Transitional poetry

These are two poems written from transitional periods in my life, also adding one from Susan.



MIAMI
3/88

I hear sirens
All night long here.
Love songs
Swan songs
Lullabies of desperadoes
And they send me to sleep,
Dreaming of lost causes
And hopeless cases
And unendurable pain.


CARNIVAL
2/7/89

I went to see the carnival
Only to find it gone.
It had pulled up stakes inside the night
And fled before the dawn.

Whirling off to meet adventure
In a rendezvous with fate,
I had wanted to go with them
But I found I was too late.



the night i thought about quitting therapy

the night i thought about quitting
therapy
i spent three and a half minutes looking
for the right pen to write with
about quitting therapy
and sat in a too-warm bathtub
and worried about whether
i’d get my mother’s varicose veins.

i thought about not looking at my corners
for cobwebs and dust faeries
and instead
wanting to dance in the center of this place
and fling my arms wide
to the skylight of tomorrow.
i wanted to burn the graves of my ancestors
and to pile their marble epitaphs
into a wailing wall
for some other sucker.

there was a burning in my skull
like an emergency broadcast test signal
that urged me to rush ashore
from the primordial stew
of my memory.
the hum of an air conditioner filled my sails
and set me on coarse for wandering
as i wished to cut off my hand
that steered me toward
the rocks of cold lava
and the bones and bandannas
in the sand.

the night I thought about quitting therapy
i was frightened of my microscope eyes
turned inward
and i felt like dr. frankenstein and his monster
i felt like dr jekyl and mr hyde
i felt like jack the ripper
and every painted hooker
between his kid glove hands
as I knew not what I was creating
nor what I might destroy.

© Susan Sheppard, 2000