the burlesque poetess(s)

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 week15 recapping the “retrosexual”

August 9-15, 2010 week15: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day
http://poetesss.tumblr.com/PAD

i’ve decided like that no-good army of TOys band i’m in (who defines its genre as steam crunk) i’d like the tiny instruments to be categorized as “retrosexual.” all of last-last week was spent gearing up for the tiny instruments’s premiere (pix/poem for that!) and palling about with The Slomski Brothers on the new england leg of their epic world tour. thus, the poem-a-days reflect that. not a bad week, eh? all art and delicious vaudevillian-ry.

104. August 14, 2010 (sat. - Boudoir Noir, Club Passim)

Listen to Madam
Match-make celibate carnies
Shut the wardrobe door

Don’t flash your netting
It’s not presidential red
Lips that will catch fish

Teacup-shaped escapes
Sidestage— no one cares ‘bout tush
A lighter, a light

Alleyway, butts’ flight
Scraped together etiquette
Rubbish bins, torn words

Chocolate shout outs
A bourgie to-go box, please
Save tupperware sin

Table of foxes
Crumbling five hours of butter
Into martini’d mouths

Glitter sticks to pillow slips
Now, purse your lips

.

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

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34. a love/lack poem for @lizziekit

@lizziekit asked for a poe-em about love, the lack thereof or the inability to hold onto it. nerd angst ensued?

No replacement valves without receipt

My love is an inkpot with a prior engagement
ring of crustacean pigment settled at the bottom
in a frown. My nib’s gone missing, my voice

is a rust mute fountain pen, no choice
verse flows to cool a sunburnt beloved’s
brow, no place to sail parchment sailboats.

The pawn shoppe appraised my lust—
the jewelry box with the locks worn off
for tuppins, said so in magpie scrawl.

My gloves were made by Shakespeare’s
father, surely. Who else could stitch so closely—
holding hands with roses, supple prosody,

quill fulfilling stage left fantasies. My ink-stained
palms applaud the cruel danseuse, a sparkling bauble
I’d drop inside an unstrung viola da gamba, and leave

behind a curtain after a salon and cigar. My love
is an instrument I let rot behind the buffet service,
grow to be forgotten amidst polite party chatter.

I received the invitation in sapphire ink,
but already pawned my evening cloak
for more paper, my night mind must have
someone lily-pale and patient to confide in.

+

by your poetesss

33. A cad’s medical report, for @Theservant53

(he asked for a poem on “a false positive syphilis test” for his wife. surprisingly this was both my 2nd wife-request and 2nd syph’-related poem request! haha, you kids crack me up)

A cad’s medical report

My tests show some malnourishment
of misanthropic ways. I’m taking steel
-toed supplements, to kick my itch
for booting street urchins out of the way
into high gear. Bronze cog intentions
now well oiled with blood in the gin.

Inconclusive results for my ability
to catch a stranger’s eye, hold it a bit too long.
Lecherous business or fisticuffs? A bend
-you-over a barrel, enjoy the coin, little
pigeon. I’m feeling the silver quicken my
pulse already, I’m pissing jewels away.

Someone left me a note— false positive,
syphilis. And here I was slowing down
my gifts of rot and inkpot, snipping purse
-strings with rat teeth and stealing sweet
evening dreams lined with virgin mink fur
away. Negative for the plague, philanthropy.

+

by your poetesss (who blames Thomas Mann, somewhat, mostly, in part)
pardon the ominous/romance image choice. anyhoo, it’s fun to get back to these wacky requests to snap me out of my self-centered voice-volution that’s happening in my poem-a-day project. but i’m happy you folks are reading what i’ve got. i’m doing a bit more silly faux lit. mag stuff over at mlle.tumblr, aussi.

 » master/mistress-list of AFP secretwitter req’s 6/09, almost done! &now i am writing faster than ever, new-requestees, fear not ;)

poem-a-day week3

http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day

May 17-23 2010, week3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

my above-the-cut recap teaser this week was from the 2nd day. because i crack myself up, nerdstyle, and i need to illustrate all of my poems in that secret fantasy future where i have 48 hours in every day to be nothin’ but an art wank! as edrie & walter sickert would say, the world is ending, let’s die art.

