the burlesque poetess(s)

poem-a-day week25 “Confounding but fun-sounding!”

October 18-24, 2010 week25: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day
http://poetesss.tumblr.com/PAD

Tales of Polish bday week/month of more shows than sleep, decadence and melty fondue memories of floral wreathlets that don’t slip off your halo. In close decisions equally-worthy of being the teaser-poem— read my bday poem & my 2nd-to-last cabaret-busk poem, as it has vidjo!

170. October 21, 2010 (thurs., after the witching hour still out singing/being bday noisy…)
Half-and-half & nostalgia in mine

Creep out the garden gate
To all tomorrow’s fondess
Shit, someone got the flower girl

Drunk, wreathlet askew in all these photos
Fear is not endearing, a little wine blush
On the knees, dandelion smile

The cork-pop and laughter over the tear
-jerker toast, something shiny crunching underfoot
While dyed-to-match shoes rub identical

Blisters on the foxes fleeing the dance floor
That scene where “gin-pagne”
And knock-you-on-your-ass applejack

Have happened— be glad the parties
You leave still exhale aftershave and warm
Frivolity, indoor parodies of drum circles

A kind of goosing, unlacing flirting
That sparky new pair in the coat closet
That old story smoking on the front stoop

Throw some stray petals (or lime wedges)
Over your left shoulder for luck
Tomorrow there won’t be empty milk
Bottles waiting outside

poem in part inspired by the wonderful bitty floral wreath-let dangling ribbons my dear photog friend Justin Moore gifted me. pix of me being a drunk flower girl/flapperlet (it stays on even crooked) i’m sure will turn up. (past, present, future) et voila:

the rest of the poems li(v)e below!

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poem-a-day week24 “Delicate deli inappropriacy in ascots & bowlers”

October 11-17, 2010 week24: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day
http://poetesss.tumblr.com/PAD

(re-demonstrating how not to stash money your first day of busking in broad daylight)

164. October 15, 2010 (fri. rain’d out buskin’ lead to Brookline flyering/debauchery)

Desire is matched by
The distant rhythm
Telegraph the breast
This tasteless catechism
An anxious calm

There will be no copper jingling
As it tumbles out of hat, hair
Loosened into small change
Twisters as our tips rain onto

Boutineer, bound breast, sidewalk
Stage too damp in this Oh, Boston
Storm means roaming Friday night

In flapper cape, in character to flyer
Flaunt kamikaze song at the Jewish
Neighbourhood’s sex shoppe?

Let me regale you with linen napkins
And kugel samplers- delicate deli
Inappropriacy in ascots & bowlers:

Nearby hospice patron
Speaking at a Friday night volume
In a rather rowdy restaurant

We normally love the place
But it’s just TOO LOUD tonight
Repeated to waiter, manager, busboy

Until we finally notice
Their untouched soup and wine
(If we’d been fastier ruffians

We’d have pounded it and toasted
Them L’Chaim! on their way out)
You can’t kick Semitic gem’d gesticulations

And youthful jazz hands out of a booth
For being queer(ly dressed) and bubbly as greps
Water, giggling animatedly ‘bout fisting

In cartoon voices vaudeville bespeaks
Folks rather spiffed up, you can’t point us out
As those rough lookin’ teens with silver topped canes

Lesbros in chimney spout tophats! The one with
The nose ring and monocle! Tattoos and cuff links!
It’s how the boisterous/bourgeoise

Get away with any everything
Isn’t it? Starched & collar’d delinquents
Matzo ball robber barons

Of your calm soup and crackers evening
Paying customers as pretty as we
“Get away with” enjoying ourselves, entertaining
Anyone warm-blooded as bouillon broth

(top italics are ‘poems by removal’ i wrote via The Passionate Life)

the rest of the poems li(v)e below!

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poem-a-day week12 (lots of cats)

SPANKIN’ new poem-a-day ultimate table of contents/archive
—-> http://poetesss.tumblr.com/PAD

July 19-25, 2010, week12: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

being the hermit-poet turned social leads to silly poem-a-days! teaser be-low.

