.
Let's ride.
My love is godly and my glove is goodly and my gold is lovely and my hold on you is behovely.
Show me the way to the next whisky bar. Snow me the way to the next fertile jar.

What I am?

2007-02-17T19:27:00.000-05:00

I need a little third party perspective on this.

I have an upcoming gig as a guest post-er on a board where I'll need to have my own avatar. So I begged/bugged/fucked D. until he did one for me.

Christ almighty. Do I really look like a dried up video tart from the late 80's? Are those antennae? Am I cross eyed?

Can I use a pen and ink avatar of my thumb up my ass?

They Think (Whoever They Are)

2007-02-16T21:33:00.000-05:00

They say etc something slanderous.

They think that I am somebody
with a name, earned or not,
or just somebody,
but whoever it is that I am
what I am I am because of you.

Who said anything about love?

Yet who can write a sentence
without me and mine, yours and you?

I'd say this has more to do
with what is real
than what is true.

Good Golly Miss Molly (A Sonnet)

2007-02-15T23:16:00.000-05:00

"I shall ghost write a sonnet and make believe it came from you,"
He wrote in his last note. OK let's see what he did do.

<<<
Good Golly Miss Molly (A Sonnet)

Comedy ends in marriage,
tragedy in death.
Religion begins in breath
or the fear of god.

The fear of go is sacrilege
in Japan
where Lear changed his name
to Ran
and gained fame.

Girls write novels,
Judges bang gavels,
Boys bang girls.
Please don't cut your curls.
I love your code.
Do you love my booty?
Am I your cutie?
>>>

That's what happens when guys in love with your ass
write sonnets. Fifteen lines. The smell of gas.

You Know Me So Well

2007-02-13T00:27:00.000-05:00

If I called you Alice instead of Al,
would you still be my pal?

In loving you I love the truth
and lament my youth.

(I typed "use" and out came "sue."
Here are more names we can sue.
Jack is one, Jane is two.)

I was your Jane.
You were my Jack.
You rode my back.
I entered your brain.

The Kissing Wink

2007-02-11T23:47:00.000-05:00

Here's to you, the kissing wink, the missing link, the fisting drink, the lasting blink, the wasting drink, the fasting jinx, the cat who thinks, the kitty ho flinch, the ass that got pinched, and O O O O, you must be the one who sat on the stool when I was a fool and you were so cool and we were in school.

So do I love you or what?

Be your caterpillar and oh so so so. Oh no. Don't go. Be my Alice, and I shall be your caterpillar and we shall sit on top of a mushroom and smoke a pipe. If you shall chew then I shall be true and you will know who says I do. Welcome back, and no attack.

You and not your son, you and not your salt, you and not your czar because we are not in Russia and where we are is where there are little stars crumbling and God whirling through like the wind along the great white milky way.

I serve the greater god by loving you.

How Language Works

2007-02-09T08:08:00.000-05:00

I'm writing to you tootsie,
fingers on keys, (pads— mostly 8 and the edges of thumbs)
finding the letters Mrs. Fat Butterscotch Sucking Typing Teacher taught me -
hanging manila folders over my hands and stalking up and down the aisles
of clattering typewriters in my eighth grade class.

But I am not writing about you.

I am conscious of you
(counting, last night pat, a long time watching that one time, walking)
and what forms and follows through all sorts of filters to my arms with their lotion smells like cocoa butter and sandalwood and then on to the fingers where there are sometimes rings (BIG like the Tiffany one that someONE gave me with all the stones for the every year we've done that thing we do)
(smaller is the little band from a Nana -- a dish towel the only other thing I have of hers) and finally the tips of fingers which I called pads above is writing what comes from me. But it is still mine and I may be writing to you but I am never writing about you. It's about me.

When I write the poem about falling off a high horse, too tired to hold the reins from clutching babies and sucking cock, my only regret is that lying slut who cannot be pinned down more firmly. Language. But this is the work I do - duplicitous, solitary, dull, difficult, slippery, nipples. I digress.

Wilder was right--it’s the price of being a poet; valuing life every, every minute.

Miss Hue

2007-02-05T07:55:00.000-05:00

Is Blue

The color of lost

Molly's aloning
atoning
not boning

sick
in the belly
head ache and
telling
the following
story
of woe:

I've pinched small babes and hated dogs
I've slapped a nun, exploded frogs
I've cut buttons from your best shirts
I've stolen half of your dessert
I've opened your letters and read them all
And still there's this that is c'est mal

I've missed my sea man,
(From your #1 fan)
I have been ill
filled only with pills
this no communication
is conjugal starvation
or orgiastic pain
and no one's gain.
So though there's no humming
pen nib or velluming
I'm out here in cyber
in a recuperative hyber-
nation for no certain time
but when better I'll chime
and give you hellos
that start from my toes.