5.18.10

i struggle awake after twelve hours mummified in my King
size down comforter. My canopic pot cat curled
on my chest, rumbling reminder of her centuries’ hunger,

tailfeather brushing across my well-bound face. i haven’t
fed her liver or painted an eternal crop-harvest
on my bedroom-tomb’s walls. Some softly murmured

prayer about shields and stars will have to do. i slip
my corroded skin into the tub to rinse the natron off,
greet my packets of viscera with radiography, radiant smile.

i lie still enough to convince myself i need no store
of reserve heads, and let the bathwater out from around me,
soaked in irrational Archimedes delight. i can listen

to the thunderous gurgling pipes, this drain doesn’t
frighten like the gaping pit grave at the hotel
last weekend. the one without a grate, the mini

oubliette capable of sucking anyone’s Ka
right out, as quickly as losing a gold chain while you
lathered. Oh, i’m preoccupied with carry-on luggage

(for the afterlife) too, one symbolic pair of shoes
to keep you through the endless weekend
with Osiris to see the cherry blossoms.

the rest of the poems li(v)e be-low!

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poem-a-day week2

http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day

week2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

week2 spans May 10-16, 2010. the 14th-16th i was running buckwild like a victorienne waif with the Army of Broken TOys as we were playing some shows at the illustrious/illicit Steampunk World’s Fair. (the above image is WS’s band portrait for our new album coming out 6/4: STEAMSHIPKILLERS.) so while there/inebriatedebauchin’ about, i began steam crunk verse tributes to all the bubbies in corsets and bums ogling bums (like me). i’m very proud of the one i wrote about the 15th, so i’ll include that as well above the *ahem* tumblr-cut/read-more mabob. i’m excited, i have an autobiographical auto-archival system going where i’ll have ridonk poems about every show we do. and we’re about to tour. so this is going to get silly, or rather even sillier…fast. “the bloggeresque poetess: a poem a day about the debauchery.” i can see the zine-collection, now. oy. and teehee.

5.15.10 (last sat.)

i watch Katrina bejewel her terrorist breasts
threat then roam the halls to overhear rubied
manna and spell-defense bragging.

Whitefaced tabbies with painted monacles
pass by the performer’s room, a parade of steam punk
ninja turtle, Pikachu, semi-pirate wenches wielding

a bearded Voltaire’s autograph. They jingle with
jailer’s accoutrements, giggling with absinthe
breath, tea-stained bodices. A trunk, pan, and uke

serenade us from sidestage and wind-up shoppe
keeper’s assistants in flame-coloured corsets
hawk leather journals, antique medical EQ.

There are drag Antoinette sorts, out of place but
with the highest bum’d bustles in their clear plastic
stripper’s shoes. Steam punk means a lot of things

at this spectacle, but i enjoy the be-spoked power packs,
light-up fairy catching nets, the glow stick
chokers bobbing in the sea of main stage

audience. Cosplay burlesque is up next.
Please hold for Tank Girl and the wild wild west.

the rest of the poems li(v)e be-low!

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25. for @warkrismagic on Nikola Tesla

“One day the white pigeon got sick. Nikola took very good care of it, but it died in his arms. Nikola was not a very religious man, as he believed that there must be a scientific explanation for everything. But when that white pigeon died, he saw a very bright light coming out of her eyes, so bright that he told his friends afterwards, that even he could not have managed to create so luminous a light. It made him believe that the white pigeon must have been a messenger of a great spirit…”

What if Tesla’s cat coiled atop his static stocking’d feet
and his favourite memories were by candlelight?

It’s said he never needed a blueprint (they’d just get finger
-smudged with clumsiness), like da Vinci, he saw his machines

already perfectly formed. Can you picture him enjoying
a thunderstorm like a candy? A band-aid for the soul?

A silky pocketsquare of caution thrown and caught by the winds.
Is he playing piccolo below darkening clouds?

Oh Nikola, you’re not Mr. Franklin—
dangling his syphilitic key near stars and garters,

lightning bolts reflected in bifocals. Science is a witch
dancing across a symmetric background. Can I continue

to properly shock treat the history books (indecently,
decadently)- an over-imaginative American?

It’s said he was inordinately fond of pigeons in the end, too.
Tesla and the predetermined cadence of wooden mallet, his

claims of archetypes, lordly architecture, and ballerina toes
(at least that’s what he told the NY po’!). Yes, he was going

to bring the Brooklyn bridge down with this mallet, this one
bridge G spot. Oh Poopsie! The mite-ridden Easter bird

on his deathbed, let this degenerate beatnik rewrite the
ostuary annals, let the bird scratched cursive record show

(or if it be an LP, let it crow!) his only love then
was a non-lover, companion, pet-familiar, mirror.