83. July 24, 2010 (sat.)

At B’s i meet Malloy cat the second, chic in
double-breasted black, radiator perched. Shy
with a silken proud tuft, a white pocket square.

B. and i discuss the intricacies, trickiness
of having a nude portrait of yourself in your
shared apt. parlour. We’re not prudes, but

i understand it’s hard to read poetry on a screen.
All the more reason to cross-stitch by your
side on the sofa, leave you with double-entendre
knotted stanzas.

At S’s, it’s tuxedo beast Boris the cat
(that does not get along with other cats)
lying in the doorjamb, inky tail(s)
and mother of pearl toes ready to trip you.

Jeweled fruit soaked in the bottom
of the sangria punch bowl makes everyone
smile orange peel, tell tales of elementary

school spin the bottle, fourth grade boyfriends.
Lounging under Bernini statuary
posters brings back dark lusty art

history lectures. “i don’t care, i have a rosy
-tinted, vegan, pornographic hue’d vision
of what’s to come for you in Austin!”

And yes, C. you’re learning that one
only overhears such fragments
from me— surely you misheard.

psst. the kitties want you to check out my e-merch table(tsy).

the rest of the poems li(v)e below!

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poem-a-day week9 (ice chests & key parties)

http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day
http://poetesss.tumblr.com/tagged/poem_a_day

(week1 - week2 - week3 - week4 - week5 - week6 - week7 - week8)
*‘ccompanying poem-a-day ‘llustrations

June 28-July 4, 2010, week9: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

my above-the-cut teaser is #7 from the week, again. i guess i like how my poem-a-weeks have been culminating the best! i’m writing curricula for my online workshop (coming so so soon we can tastes it!) and have some fun ideas about how i’m going to work with all this raw rough draft material i’ve amassed. over 60 pages now. that’s a chapbook ‘n some. yay!

63. SWANKVILLE, USA (July 4, 2010)

No 1812 overture in the champagne
this year. i already am having my recovery
from sparklers and shots, Sunday in.

Saturday, July 3rd’s expensive adrenaline,
borrowed bourgeoise behaviours. “There’s
only one thing one would be doing in a hammock

with that man.” Mushrooms?
i wander away from the outdoor
surround sound putting green heated pool

increasingly nude and aggressively so
hot tub ruckus. i peek in the barn doors
of the childrens’ rooms. You’d never know

under all the mosquito bites, middle class
masochism they keep TGIF mixers in their
wine cabinet. Their lawnkeeping is impeccable.

They throw great house parties, in absentia.
A few hours peeking at their blue label
and i’m set for the fireworks behind my poor eyes.

the rest of the poems li(v)e below!

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27. for @aproclivity, “Fizzier than pop rocks.”

Fizzier than pop rocks, an old friend’s betrayal—
waking with heartburn from your favorite beer.
Too much cake icing, spatula splatter,
waffle iron trimmings, the burnt, buttered, war-torn
borders of toast, the tater tots no one else eats.
The peace treaty that entitles you to 90%
of any ketchup shared by the parties herein.

Fizzier than pop rocks— the friend calling collect
for a poem-ode. The gift of automatic writing,
the reliable artist as automat. Pressing the vending
machine buttons and being surprised
at the resulting grape pop tarts, grape soda.
This is no office bacchanal, all made stale.
A conference room steals the sweet from any cake.

Fizzier than pop rocks— no worse than losing new friends
the chance to pick up Barneys or a Bedazzler.
Staying in with the consummate masochist’s
ice cream spoon, the one skinny girls choose
for grapefruit. Serrated tongue, oh the coffee
Hagen Das is worth it, the rusty handle
you watch red nails reach for again and again…

Fizzier than pop rocks—a weary friend tossing
the word “soul” around a lot. The parking ticket
(real) giving you a pretend ulcer. Someone cooking
fish in the office microwave, idolaters gossiping,
everyone investigating your potato chips
you left in the cupboard. (Well, I thought
they were Mike’s! O, whisper whisper)

Fizzier than pop rocks— a friend giggling
at the WB Mason man after you propped up
the copy paper box. He’s gotten more moustache(d),
strapping, in the recent advertisements. Vaudevillian
boxer? Who else to save your employer money
while faxing you an eyeful of bicep? For the coworker
who thought your tea packet was a rubber.