- Miss Sing Hue (a.k.a. Molly F. Arden)

When Friends Depart

2007-02-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

There are several possibilities:
(A) When friends lave (I mean leave, I like it when they lave, and sometimes they love but that's another complication) and you see them once a year and then once every two ears and then once every three eras and then they get divorced or you have Baby # 1 and you move to California and that is the virtual end. Should you sob?
(B) There are also friends that become enemies and you wonder whether they always were and you just didn't know it.
So I ask you all: what is the difference between friend and rival and friendly rival?
When does a friend become an enemy?
Can you lose a friend or will you always have that friend?
Is this wishful thinking or should I just take a bath and read Emerson on "Friendship"?
Advice, please, Miss Sanders?
Thank you.

Molly Gets Letters

2007-01-29T00:00:00.001-05:00

The letters we get go from A to z with twenty-four stops between
like the apple eaten in the thoughtless morning
or the zoological metaphor that gives the conspirators away
like a violin "giving itself to someone"
in a French "new wave" movie of the 1960s.
Get over it.
Dear Molly Arden:
What's your real name?
What's your position on Lebanon?
Can I petititon you later on?
Did you go to the mall to protest the war?
Dear MA,
Are you a housewife in drag?
Are you a husband in disguise?
Am I wise?
How can I save my marriage?
Dear Molly,
What do you do when the dog barks?
B stands for B, C for codpiece, D for dingus.
Dear Molly,
What does M stand for? Does A stand for it?
When you stand, what is under you?
What don't you understand?
If I type real fast "poems" comes out "popems."
Is that what you mean by the enrichment of errors?
Sincerely yours, Molly.

Dedicated to the One I Love

2007-01-20T10:59:00.000-05:00

Let's start with you, Elizabeth or Margaret or Catherine.
Go wish, but no dish.
I am also dedicating this to such poets of my non-acquaintance
as Woody Allen, Ben Bernanke, Rosemary Clooney,
Bobby Darren, Everyman, Frankie Frisch, Gary Giddins,
Robert Indiana, Heidi Julevitz,
Galway Kinnell, David Lehman, Maureen McGovern, and the N word,
Barack Obama, Jackson Pollock, Queen, Russia, Paul Simon (the Senator),
Twyla Tharp, Uncas, Venezuela (pre Chavez), Lee Wiley,
X, Yale, and Zeus.
Now that's what I call a self-portrait.
Thanks, Jim.
My favorite rhyme of the day is "jealousy" and "lousy."
OK, but let's say she knows that if he
goes to the party with the congresswoman from Virginity
one of them is going to emerge from the bedroom
with egg on her face, and then what?
Are you surprised to hear that Hillary Clinton
is going to run for president?
So, too, is Barack Obama even though
his middle name is Hussein and he admits
to smoking grass and also doing a little blow
as a young man. It may work to his advantage.
He's a nice looking man, and I like what he said
when they asked him whether he inhaled.
"That was the point," he said.

My "Career"

2007-01-10T23:27:00.000-05:00

I began by feeling sorry for myself and then I realized
how beautiful I was bathing in a Greek island
while old men watched like the elders watching Suzanna.
Let them look.
Today I decided that I would do what I really wanted,
but I couldn't figure out what that was. Any suggestions?
An allergy attack in a public place is an embarrassment
that happened to me but my date was too busy watching
the Knicks lose to the Celtics to notice my tears.
I didn't want my career to flourish, which is probably
the secret of my success. It's like playing hard to get.
It won't work unless it's sincere.

Good Morning, Contessa

2007-01-01T13:43:00.000-05:00

Good morning to you, 2007. I hear they're running a poetry contest at the Best American Poetry web site (www.bestamericanpoetry.com) and I may enter. But in the mean time and all time is mean, here's a little contest for youse, contessa.
Who wrote these lines?

It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing --
Too present to imagine.

What does "It" stand for? Who wrote these lines? What is the title of the poem I am quoting? Anyone who answers "Burnt Norton" by T. S. Eliot wil be disqualified. For extra credit, disregard three of these questions and write a one-paragraph prose poem defending the proposition that "carpe diem" as a strategy will not work in "modern" times. Be sure to define "modern." Hint: it will be easier to answer if you. If you see Kay tell her. Down the slippery slope we slid. See www.slope.org for more along those lines to be read while drinking fine wines. Check out www.mipoesias.com for a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. Consider www.operationpaperback.org for a better idea for what to do with those used books of yours you can't bear to toss.

Lucky Garnet Replies to Dice Raymond

2006-12-29T20:39:00.000-05:00

As Alice says, it would be nice if things made sense for a change.
But Alice, dear, things never made sense, not even when falling apart
in a poem by William Butler Yeats
about two orgasms for the price
of one or Robert Frost's way the world will end twice
once with fire and once with ice.
Here, hold my center.
Come again, dear swain.
Come like the rain.
We'll take your cock and my tail,
and we will invent the Martini, my love.
Meanwhile who will walk down lover's lain
while Alice corrects the spelling of lane
and I shall talk about Alice's sins and Alice's sons
with the cat whose smile was never there.
When things make no sense, come again.
I'll drikn to that. I'll drink to hat. I'll flat your what.
But for now, Phil will fill the bill
and Alice wll be no prude with Gertrude
and Molly will not be solly but will stay jolly.
Heigh ho the holly!
And will I come through with resolutions new
too good to be untrue?
Tomorrow!

