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zebra Sep 2017
she was queen for a day
brought to you
by
the Red Cross
and
Freezone
to lift off
those painful foot corns
and lets not forget the good folks at
HEET
for those  aching back muscles
strong
yet doesn't burn
and comes with a handy dandy applicator

she could have anything she wanted
all she had to do
was ask for it on
TV
after becoming the winning contestant
for a life more tragic then all the others

the competition was stiff
who would break hearts the most
and get the biggest ovation
for all who came to see the suffering
and move the needle
on the
life ****-o-meter

which lady of endless sorrows
would be the gleeful queen
of white knuckle terrors
the winner
of the race to the bottom
circa 1958

and i was eleven years old

the winner was wrapped
by her very own glittery subjects
in a  plush royal queens cape
and placed upon her crown
a twinkling tiara
then enthroned
and bestowed a bouquet of flowers
from the magnificent
Carl's of Hollywood

she a mottled exhausted woman
withered by life's harrowing cruelties
hollowed by fear and heaping despair
flickered like staccato lighting
on black and white TV
for all of America to see

cause every
dinner cookin
vacuum cleanin
dish washin
bathroom scrubin
dirt sweepin
house wife goddess
of the vacuum cleaner and handy scrub
would flop herself on the couch
with a jin and tonic
put her feet up
hair in curlers
before dinner
and dishes
for the squabbling  brood
and her very own tyrannical
Ralph Cramden
huba huba hubby
king of her cracked castle
and
grab a pack of
Marlboro's.
Pall mall reds
Kent's
or
Chesterfield cigarettes
blow smoke
and watch
QUEEN FOR A DAY

today's
QUEEN FOR A DAY
Miss Clarice Williams
trembling almost to the point of tears
implored humbly for a gurney
so that her fifteen year old son
who was mentally slow and shot in the stomach
could be rolled outside on the porch
and feel the sunlight on his face
for the first time in years

they lavished her
with the Bomgardner Hydro-level cot
for the paralyzed
sure that it would do just the trick
plus
a miniature transistor ham radio
so you could even
hear what there sayin
all the way in Japan
plus
a Teltape tape recorder
and a brand new
automatic laundry machine and dryer
from the nice folks at Westinghouse

but thats not all

a star studded vacation
where the stars stay
at the deluxe knickerbocker hotel
where you can lounge at the pool
or your own royal suite
and have dinner
at the exotic
Polynesia Beach Combers
Wicki Wicki Room
all the way in the land
of the
hoochi coochi
L G V Mar 2013
Beaumaris,
carnival of soft pastel tones
of damp evenings
of tramway cars
with small orange lights
distracted bystanders
the empty bridges
the silent horizons
pale lace on a parasol,
light sepia dreams
of a particular Monet,
forgotten, unseen
before the rains came.

Many years later,
I found her
so tenuous, so subtle
in what little was left
yet there it was, her soul
all new shades
of melancholy.

Now I just swim,
every now and then
in that blue ocean
of her blueness,
the Sea of Oblivion.
In the glimpse  
of bright reflections
of sunshine
on the water,
of salted afternoons
in a country
where it no longer
rains
A small poem inspired by the life and work of Clarice Beckett (1887 – 1935).
Jim Kleinhenz Apr 2010
'What they don’t know, of course,
is that you don’t **** with the Hammer.
The Hammer smiles, you smile, you wave the truck
ahead. It’s pretty simple,
for poetry does not make assertions;
philosophy does. When the Hammer speaks,
he speaks of something wild.  You stop your world,
the phony one, the constructed one. It stops
and stops and stops—'

I force open the lock, let in the sun.
The Hammer and I confront synaptic death
each day we live. What’s left is fire now.
‘Welcome to the Republic of the Sane.’
I smile and let the fresh air fill
the cabin, fill their lungs. The Seine is just
a river in France, right? I smile and say,
‘The hard part is over.’—though we all know
it isn’t. I tell them, ‘Wallace Stevens
once lived in this house’—though he didn’t.
Let be be finale of seem, I quote. I speak
with care. This is the current reply: The only
Emperor is the Emperor of ice cream.
We hold our arms heaven-ward, like
we are angels in heaven. Since it’s winter
I have a fire burning in the fireplace.
The kids can have a bedroom to themselves,
upstairs. There is hot water, take a bath…

