Afternoon was an old-house-smell of polished wood, distinct as the scent of rained-on roses, or the just damp sidewalk that drove us indorrs. Karen would say If you heat your house you must oil it, else the wooden things and the ivory things dry and crach and lose their value. Karen was the nanny: who was there to greet us when we came home from school; who brought us closer to god by scrubbing; Karen was the housekeeper: tall, with heavy breasts and dark heavy combs that fell from her hair, a whistler of hymns -- lips puckered like the butt of a fig, fastidious in her manner of swinging dust wands moist with lemon water. Soft Oregon light followed her movements in slanted shafts, as if house were cathedral; and she -- burnishing tabernacle, efficient as the flow of the Willamette River, baptized us each day in cool latitude. Karen worked her alchemy on what needed rubbing: vinegar and newspaper to make the mullioned windows disappear, bee's wax dissolved in gum spirits to nourish the woodwork, silver paste buffed with undershirt rags for the sugar shaker, Mentholatum for the chest of the freshly bathed child. Furniture gleamed with excoriation -- Flemish oath, and despite our parents' neglect, Karen kept us clean and anointed. Weber Studies, 18:13, Spring, 2001 |
We were young then, brash and strong: we rode the curve of the earth --proud bellies, big breasts: the knobs of our spines threw sparks and the shadows we cast across the land dogs mistook for storms. Each morning we unleashed our hair: long feral locks that flew in the solar wind. The bellows of our chests would stir the tops of monstrous trees and song birds sheltered in the thickets of our thighs. We were brave then -- goddesses: foolish with our love. Sinster Wisdom, Winter, 2007 |
Two a.m. and still awake. He gets up again to take a leak. Third time. Down the hall the sulfur night light in the bathroom glows ominously. He thinks of Hieronymus Bosch, the orange sheen of asses in a Lake of Fire. Pretty soon it will be my ass, he mutters. A convertible glides down the street, its top luxuriously open to the night. And faint music, tender music he recognizes but can't name, drifts in through the open bathroom window ... congas, Latin trumpet ... the memory of a party, drinking and sweating in the humid night; swaying on a balcony against a woman wearing Shalimar, her hand gliding luxuriously between his legs. What was her name? He stands in front of the toilet, straining to catch more of the melody. It's gone now. The night's deserted. Lawn sprinklers kick on and beat against the grape-stake fence. Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, he whispers to the porcelain bowl, swaying with his eyes closed, naked. Holding himself. Echo 681: The Beyond Baroque Anthology. Los Angeles: Beyond Baroque Books, 1998 |
| Summer with Black-eyed Peas |
It's hot and the ice picks come out with the rock salt. People too poor to drive cars sit on their steps and crank out peach ice cream. They talk about watermelon pickle, how's that foot healing? when's the packinghouse taking on more help? It's hot. Along the irrigation ditch small burrowing owls soak up the sounds of late afternoon and sharpen their talons. Near dusk the kids peel to their skivvies and wade in. Later they'll gig for frogs. The owls tuck back in their dark cool holes and wait for the leavings. It's too hot to think or coil up the green hose blistering in the dirt. Crickets have choked the window fan. Still, the new couple next door is at it again; their lovemaking rocks the trailer. We screw our rabbit ears back and forth to clear the Channel 10 snow; turn the sound down to listen to the heat, to the land rich with mice and owls; listen for breezes to swipe through pea fields wobbly with seed. To cool us. Spillway, 2002 |
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| BILLIE DEE: SELECTED POEMS. Visit the billiard room of a dying tyrant, the love pits of a Southern trailer court ... the bath of Hieronymus Bosch. Billie Dee's highly textured narrative poetry explores the overlapping frayed edges of mellinnial change. Site includes selected poems, a modern poetry anthology, links, and articles. |
| The Belgian Housekeeper |
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Dear poem -- reluctant bitter poem of the pock-marked face: you, the one who will utter the undeclared IT -- I am waiting. I pledge welcome no matter your message -- though you shame me, though you fail me, even though you hide yourself for decades -- deep within the dun canopic vessel of regret. I am waiting to reveal myself -- brave, savage poem. Squaw Valley Review, 2003 |
| Shalimar |
| Verandah |
It's too late in the season for mosquitoes but warm enough to languish in the twilight reflected from the bay. I love how it illuminates the bouganvillea spilling through the cyclone fence, bracts lighting up like red paper lanterns on the Li River. I hold my breath, picture myself swimming underwater. Several minutes later, I surface and sidestroke to a tiny drifting boat. A pair of cormorants preeneing on the bow salute my approach by entwining their necks. The lime green buddha I once saw in a cartoon is frying up the day's catch, long earlobes swaying with the rocking of the boat. I haul aboard and sit cross-legged beside the warm hibachi. Green Buddha's half-smile breake into a grin: Hey, I've been expecting you -- dinner's almost ready. Squaw Valley Review, 2003 |
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| 153-102-0 255-246-204 |
| Billie Dee: Selected Poems |
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| Cosmology |
| Squall |
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