In the sweeps

2006-12-25T01:01:00.000-05:00

In the "silent night" sweepstakes, the bigger baritone usually wins.
Sometimes the dancer wins.
At other times the loveliest on the floor has blonde hair
and looks crookedly at Dice Raymond.
Who is Dice Raymond?
Dice Raymond is a gambling man, who won the casino in a poker game last night.
Funny, how everything returns to the same two constants amid all the changes.
The tenors can sing but can't act.
The sopranos can sing but are fat.
The strings have picked up the theme.
It's the first time we hear it.
It's snowing in Vermont where we met but where we are not and where
we may never meet again on the bumpy road to love.
But there are other places -- other than Cleveland, I mean.
The gambler gets the best songs but loses the girl.
It's double or nothing. And the crowds cheer.
Your king of clubs loses to my ace of diamonds.
The man in the tuxedo goes home and shoots himself, but that happens off stage.
The bully gets his ass kicked.
The gambler makes the same bet twice.
Everyone is forgiven when the girlfriend gets pregnant.
And the lost art of ballroom dancing is magically restored to us.

The Gift

2006-12-24T00:20:00.000-05:00

"My gift to you is to be you and to let you be me," said the Mister to the tree.
"Your gift to me is a love song that I will write for you to sing."

You can't go wrong with a love song.
The proof is in the rock.

Boy is her joy.
Her joystick toy.

She's my ally or my alley or my pally or

2006-12-22T12:03:00.000-05:00

I suggest that everyone write a poem from the point of view of the opposite sex! Or a novel , if you can do it in one day.
Another thing you might do is pick a photo of what you would look like if you were a man (or a woman).
OK, folks, start your engines, as Ronnie Reagan would say!
Tomorrow my candidates for the top ten.

The Code

2006-12-17T01:29:00.000-05:00

Everything is code. For example, what is the meaning of "Bye Bye Miss American Pie"? It was a big bullshit popular song in 1971 or '72 full of portent. It was code for at least three cliches: the end of an era, the end of innocence, and the end is near. How about the Beach Boy's "Wouldn't it be nice"? Now that was more profound.

How about "You Light Up My Life" as performed in sign language during the Academy Awards? How about the theme from "A Summer Place," a triumph of schmaltz and violins that rose to number two on the hit parade in 1958? How about "He's So Fine" later known as "My Sweet Lord"? How about "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"?

These songs have meaning. The most insipid teenage handholder conceals a bonk or a boner, a bonus or a boob, a bra or a bodice, a banana peel or a blood orange, a ball and chain, a blast from the past, a blueberry yoghurt two months past its shelf date, a Bloody Mary, a blowhard mule, maximum braggadacio.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, farewell Miss America, adieu Mrs. Miniver, aufwiedersehen Ms. Take, adios Mr. Ree, au revoir Madame Eggs, shalom the Missus, a domani Madame Merle, hasta la vista Mr. Kaminsky from Brooklyn and Mr. Scwhartz from Tony Curtis, so long Miss Sadie Lou, see you later, alligator, Ms. Benton on her back in Vermont.

The code is this. For male read female. For island read society. For church read brothel. For jail read camp. For code read ode. For now read then. For accident read intimate. For love read death. For death read tristesse following consummation of sex act with her, the one I love who belongs to comebody else.

People fight for their right to be greedy

2006-12-13T15:32:00.000-05:00

There are those who are needy
and those who are greedy
and some own pharmacy chains
and some sing when it rains.

I've been here for part of a year
so let's give us a cheer
and if you write me a letter
honey I'm going to feel better.

I would say it is time

2006-12-11T01:26:00.000-05:00

I would say it is time. It is time and temperature.
Go ahead, make that call.
Say, have you seen Karen Volkman's sonnets in the latest issue of "jubilat"? They're divine, especially the one beginning with the line, "Nice knuckle, uncle. Nice hat, hornet." The rhyme scheme is as subtle as a hooded figure in a medieval village on a snowy day in Europe with evil black birds circling overhead.
I love the word evil as in "she's evil" said with a laugh after listening to M. discuss her latest exquisite predicament.
Because mirrors reverse images, we never see outselves as others see us except in photographs or movies. That is why movies mesmerize, even bad ones. They used to, anyway. The new ones are too mediocre to sustain my attention. Mediocre is boring as evil is not. The relation of the word "mediocre" in that sentence to the word "medieval" in the sentence about the hooded figure interests me.
What I really wrote was "subtle as a clitoris."

Singing in the sun, rain, snow, and sleet

2006-12-09T13:44:00.000-05:00

I love this comment from Her, and by Her do I mean Herman Neutics or what?

