the burlesque poetess(s)

poem-a-day week27 “If you can’t sweat your way into fishnets / You can always merge with the words”

November 1-7, 2010 week27: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
http://locksmithy.livejournal.com/tag/poem-a-day
http://poetesss.tumblr.com/PAD

The 2 Boston nights of the Dresden Dolls Reunion Tour…epic and rare. So they as a pair are the teaser. i was part of the meta-crowd-busk-ruckus, majorette-ing w. fellow Broken TOys Kevin Corzett (bari sax) & Tj “Terrorence” Horn (Rufio hobo drum kit) for Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band. Huzzah! Close 2nd for teaser-poem is #186 “A mirror-holding figure.” For Helena xo. You know, not just cos’ it was a carnie time— i’m really proud of these poems from this week. Neat. i hope you enjoy.

182. Novemeber 2, 2010 (dresden dolls, wilbur theatre night1, tues.)

I’m objectifying all of you! This whole line!

Women’s waists used to cinch in or
Rather forcibly squeeze past velvet
Ushers, repeat cabaret offenders in the cold

Some kind of communist pilot
Mucks up the sound system
A dolls tribute to masquerade ball

-jointed elbows and knees
Detailed by quick strokes of india ink
“We McFuckings never apologize!”

“I’m picturing a lot of cold sheep” your clan
The opening number rips open
The last decade of underage tour-shirts

Corset’d at the merch table
A kid with black blush nodding violently
Snarling every word alongside the ripping

Banging of keys and skin
Petals scattered fetal around the monitors
So this is devotion, ritual lyricism

Gatling gun strobe light
Making a pair of pre-code cartoons
Stage lightning silhouettes

If you can’t sweat your way into fishnets
You can always merge with the words
We all don’t fit in
These shell casings
Mother of pearl clips

ENSMB, two nights of street carnie and theatre parading fury! (AFP’s twitpic of Kev & co.)

183. November 3, 2010 (wed. ddolls @ Wilbur night2)

Degenerate terra cotta

If you feel like you went down with the ship
‘s orchestra, then get in the van
Our composer has spare buttons

The majorette is drawing straws
For the lovers behind sticky registers
Intentions are un-weighted, without glitter

Water in my cup you could mistake
Me for the other moustache’d half
If you’re offering a seat in the red mezzanine

Throng, stop staring at the honeymooner
Lingerie, sweet cheeks ascending marble stair
Redundant really, someone’s crinoline comment

On the rarity of natural blonde goths
The elongated neck of the actress
And the recurring encore of violence

Lead us to the South Street diner
(Cupcake fairies can’t kiss everyone)
The taxis passing by had wondered:

What is this brassy pack of gypsy smokes?
AWOL vagrants’ fruity theatrics
In the streets of the theatre district?

It’s the punk cabaret warm up,
The ballerina stretching side-stage in chalk

*brown bag blue ribbon Titanicsicle prize i made for dear @selinaDF (tumble-read all about it)

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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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.