A pigeon who’d come down with the drove
that drove the angry police off, when, hours later the bridge

began to titter, start a tentative jitterbug of cement dust
and not-yet-quite rust. They hadn’t trusted Tesla’s

syncopated claims. And who would believe Nikola
haha! had fled the scene by flying away, hoisted in the claws

of a grey flock, pink eyes. They carried him and
the alternating current, the polyphase Order of Danilo conferred

his citizenship, the same year as the Tesla coil took hold.
It never let go.

by your poetess(s), jojo lazar

22. @mousecanttweet suggested ‘on the tyranny of dreams’

Dreamemories of wish fulfillment anxieties

(1)
Not far from Grandpa’s shroud-like hammock, tadpoles
suckle, nibble the proud new dock into the crick.
It all flows into Lake Ontario, where if you find
the exact center you’ll also find Elvis fishing—
Johnny Cash measuring the catch, holding the pills.

(2)
The Nile unrolls slowly, costume shop gold snakes
around every drunk Cleo’s arms cannot compare
to the cocaine thrill of your brains dripping discreetly
onto sacred slab. The Jackal takes your heart
to start your tab, serves you a shot on the house.

(3)
Like the Titanic’s gaping underside, you smile
brightly as a gaslit chandelier too close to the curtains.
Bride enters stage-right (even if the lacey train
threatens to rip clean off), the band plays on
the freshly repainted slats. Every performance

death-defyling decadent as the last.
You press silk thigh-highs, then thighs together
(imaginary bladder pressure). No life preserving
lines to forget when you have lemon drops— improvise.
And should a puddle appear beneath suede heels,
blame the useless New Money— caviar in steerage.

In your doze you sense a woolen suit
ghoul— Freud stands over where you lay
sleep-talking. He holds a pistol, worries a fountain
pen, your childhood puppy’s collar, and a blank
expression of exasperation on his notepad.

Too many symbols! he complains,
and pulls long and hard on his cigar.
Too many objects to explain away, he says,
and pulls long and hard on the cigar
ashes in his beard. You are so sorry
to have disappointed him.
You wake up.

(And what to tell your analyst?)

+

by your poetess(s), jojo lazar

trying to break my over-verbose/spend too much time between writing initially and sharing habit (yay for the poem-a-day flow!) and being a bit sillier in these again. and by silly, i mean thinks too much auto-referential child of a psychiatrist writing poems about “dreaming on the couch” so to speak. geesus i’m a nerrrdface. i hope you enjoyed it though mouse one! (i may go back into it probably definitely and make more/longer of it)

bonus poetry fodder from: this Freud article, and jumpstart on form from this Ashbery poem.

13. for maya in VT

The open sea

sirens are but harlots, coral polyps, Penelopes—
they unwind sailors
Doric columns, claw drawstrings,
lick briny brows, bind
loose scalp with seaweed, so much trouble
to dash open
upon the rock for a honeymoon—
vests destroyed by driftwood
repaired avec venomous needles,
taut threads of shrieks—
seagulls’ diamond eyes smash
soft-shelled creatures’ hearts
against cliff-faces— kiss purple urchin
lips, sea slugs—slags bury beaks
in callused palms, suck gold garnet rings off
bloated fingers, salt-swelled codpieces
make sirens smile— with all the charm
             of a fish-head, twisted fins still attached
             curved like the contended spine
             of a lover, or like the lover’s smile
             itself before it breaks
             on the shore

by your poetesss, j.m. lazar

4. on the topic of “presents,” for thomas

who doesn’t want to receive

a wood-shaving filled crate
sits nailed shut by the gate

the pecking of a crowbar births
a steamer trunk, unsnapped—

a small sarcophogus—
Aztec jade— no, Egyptian lazuli

bandage bows take an eternity to unwind
the cheerful knots ribbon around

someone once worshiped
the ossified claw

holds your birthday card
under its tongue

coinage across the river
saving the postage stamp

you decide to thank Grandma
by passenger pigeon

inside a tarnished urn—
the cremains of the last

she always enjoyed a morbid
piece of mail now and again