<< We're takin' turns
around this joint
but sometimes worried we'll disapoint.
But you're not home and I'm alone and
We're taking turns
and I'm turned on
so I diddle and wait for your return
to take a turn
cause we're taking turns.
So turn it high
cause you're my guy
(in the kitchen in the bedroom)
I think you're fly. >>

What can I add? Let's see:

We're takin' turns
at home or in school
where love burns
and I'm a fool
for (a) love and (b) you
and you want to --
and I do too --
so let's take turns.

Let's take turns
and then let's case
this joint
and not disappoint.

The bedroom's the place
where love discerns
the outcome of the race
which is a tie
because he's her guy
and she's the reason why
they're takin' turns.

Molly writes a song

2006-12-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

I'm writing a song. It's called "Taking Turns." Can you help?
Here's what I've got so far:

We're taking turns,
You and I,
In the kitchen
(And I'm not bitchin)
Or the bedroom
(There's more head room).
We're taking turns,
And you're my guy.
We're taking turns,
And getting high.
We're taking turns. . .

Tour Buzz

2006-12-02T15:02:00.000-05:00

No Tell Books has taken to the open road to promote its latest publications.

Maybe I'll make it down to one of the readings? The Albany one on Sunday looks like my best bet. See you there?

Here are the deets:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2006 - 8:00 p.m. - Release Party - 11436 Fairway Drive, Reston, VA
Readers: Bruce Covey, PF Potvin and Reb Livingston

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2006 - 4 p.m. - i.e. Reading Series, Clayton & Co. Fine Books, 317 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD
Readers: Bruce Covey, PF Potvin and Reb Livingston

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2006 - 4 p.m. - Behind the Egg: A reading series, 383.5 Madison Avenue, Albany, NY
Readers: Bruce Covey, PF Potvin and Reb Livingston

MONDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2005 - 7 p.m. - Central Connecticut State University, CCSU Bookstore, New Britain, CT
Readers: Bruce Covey, PF Potvin, Ravi Shankar and Reb Livingston

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2006 - 7 p.m. - The Ordinary Evening Reading Series, 272 College St, New Haven, CT
Readers: Bruce Covey, PF Potvin, Ravi Shankar and Reb Livingston

My very educated mother just served us noodles.

2006-11-28T20:38:00.001-05:00

Venetia Phair,

88 and coated in Rose Milk folds, I've read you don't care much for the ongoing debate.

But I feel that the 11 year old namer would - the precocious student of classical mythology, who put her thumb all at once on the “P” and “L” of the discoverer's initials and the invisible Roman God of the Underworld, to land on "Pluto".

The future teacher who received a five pound reward in return for her efforts (worth less and less).

And now your planet is reduced to dwarf planet status.

Do you suppose this Pluto, eleven years your junior, watches your attenuation with similar submission?

What Gertrude Told Alice

2006-11-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

This is what Alice said...
<<>>
2:22 AM
Notice she said the hero would arrive "just when you're needed host." Host, not most. Thus, the hero is the host. And not the kind you taste with the drop of wine in the church you don't attend. For the only church is the temple of the body which in the flesh is not immortal unless the flesh is transformed into paint on a canvas, or words on parchment, and the story is told of the hero and the virgin, Sir Launcelot who used his lance every chance he got. I'm quoting someone. I'm always quoting someone. But whom?
Can it be?

You'll never know if you don't know now

2006-11-22T11:21:00.000-05:00

I guess I still agree with myself though a night or two of insomnia raises the possibility that "they" are using the VCR in the bedroom to film themselves in order to review the action later or to leave as a clue for the police in case some red-blooded s & m gets out of hand and the survivor is the killer and the victim is the voyeur. OK, your job is to make a sentence using the words prison, police car, luck, nails, and the color of her nail polish in the same anti-nostalgic sentence. But you know me, Alice. I always liked being the lost of the Mohicans.

Eat when hungry

2006-11-20T21:07:00.000-05:00

Did you know about the VCR in the bedroom test?
Yeah, well, I didn't.

In working on writing the foreword to the second anthology for No Tell Motel (online) I've been deep in sex/slut/raunch/whore/pretty girl sucky stuff. Loving it, don't get me wrong -- Molly's always been one to drive slow with an eye toward the sticky. But there seem to be a few small pockets of generally well-known naughty vulgarities that are completely lost on me. It's disturbing.

Like discovering I've been eating water on my cereal while the rest of the world is blithely enjoying bowls of creamy slurpy drinky it up yum yum lick it lap it up milky cereal. Why didn't anyone tell me about the milk? And believe me, I've fucking eaten plenty of cereal, people. I've had boxes. I've eaten it dry and wet and sugary and good for me and cause it tasted good and late at night just because I was hungry and in the morning before going to teach because it filled my belly and with marshmallows and with flakes and nuts and point is: I know about it.

So here I am, a veritable expert when it comes to all things sexy and vulgar and in the midst of putting this to paper for the sake of the book, a friend who I'm talking to about porn asks me if I routinely perform the "VCR Test". I get quiet -- hoping she'll fill in her own blank (something I could have gone on about for days).