Fizzier than pop rocks— being a friend to yourself.
Quitting while you’re a bobbed head, while you can still
be called “bubbly.” Recall being called a “generous
liar” your first day. For replying, “Yes”
to, “are you having fun yet?” Part time work
ain’t no thing with a rich inner life, and candy.
Leave triumphant, as though carrying a flute

of sparkling wit, or just cheap Asti. Better yet—
the fife of a revolutionary soldier, drink and trill
for the artists formerly known as starving
spitting out their Cherry Coke with laughter.
Pop rocks merrily chirping from an overturned
purple goblet, as we all decide we deserve better.
We are fizzier than pop rocks—downright explosive.

+
by your poetesss, jojo lazar

obviously some of my real life really got in here. i am le lame part time job’d no more as of today, my last day! over early! i’m home forever now, or so it feels- as i am the telecommute/internet-employed queen. it’s all professoress of poetrees/burlesque professoress, performing, writing, arting, and the fun kind of part time work on my own telecommutely terms i do from here on out! anyway, proof friends— no matter what, you end up writing the poem you really wanted to write even if you didn’t want to / know you wanted to consciously. freedoms! xo

p.s. John Held Jr.’s illustrated flappers. hoozah for them.

26. for @dj_jd (nutella-spiration)

Let me register my sweetheart
with the allergen awareness association.
Sugar tush, you need that artificial hazelnut
in your coffee as much as an emergency tracheotomy!

Two cream, three sweets, iced, no, no double shot.
No homefries with that, tater tot. I adore you, so
let’s avoid the rice inflating inside doves,
and those outgoing red breasted robins.

Let’s elope to save the birds and flee
the caterers, your mother’s smelly relatives, Thai
peanut sauce. Let’s elope and eat crepes
suzette far from my father’s moth-eaten matriarchs

that only come out of the ornate woodwork
to frown in pews at such blessed events. Kreplach
ambassadors, old world prudes. (The past
is a foreign country, they do things different there.)

The bean feast ritual, the twelfth night weather
prediction patterns, let’s flee it all and live
in milk and honey ever after. Doubt my
confectionary words? Darling,

if I wanted to slay you I’d use my parents
wedding silver. It’s been kept
toxically shiny, knife blades only suited
for butter and lacemaker’s conversation.

I can’t polish my proposal any more,
the busy white gloves and the hands within,
busier chefs with a mind for croissants
with a nutella stopwatch inside.
Your time is up. Be mine, be sweet.

by your poetesss, jojo lazar
+

though this started and ended w/ the delicious treat in mind, i blame the themes and tone as a weird alt. franch universe continuation of my wifey poem ‘shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amourous’ combined with the fact that i watched Charlie and the Choc. Factory followed by The Shining at the Toys’s house last night. that definitely made the things you see here. delicious ominous deadly sickly sweet. maybe i’m actually being Gene Wilder crossed with Mr. Nicholson-as-sexist-killah here in poetic voice. genderless-er though. ahem.

poem-notes:
*The past is a foreign country, they do things different there - is a phrase my pop has said to me my whole life. we once looked up its theatrical? as i recall origins. but it has always haunted me.
*would you believe me that this is my 2nd poem i’ve put ‘emergency tracheotomies’ in? (though it’s the last line in the former). so, i’m a weird lass.

3. diet coke (exploded haiku) for bridget

Aspartame

wake me sweetly with
that cold aluminum kiss
on my forehead
beads of anticipation
beneath that pull
tab, the curve of your
lower lip

if i beg and fiddle
long enough you’ll tell me
the initials of my one day
beloved and when i look into my palm
at your silver charm— i’ll know
it’s true by the butterfly
fizz in my stomach