‘In transit to the blank planet,’ I say.
‘That’s your answer: where we are, a point,
circumference points, vectors maybe,
an asymptotic self-description,
that’s the best answer to your question.’
We sit next to the fire
and listen to music. Tonight it’s Schubert,
Winterreise. I read a little from
The Hour of the Star. We talk about Adorno,
Emil Cioran, Gaston Bachelard, Chaucer.
We talk about poetic thinking. Is
the goal to have
an ultimate clarity or is
the poet’s mind composed of play
and speculation? I prevaricate,
I lie, deceive, evade. We open up
a decent bottle of port. The Hammer
has prepared calamari in a butter sauce.
There’s fresh pasta, fresh bread.
‘My friends, a toast,’ I say. They have to know.
‘Today’s word is vector, a vector like
ticks are for Lyme disease, mosquitoes for
malaria.’ The transmission of disease,
is that what humanity is? ‘Human
intelligence,’ I say, ‘may be the result
of a virus. It would explain a lot.’

Among the things we console ourselves with
I will put other people at the top.
I know, my dear, you tremble at the word
thing. ‘Think to say I and Thou’, you would say
were you here, were you still with me.
That people partake of Being as objects
is only part of the story. Well, perhaps, I err…
perhaps I do. One of the things I read
to the people who come across the line
is this from Clarice Lispector:
'It must be said the girl is not conscious
of my presence. Were it otherwise she would
have someone to pray for and that would mean
salvation. But I am fully conscious
of her presence: through her I utter my cry
of horror to existence. To this
existence I love so dearly.'
It is very beautiful, is it not?
© Jim Kleinhenz
Poetic T Feb 2015
I was drinking from the skull
Of a long dead bird, I had eaten
It a while back, it tasted like
Chicken!!
But not much to the bone.
I wondered if I was like
Hannah,
Henry,
Hello
Brain remember it, any way
Mind did wonder past my
Teeth, tongue it slid like
That jelly mother did make.
I gagged a moment, but then
All settled not a zombie,
But not a bad tasting brain.
"Hannibal"
"Lecture"
"Lector"
Snuck down stairs, DVD on
I remember the noise and
"Clarice"
Remember pinkie raised
When drinking from a cup
Haha...
Its the little things that make me
Smile. How you doing there friend
He doesn't talk much now, smells
Funny too, but even the dead are
Company when you only have you.
Apocalyptic
Apocalypse
Stopped
Everything, screaming, crying, chill
Its not that bad no tax, no big
Brother looking down on you.
"Ok running for your life"
"Keeps you healthy"
Plus
"Eating leftovers mouldy in a bin"
"What doesn't **** you makes you stronger"
"Negative"
As I regurgitate it back to the bin,
It has its pros and cons
But I miss the chatter
The one on one,
"How was your day"
"You look tasty"
"Why you looking at me that way"
Knife to the side of the head.
"BOOOM"
"O'no you didn't"
Skinny little freak trying biting moves,
This isn't PAC MANtm fool.
You meet interesting people on the road,
All I want to do is have some    
"Apocalyptic Chatter"
"Howdy Mam"
That's a big knife I say!!
As I pull out old faithful,
She screams I cant take that
And runs off screaming the other way
Run ***** Run,
The Apocalypse isn't boring
But I do miss the day to day chatter waking each day.
JAM Aug 2013
Jack and Jill were two mentally ill verbally armed cannibals
Doing there best to switch their diet to farm animals

They found this rough, like eating crackers with cotton mouth, this task proved to be little more than tough
They promised each other no more cadavers, but a month after this, they called each others bluff

Jack ended up addicted to crack, dope, and smack
Cause the supply of bodies was beginning to lack, spinning more off track
He began to look at Jill more like a tasty snack

Jill took the pharmaceutical cryptic approach
A pill could **** her flesh craving will and keep her from feeling like a post apocalyptic roach
She too was starting to drool and think of Jack like a snack bar,
and couldn't help but remember her first taste when she bit the arm of that high school track star

One night when Jack was asleep, Jill began to slowly creep
Into his room she crept as he slept stuck the knife in and drained the blood from his neck
Jack was gonna be her tastiest snack yet

Jill always seems to forget
Jack is always playing games and putting her to the test
She ends up paying, for Jack knew their growing hunger would soon cause a mess

Jack stepped out of the closet

Jill pulled back the covers to see she just killed her own niece
Jack said "Haven't you ever seen "Hannibal?". "If your gonna be a cannibal, you gotta be smarter than Clarice".