You know, she says. The VCR in the BEDROOM?
Huh? I still don't get it.
Porn, she says.

I get it. Finally. I had never suspected that all those TV/VCR combo's I've half noticed in friend's bedrooms or (good god) in my own parent's bedroom were not being used to play favorite old tapes of "Yentl" while the room's occupants innocently drifted off to sleep. I'm imagining an old Dexter Shoe box neatly lined with old favorites: Cavernous Cunts, Deep Throating Dildos, Pumping Irene, Four Foxy Ladies -- stuffed under the bed or hidden under the LL Bean sweaters in the bottom drawer, saved for "special" nights. Those tapes - small sparks/damp paper/ wet matches -- are they really sustaining whole fucking relationships? I wouldn't build a Kleenex bridge, stiff with cum, on that foundation. What happened to creativity? Does anyone remember imagination?

So I'm chalking it up to those-- "special" nights. Molly Arden is not the sort to limit herself to just one or two "specials". And, if I had to rely on this setup, my box would never get put away (oh, the fun I could have with that one) and my VCR would have to be on some sort of cart with wheels. I suppose if someone was making me choose between not eating or eating something frozen out of a box, I'd choose the boxed dinner only if I was really, really hungry. But goddamn I'd have to be hungry and something would have to be seriously wrong with the my hands, and the power would have to be shut off and we'd probably have to be out of batteries and any tuberous vegetables.

The change in the weather will keep us together

2006-11-16T01:22:00.000-05:00

From a notebook:

Last night yes I did.
Last night no we did not.
Did not we what?
Produce a kid.
Off the ball tear the lid.
Aces are trumps yet hearts you bid.
Of this nuisance must we get rid.
Leave the rot for what time forgot.
Leave the time for what we did not.
Leave the crime and thanks a lot.
I prefer weather that's hot.
You prefer the weather that's better.
I prefer to write you a love letter.
See you later, love. Wear a sweater.

What's New: A Sonnet by Molly

2006-11-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

If it is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
Go to the Iowa [stet] Jima memorial and see
The flowers that someone named She
Described as beauteous to me.

I wanted to be sure to reach you
Because Anne Porter's poems are true.
I read the Wall Street Journal and caught the flu
After you were bitch-slapped by who?

Stars, I have seen them all.
But that was years before the mall.
It was the day autumn turned into fall.
Julius Caesar plus Jesus Christ equals Gaul plus Paul

So I quickly packed a few things (scarlet lipstick)
And made you pack your artifical dick.

You were Right about the Hair.

2006-11-10T22:58:00.000-05:00

Streisand holiday classics jacuzzi haze and Jezebel sandwich
Nordic lodge bear skin hook rug prison soap pussy's with teeth
winging phone eggs over hard bananas and cream pie.

Three bags up three flights
for three nights.
The weight of the luggage
was pills and poison,
infrastructure.

Mon dieu, verde monte.

Honey Bun

2006-11-05T22:41:00.000-05:00

Calling to say goodnight from here
I'm hard at work and misssing you dear.
No one ever writes me a line
to say goodnight or even find
out if I'm lonely, good, or bad.
So goodnight kisses gangster style
pucker up for the eigth avenue mile.
Little Molly's fingers working
and everybody else is lurking.

Because I don't know you

2006-11-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Who would think that Molly would have anything left to say by Friday- especially a Friday so covered in deadlines and boredom? All week was small scraps of desire - time, information, new car/shoes/eyes, inspiration, and tiny bits of fulfillment. But here it is, late Friday and there are still things left to say.

Since forever Molly is the sort of woman who has always gotten what she wants. And I don't mean just material things. When I was a gangly-kneed 9 year old, I'd write the score I wanted to get on the back of a spelling test before even looking at it. Invariably, I'd meet or beat that score. I knew the first time I heard Mr. Hall read at a small church in Wilmont, NH that I could get him to invite me back to his house, let me cook him dinner and within a few months time, move into his house and lounge on the sofa each morning over coffee and baseball scores read aloud out of the local paper. It turns out I didn't end up needing to -- the Tufts summer program offered housing -- but it was the offer that counted.

The process of procurement is as complex as the process for writing a poem. It's a sidelong glance at what I want - never an overt grab for the ball. A true indication of craving risks exposure (at best) or denial (I'd have to guess it would be horrible). Even the glance can transform what is coveted. It's like catching a woman looking at herself in a rear view mirror at a stop sign, applying lip gloss and appreciating herself as if she's the only being alive. If she sees you watching, the purse gets snapped shut, the mirror flicked closed and she's back to humming Lionel Ritchie tunes and mental-listing her day. But if you're careful about how you watch, you can steal a whole show from those few minutes she spends with the mirror.

To what end all this? A box of trinkets? A book? An old desk filled with foreign words whose every meaning I know? Maybe it's the poetry. Maybe it's about seeing. Maybe because it feels good and alive.

