VOX 3

Excited- Chicago opera troupe, VOX3, has worked with local poets (including me) and composers to turn poems into music, which VOX3 then performed.  Singer, Brian von Rueden and composer Eric Reda used the following poems of mine in a cycle called "Iconic Waltzes"-


ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
 *Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe

Call me Beauty, darling
they all do,
due to my hairdo, blonde and stiff,
with these lips, red as a virgin’s nipples
on tits too small to care; my eyes
blue with lashes too long glued
droop to my chin, neck, breast.

Goddess, me?
No, no.

Behind this pink painted bubble-gum
is skin that sticks to the surface
and a mole that spots
me on the streets.
I am trapped like acrylic on canvas
to this image shown orange
on blinking neon signs above sidewalks,
within this frame, twenty by sixteen.
 Please don’t stare, dear
            at these hollow cheeks
that decorate this layered face,
or at the brows that have been plucked
from my forehead;
they’re just as capable as anybody’s
to fall off and be blown for luck
when you’ve completely run out
of lashes you thought were long enough.
 Do you find me forward,
            or simply fallen back
onto the bed and spilled out,
like a bottle of dolls, arms over here
legs there?  They keep me company
on these lonely nights--two of ‘em,
twenty-two, sixty-nine, seventy;
a glass of water to wash me down
and I’m at your waist, my love,
ready to be scooped into your arms
and finally let go
for gravity to do his work.

THE WEIGHT OF WOMEN

Empty wrappers litter floors,
crinkled, crumpled - and saucy
laughter pours forth from mouths,
while Mama Cass pants for breath,
escapable as it is
as it has always been
an undulating between
chins one and two, that hiccup
like yeast, dough rising; roaring
cackles at the crooner’s crouch
over her pillowed stomach,
hands slapping knees, blood rushing
to the throat; this is the joke:
and it always involves cheese.
Cut, eat and watch her keel,
the weight of women concerns
others too often, failure
tastes good and leaves her slumped,
head bent to the chest, reaching
soft stomach for red-eyed rest.

CALLAS

Ho assassinato molte donne
nella mia vita.  La mia voce
taglia attraverso le folle
e frantuma i caraterri.
La fase e una tomba.
Vittime, parole, possono piu
non parlare, ne posso ricordare
i loro racconti.
Ora sono soltano, nomi:
Anna Bolena, Giocanda, Aida,
Floria, Santuzza, Norma.
La loro caduta di nomi
pesante come le tenda da
che lo chiude.
L'assassino, me, ma il mio
destino e lo sesso;
mi transformero appena
in un nome, Maria.


(NO NEED TO TALK IT OUT)

Karen Carpenter killed herself, inch by inch
off the waist; a bone shone through her pants
in the shape of an alabaster bowl
ready to break on the floor; wrenching
herself up, the weight of gravity more
than the lung capacity in her breast,
she slipped and fell harder than the dust
in her voice; songs fractured in a starved throat-

I note the expansion of my own hips,
a ballad of fat that hangs when I squat,
the buttocks that clench into vibratos:
every day becomes the one where nothing fits.
I blame it on the clothes, sinew and stitch,
the temperature of water, humid air,
my mother's genes and my father's cooking.

All we wanted were Barbie doll bodies-
legs so unbelievably long and lips
painted persimmon, with accessories
to match our plastic-perfect, bendable
physiques, mouths that never needed
to open, to speak, not hunger nor answer
for food nor any human necessity;
our figures holding the pitch that extends
beyond this bar's measure to the next.


DOLLY

My little doll, five foot and one inch tall,
your hair is colored like a popcorn ball

while your nails are simply acrylic
to turn you into a woman idyllic-

Your face is lifted unnaturally,
wrinkle-free at the age of sixty three.

You've been hoisted up from that poor, dirt floor
and modeled yourself after the town whore-

for men and women to touch and to pluck
like a guitar string that has run amok;

to twang your brazen voice in country tunes
as your chest draws eyes like festive balloons.

Dolly, wally to behold, wigs of gold
hide silver strands of hair aged and old

as you stand atop stages worldwide;
about your upbringing, you never lied.

And so, despite your beguiling guise,
you still remain a treasured, trophy prize:

And although your hair is not yours, I know,
you've let your roots grow out and truly show.


GARLANDS

Garlands, Judy Garland, continue
curling around your neck
just as flowers keep on falling
to slippered stage feet
and your hands palm kinks
from braided hair; eternally young,
little one, whose beyond sick
from rainbow pills and too-tight ribbons,
frills boys pulled back
when lifting picnic skirts
on stormy summer days
as flowers kept on falling
from their forefingers and thumbs-
pluck, plummeting onto your face,
petal applause and bee stung,
your basket hung above tires
turning danger out like tornadoes.
The curtain is drawn and house lights turn on,
revealing a standing crowd
that pours out ovations
in the form of flowers falling;
garlands, even to your trapped-door grave.

Terry Gross

Questions are keys, turning A into B;

when this woman asks on air, she deceives

with honest inquiry into tiny locks,

moving them with a silvered, soothing voice

and sounding the clink of metallic joints

made of art, made with points well played.

You have something to say behind the door

and past the frame of simple conversation

where the ring she carries, comes, pricks, expands

investigation of what you contain;

when this woman asks questions, she feigns

since she already knows which way you'll sway.