-J.A.M
Meg B Dec 2014
Grandma Clarice,
or Chub as I prefer to call her,
is tough as nails.

All 90 pounds of her on her
not-even-five-feet-tall-frame,
she always told the funniest jokes,
and her laugh was one of
those laughs
that just
              reverberated so warm against your
                       eardrums,
contagious like the
common cold,
you couldn't help but catch it.

Chub always made the best pies,
any kind your gluttonous mind could
imagine:
cherry, blueberry, apple, peach, lemon chiffon, anything creamed;
don't get me wrong,
my mama inherited the gene,
her peach pie my absolute favorite
in the summertime,
but still,
mama learned from the master, and Chub was
the master indeed.

Chub was witty,
she was poised,
she was so many things that I
don't even feel like I ever really have figured out
what all she was, she is.
But I can't deny the
memories I have of Chub
smiling
as I played Christmas tunes on the piano,
looking collected and cool as she
whipped up another perfect meal,
her voice inquisitive as she
asked me about school,
the teacher in her proud yet astute.

Chub can't remember anymore,
but I remember for her,
the laughter, the
impeccable odors wafting from her all-white kitchen,
the late night games of Rummikub,
that tough-as-nails Chub who will always
exist in my
memories.
I lay awake with hopeless thoughts of you.
It seems that somewhere down this path,
I lost the smile and the laughter too.
Where did our passion flea?
How could something done with ease,
Just disappear like a winter breeze?

Staring at this canvas of my soul,
my thoughts start to fade away.
Deep into my lost subconscious,
I hope to find the words to say.
Farther down the hole i tumble,
until I land on that rainy day.

The storm was screaming with it’s tears.
The wind was blowing in every direction.
Soaked to the bone your makeup smears,
Unmasked by the storm inside,
I noticed the angel doomed to hide.

I was lost and forgotten in a crowd of faces.
Nothing worth your praised attention.
Yet you picked on me day to day.
You colored my arms in every shade.
The words you wrote I wished to say.

I love Clarice
I love Clarice
Everywhere you wrote.
I love Clarice
Is what I should have spoke.
To the love of my life, Clarice
fray narte Nov 2021
i mount my heart on a wall,
still and discolored
where my taxidermist hands had pressed.

it breathes life into dead walls:
a hanging irony made of
soft cyclamens
and the closed, white fist of a tormented girl.

i mount my teeth on a wooden wall,
write my letters,
pour salt on spaces where i used to stand;
may i not stand here
once again.

i mount my hands on a wooden wall;
they do not knock. i do not answer.

silent as a lamb — down to a pit,
i watch the sheer cliff of my back
from where i have jumped
and the sundry sorrows shrink
into black, blinking dots
like a hidden villain
exposed.
i fall over myself
like in a slow-moving dream —
lead-like it flows like the acheron river.
and here comes the ferryman.
Jane Doe Jan 2014
Dear insert your name here.
I can hear you in his whispers; I feel your memory in his pulse when it beats against mine. Dear insert your name here; I have seen the private parts of your smile in his old photos and your heart break in the edges of his glare. I have felt your longing in his silent touch.
Dear, insert your name here, you may be nameless to me but I can see your tortured past whenever he refuses to tell another person his name. You have wrapped yourself so tightly next to his heart, in the cavities of his mouth I can still hear you screaming.
Dear. Clarice, please… I’d like to know.
Please tell me how you let up and let him go?
John Douglas May 2014
the only time id ever seen her talk romantically was when she described a car engine to me,
she named her car Clarice
something about break pads and lambs
the brake pads didn't work very well
and the passenger door didn't open

she was passionate about music
the way i was passionate about sleeping
she was in a band
i said that was awesome but i never saw her play
my mom did which was awkward for the band
they always had a tough time talking to mothers while really high

she moved south while i moved north

she walked with grace and looked like someone took a sailor and made them take way too much acid
but she pulled it off with style
hitting concerts and working on the water like she always wanted to
and even when i dropped her on the dance floor she fell gracefully

which takes skill when youve drank more than the entire british navy
michael capozzi May 2014
i’m measuring my life out in the amount of

breathes it takes me to say i love you

and i’m becoming fond of the taste of

your tastebuds and i seem to dream too much

and never wake up.