May Swenson's poem gets at it a little better than I am right now. Here's the last part that I'm thinking of especially:

"Because I Don't Know You"

...Did it pierce you
there, my look of hunger, like a hook?
I wanted only a sniff, a tongue-tip's
taste, a moment's bath in your rare
warmth. That last night, trading
goodbyes, when we kissed-or you did, me-
my hand took your nape, plunged under
the thick spill of your hair. Then
I stepped into the dark, out of the light
of the party, the screen door's yellow
square sliding smaller and smaller behind
me. You've become a dream of ripe
raspberries, in summer country: deep, dark
red lips, clean, gleaming generous smile.
Who owns you? I don't know. I'll hide you
away in my dream file. Stay there. Don't
change. I don't know you-and had better
not. Because I don't know you, I love you.
-May Swenson

Opinions Please

2006-11-01T20:10:00.000-05:00

The Peep-Toe Pump
(And by this, of course I'm referring to the shoe...)

Yea or nae? What say you?
And can I wear it in winter?
(did I mention that we've already seen flakes
up here? and by flakes I mean snow...)

Vic Y sent a poem to Molly

2006-11-01T17:19:00.000-05:00

Here's to you, Victor Y. Thank you for sharing your poem. MA

<<
Do tell
about No Tell. . .

There's a wall
and not a wail
I was tall
and on your tail
Did we ball
or did we bail?

So sail
don't sell
don't fail
do fall

& do tell
about No Tell
>>

Odysseus

2006-11-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

(Preparation for Epic Journey)
Packing:

Hero
Wax
Rope
Heat
Freshman (incl. various accoutrements)

I'm drinking tea - hot and milky. Book open, bridged between my two thighs. I lean in to mark notes and feel my shirt slide forward too. Remembering my first time reading it in ninth grade and all the good parts explained away by Mrs. Hardink. That year I ate a Suzie Q for the first time and didn't know that a wisp of cream on a lip was sexy. But I heard the boy next to me whisper it.

A Story that Could Be True

2006-10-30T09:37:00.000-05:00

A robbery on the train.
Too many knives in all the drawers.

Wanting to know if your mother died
but our closeness precludes my asking.

Did you look for me?

The whole world around me
and every face a stranger.

Oh Ammons, you said it best:
I traipse my dull self down the aisles of

desire and settle for nothing, nothing wanted,
nothing spent, nothing got.

New York, you took no bite, left no feeling.

Ten Foolish Things

2006-10-29T10:33:00.000-05:00

Ten foolish things anyone can do:
10 Vote Republican hoping this will precipitate the inevitable next stage in the collapse of Capitalism
9 Lose your virginity to a sex columnist
8 Write a pisser of a dissertation on Henry ("Scoop")Jackson Mac Low & expect to get it published by Calvin Coolidge Archibald Mac Leish
7 Lose your job after blogging about blow job given to ungrateful boss
6 Convert to Catholicism and lie at your first confession
5 Pretend you like Joan Didion's books
4 Join a woman's only pyramid scheme and lose $3,000
3 Tell boyfriend your e-mail password
2 Watch reruns of "Project Runway" instead of doing your homework
1 Drive to Mexico in a rented car and park it in the street overnight.

Your own top ten lists are welcome!

Magic Trick Death Taxi Jezebel Bitch Earring

2006-10-27T00:26:00.000-04:00

When I get to New York I'm going straight to the bright whore dirty art around window cage tree cage light dick death taxi show.

Take me there and you can kiss my ass in Macy's window, shaking and baking like a point guard. You can blame it on the blossom ova or the bossa nova or the dance from Brazil or the chance of a spill.

Bury my middle in Middlebury!

I hope you know how excited I am to be with you and in the bright whore dirty martini around window cage free cape fight lick death taxi show.

O how I long to be the gal I used to be! Fascinate my rhythm, city of New York.

If you're wrong about the smoke

2006-10-24T20:22:00.000-04:00

Molly's been planning a recovery of sorts. In the hinterlands of Middlebury it is easy to feel undone - all those sterling silver dolphin earrings and Tevas with Smartwool socks. So I've planned a quick trip back to the Big Apple. Hoping to be bitten by anything (one) with teeth. Maybe spend the entire sum of my Friday pay on a pair of shoes.

I'm staying in an apartment in Manhattan - a friend of friends. Who leaves their home open to a complete stranger? Molly Arden, no less?! If it's anything other than a wooden table with a single glass and a cotton blanket in the corner I may spend the entire weekend sifting through the delicious contents of a stranger's home. Imagine what sort of souvenir someone might choose from among your things. What could go missing without your noticing it but still serve as a fulfilling representative of a stay at your place? Would it be the gecko necklace tucked in the nightstand drawer? The very tiny pottery bowl at the back of your hutch? Smaller? Well, maybe it'd be the pearl button tossed in the top drawer of the hall desk among the change, the gum, the chapstick.

It's the city. She makes me nervous and turns me on. She's got her ass backed up against me in bed and I can't decide whether to pretend I'm still sleeping or just say Fuck It, Thank you, More. Bright whore dirty art around window cage tree cage light dick death taxi show. I feel like waking up.

I can't promise I won't be thinking about what I'd like to steal from this lovely stranger who's been kind enough to open his apartment to me for the weekend. I can't say that I won't be a whole new Molly on Monday. I might have a new lipstick, a new word, a new muscle. I can say with certainty that I will not be doing the fire dance trick in the living room like that time at Mary Oliver's. That's one promise I intend to keep.

High Cue

2006-10-22T00:14:00.000-04:00

To collaborate

with you is great. I can't wait

to collaborate!

Molly Writes a Two-Part Poem and Dedicates it to You

2006-10-20T00:42:00.000-04:00

1.
You leave a clue in public, a leaf in a swimming pool.
They let you get away with it. They smoke they pipe and they fool
They people. The indolent detective hobbles on one foot.
The god doctor who develops the potion, collects the loot,
And the frat boy uses X to sedate and Y to seduce the lost
Lady not yet twenty-one and already an adulteress. The loss
Stings, though she is stoic, and feels that the less
Said the better. And if Alice had a phallus, what a mess.
A lapsed Catholic, she stopped going to mass
When they dropped Latin, and lost her virginity when still a miss.
2.
In her mind is a scientist and in the scientists's mind the moon
Is a monster and the monster heaves a moan.
And if Alice had a phallus, she would need no moat
To protect her virtue. You get to eat meat
Five days a week in this century. On weekends you meet
And nibble on mushrooms atop of clouds on which the blonde will melt
With a giant ape on the apex of a building. The climax will be felt
If not earned, and will have nothing to do with her horny feet.

When They Ask Me

2006-10-18T00:44:00.000-04:00

When they ask me why, when they ask me if, as if it were I who was going to die and not them tonight or any night, if they press close and come to a rest against my chest and ask me for a comment, I'll say what I always say when "no comment" won't suffice. A charm a single charm is a boon and not a farm in a foreign land that's coming soon when a girl with tits confronts the morning (swoon) and where is the melody worthy of the moon? To quote Gertrude Stein, "if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest." Get it?

two handed love

2006-10-17T21:55:00.000-04:00

This morning's sunrise was enough to remind me of blazes and universes and proms and uprisings. Every color of anger and baby, it rose out of quickly fading trees like murderous rage and too soon became the usual blue I've been passing under for ever.

The first thing to greet me at work was a blanket email from a co-drone with a simple message about enjoying the beautiful sunrise on his way into work. I emailed back an itty bitty piece of a poem and I'm not even saying which because fuck if that math for brains didn't email back some seventh grade sort of bra floundering response. Does every penis have to be scared of a little balls on a woman? Don't answer. I already know.

Museum of Green Eyes

2006-10-16T00:06:00.000-04:00

In the museum the woman
I thought the dance critic
The statues came to life.

The green eyes of the girl
Were windows with fire
Escapes in front of them.

The fruit of the poppy
After six days of work:
How did God know?

If God didn't want us
To smoke cigarettes,
Do you think wet

Dreams cause puddles
On sheets for no reason
Or what do you take me for?

Granted: I love it you love it
He loves she loves it
And for penance they do it, too.

Monopoly

2006-10-12T23:42:00.000-04:00

Monopoly

It's almost time for the new hotel
to go up on the Boardwalk in "Monopoly."
The family is playing with an electric train.
There are pellets of smoke.
The romance of trains is over but they don't know it.
There are different ships: ocean liners,
cruisers, destroyers, aircraft carriers, and
each is beautiful though all will soon be obsolete.
No one cries for a fifty-year-old orphan.

When I play "Monopoly," I pick a hat, the mad hat.
The best strategy is to control the green and yellow
and red properties and build houses and hotels on them.
It's a real estate approach to capitalism
which is good as far as it goes but leaves out the superstructural
stuff, like the feminine scent in the bathroom.

In conclusion, "Monopoly" is a very fun game
though an imperfect representation of capitalism in action,
and it may even be said to be
to board games what Beethoven is to symphonies.

the parts of the body

2006-10-12T01:41:00.000-04:00

The parts of the body
equal the parts of speech.

The head is the subject.
The hair is the adjective.
The neck is the predicate nominative.
If I were asked I would say the lips are subjunctive.
Lips move like verbs and words come out.
The moving of the lips is the verb.

Also, tits can be the subject.
Cock can be the subject.
Nipples are the object of the preposition.
Testicles can function as either a gerund or a participle
and sometimes a dangling participle.

I didn't teach the middle school youngsters of our republic's future for the last fifteen hours or days or weeks or months without a sleeping pill and with kids of my own and walk down the corridors and see them in front of their lockers for nothing, the nude little darlings!

Sleep

2006-10-07T20:14:00.000-04:00

Cherry stem tied in knot,
wet ring on napkin,
dusk, slippery road.