and in my dreams i write novels and i’m 

looking for answers on what to name my chapters.

a few months ago i named chapter seventeen
*
Clarice* because i swore someone was leaving me

clues on where to search next but everything was jumbled

together and mismatched like a pair of parents

who hate each other and argue in the night so that their innocent child does not have to hear a word of what god told them.

lay next to me, sweet angel; stay for the night, i will show

you what a home is like next to the snowfall of december.
i don't really know how to end this chapter yet
Lauren R Apr 2016
I. Look how far I've gotten living like this, kiss my angelic attitude goodbye when mania arrives because I won't be able to control where I stick the knife. You can't find me in a cell no, this isn't no Hannibal Lector story.

II. There are a lot a lot a lot of things people don't understand about depression, like I wanna **** myself a lot but I can't tie knots. But tying the knot isn't as important to me as tying the one 10 years from now with a man with brunette hair and eyes just like yours. He will have skin as soft as your mothers old rug.

III. I can feel the world turning around me and how my poems can't define me. I write a lot of poems about sad ****, bad ****, and more sad ****, but all that sad **** amounts to one happy girl. You forget I spit sunshine right into the face of tragedy. And sometimes I find good luck charms in the form of bottle caps. And those brought me a boy with an Irish name.

IV. This is the silence of the lambs, I have learned to live with it. And you're gonna be taking butterflies out of my throat because you bet it, I'm screaming color into this gray world.

V. It puts the ******* lotion in the basket or else it gets the pills again, and temptation is far worse than death, isn't it?

VI. We covet, Clarice. My brave starling, what you haven't seen is what I have, flight. Bodies flattening on the concrete of Boston is a familiar memory, I haven't lived it but I have seen it.

VII. We all have our lambs don't we?
Just an homage to one of my favorite movies
Her tattoos echo Art Deco
tattood
on an easel to swoon for
for her
I could be more,
could see more than the ink
would be more than one
fragile link
in the chain.

I imagine again and again
I imagine if
life becomes nouveau
what would I do and where
could I go?

Her tattoos echo
Art Deco
I
bounce of the walls.
It only looks like we mean but looks are?
and then I get stuck because what is a look
and what does it mean?

Art Deco does things to me,

twentieth century?
mention me to
Clarice  

I can't come to terms with germs
remember ' Monk?'
sunk without a trace
his final case
was himself.

"It's a jungle out there"

Wednesday brings a ray of sun
in the weak light
we pray
for Friday to come

I hate 5am
nothing stirs
not me
not the spoon in the tea
nothing
but
it's not 5am for long

that's what looks are
I mean
maybe.
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2023
Pretty obsessive compulsive today
Pretty obsessive compulsive
Thrill me with your acumen, Clarice
Why does he remove their skins?

Gonzaga University
Way out in the grassland
Cardinal Newman is surely correct
We have to lose to win

Multiverse. Alternate realities.
But I cannot give a lecture
Buddhamind in Dublin
Witherell conjecture

Tired, my feet hurt
Blisters on my heel
Not in what you see, my sons
Trust in what you feel

                     Lemon Tree
Qualyxian Quest Jan 2023
Hannibal Lector is kinda good
Didn't you watch the movie?
Hello Clarice. Starling should.
Florence on my honeymoon

The ambivalence of the Sacred
Don't go directly at it
Coincidence
Lovely Flaming June

Italy
Eternal Rome
Miguel O'Hara
Coming soon

Driving at night
Istanbul
Seoul, Korea
Dr. Chong Kun Yoon

        Stones Tune
The echoes in faded photographs of the laughs and cries, the good times, the goodbyes,
showering in memories he sees them as if yesterday
scattered here and there they lay along with the old phonograph and a Clarice Cliff teapot.

— The End —