Fall.
We're at it again.
I won't sleep,
eat only carrots or rice,
hold my breath the whole night we're sleeping/not sleeping.

I take the sleeping pill
days after dinner
years after the drinks
and only then, centuries later
feel the unravel the want
unloose the breathing
everything coming open for you.

The news reports dark eating, sleep feasting.
Bien, ambien, the flesh, the mess
and afterwards I sleep hard.

Fresh Men

2006-10-06T23:20:00.000-04:00

Have I explained before the deep and broken love I have with teaching?

I'd rather pluck hens than correct these some 133 essays on myth/ology but fuck if these essays don't pay the bills and leave so much more time for shoes and feet and drinks and good bread and TiVo and soap and books - a selection of poetry recommended by a friend and then overnighted by Amazon (Molly points finger -- You. Here. Now.).

So tonight all the children are getting left behind, G.W. , and I'm going face first into some Cummins or maybe some Auden.

Money is the Root of All Baseball

2006-10-06T00:26:00.000-04:00

Money is more baseball than important, and every line has to have the name of a first-baseman and a dollar amount. For example: Steve Garvey hit a double and a single and I borrowed a thousand dollars from my mother. The ball popped out of the catcher's mitt and was caught by Pete Rose when the boys chased me and I came home from school with blood on my knees. Keith Hernandez fielded the bunt perfectly and got the runner at second base and they paid me an extra thousand dollars to model for modern painters 103 with Professor Ruskin. Albert Pujols homered to win game one for the Cardinals and I transferred a thousand dollars from my checking to my savings account.
Thus would the meaning of inflation be conveyed, and thus would the limits of my vocabulary mean the limits of my world, which is a good reason to learn English or be grateful it's your first language. But Don Mattingly no longer plays first for the Yankees and it will cost many thousands of dollars to reform our high schools or get this country moving again.
Is this a prose sonnet? It is.

Supposin'

2006-10-05T00:02:00.000-04:00

Suppose it were 1974 and you could save four persons from the burning roof of the skyscraper. Would you choose:
(1) Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Fred Astaire
(2) An average Joe, an average Jane, Ernest Borgnine, and the widow who works at the dry cleaning store
(3) To rush into the anachronistic future and pluck from the annals of the 1990s Jennifer Connelly, Jennifer Aniston, Gennifer Flowers, and a fourth Jennifer who knows how to spell her own name
(4) To dodge the ball and think very serious thoughts such as "This is the last time I will be five years old. It is 1974, and it will not always be 1974."
Such an epiphany happened to me though not then, for the "I" you read here and the "eye" you think you see through are neither the same nor opposite -- and yes, I am aware of what William Blake had to say on the subject. A semi-colon salutes you, Susan Sontag, an unfinished sentence in a lecture that keeps going and growing even after death, like hair and fingernails.
I never liked John Wayne until I saw "Cast a Giant Shadow" and he was so much taller than everyone else and someone was just commenting that John Wayne died in only one movie, I'm not sure which, maybe "Sands of Iwo Jima," and I remembered the headline on the Daily News when John Wayne was quoted saying he "Beat the Big C" -- cancer -- late in his life.
So here's to you, John Wayne. I nominate you to play Bill Clinton in the movie even though you are tactiturn and he verbose, but then I like casting against type and I will always admire Susan Stamberg for saying her favorite Marlon Brando moment was his singing "Luck Be a Lady" in the movie version of "Guys and Dolls."
The correct answer by the way is (e).

Molly Writes a New Sonnet

2006-10-04T00:17:00.000-04:00

Molly Mutters to Herself After Walking Past Edna St. Vincent Millay

Most men don't know the difference
bestween pasties and panties.
I know, because Junior Francesca used
to be one, and so were her chatty aunties.
"So tell me what happened at Linz?"
She took the subway and she was goosed.
No way, they said, it's abuse.
It's abuse when you phone
and yell at a man who used to sleep
with you but now sleeps alone
at three in the morning and you reap
what you knit not, Madame DeFarge,
because you and I want to "live large"
at cliff's edge, contemplating a leap.

Praise for an Ern

2006-10-02T23:53:00.000-04:00

This is for Danny Heep, who asks, "in all humidity," who Ern Malley is. Well, Danny, m'boy, many Aussies regard him as the greatest modern Australian poet -- on the strength of a mere dozen poems. Not only that, they were all written on one Saturday afternoon in 1943 by a pair of jokers serving in the Australian army. The authors set out to ridicule modern poetry. They thought the poems were bad and they bet the literati wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Ern Malley was invented as the author of the poems, a modern urban esthete dying young like a latter-day Keats. The story was convincing enough to take in the editor of Australia's leading avant-garde literary journal, who published the poems, trumpeting their greatness. <<>> I'm paraphrasing an article on Ern Malley I read in "Jacket," John Tranter's magazine. I understand that an edition of the letters of Ethel Malley, Ern's older sister, is under weigh.