Fate, You Crazy Ninja

throwing your stars at will
always coming in way too late
with your tongue all wasted
and blasting hydraulic 

I love you too
but you’re drunk

and not getting your way
with me again Mr. all eyes
spinning yesterday’s promise
into today’s slivered tinsel

I love you too
but you’re just drunk

and can’t kiss your way out
of it this time and time again
stringing bulbs and bursting
streams and minnows pooling

You’re still not invisible


© 2009 Tracee Coleman

Last Sound

"Hey Little sister
what have you done?" *1
Billy Idol, remember him?
I was changing the baby’s diaper
and crying for the first time
while you stood in the shadows
but somehow sent me one note--a
rebel ding from that snow globe
you gave me one Christmas.
Full of a hummingbird 
spinning to Greensleeves,
I hadn’t touched it in years.
I like to imagine. Was it you 
who wound up 
that one little slip of sound?

"Hey little sister
Who’s the only one?" *1
Mom burned your diaries and poems
in our barbeque pit on the front porch,
fed it all our old concert tickets too.
All I found in tact was a box of love letters
from that guy you called “prince tutu nice”,
along with a rock you wrote “reap” on.
You were hilarious when you imitated a frog
and made that ridiculous sound, “reap, reap”.
Nobody understood your version of rib it.

Fist in the air, you sang it like an anthem,
"..in the midnight hour 
she cried more, more, more" *2

"Hey little sister
Who’s your superman?" *1
I’m sure you knew I had forgiven you
for driving off with my bad boy,
my "les yeux sans visage
eyes without a face
got no human grace" *3
Still, I didn’t really care much 
when you let the next guy 
stab his art into over half of your skin--
a Mickey for your kids,
an eagle spread over your rear for him.
I Didn’t try to stop you from running off
to Rome with that trucker either.

"Hey little sister
What have you done?" *1
What was your deal with needles?
You little devil. When you were three
and turned my mattress into a cactus patch
everyone thought it was a little odd.
Your tiny eyes so soft with innocence,
cackling yet twisting to confusion--still
makes we wonder if your will 
was ever really free.

What was the last sound?
Did you hear me ringing your phone
once I learned you locked yourself in again
or had your heart already exploded?

"Hey little sister who’s the one you want?
Hey little sister, Shotgun!" *1
Someone else will decide when
but I don’t really want to go 
anywhere 
you’re not welcome
"…I walked the ward with you, babe
…I’d sell my soul for you, babe
…I’d give you all and have none, babe" *2

"It’s a nice day to start again (come on)
It’s a nice day for a white wedding" *1

1. White Wedding, Billy Idol, 1982
2. Rebel Yell, Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, 1983
3. Eyes Without a Face, Billy Idol/Steve Stevens, 1983
 
© 1999 Tracee Coleman

Another Willow Song

After school, we rode
a bumpy bus then bikes
down Camp Willow Road
into afternoons and evenings
full of adventure.
 
We didn’t study the trees,
just swung on tires or boards
or plain old ropes hung from
sturdy branches in back yards
or front yards or on the river bank
behind Grandma’s place.
 
Standing still meant toes 
sinking in soft mud and waiting
for warm currents to wind around
or just letting the minnows
have their way with girlish legs
growing shorter below.
 
Dusk peppered with giggles
and fireflies and full of whispers,
stories of an elusive lost camp,
shivered our chins treading water
over thrilling tales of handsome, 
mysterious river-boys, Gypsies 
lurking around the bend with kisses
deep and charms like pet snakes
and dangerously hypnotic glass eyes.
 
I have no quarrel with the telling 
of sweet things or the ways
Grandma’s tapioca pudding
waited warm from scratch
and whirled its scent around 
to call us home.
Time and time again we ran
dripping from those dreams
toward tiny spoons of safe love.
 
On that bank, willows still
sink and whisper truths
of certain boys
and self fulfilling prophesies
of foolish girls
who never really noticed
much less heard
the rustle of gentle switches
speaking over heads
of home
with no lashing.


© 2009 Tracee Coleman

Birdwatching and Healing Heaviness

Speak to me father of a mountain lake, 
of the waterfalls which feed her
Reminding of the gentle pines, take
me there again, where birds will stir

as brush cracks beneath a heavy boot.

Teach me again to walk with bare feet,
to honor earth as it should be	
Rewinding where lake and river meet,
when birds might like to watch me

if lightly I’ll flow through their trees


© 2006 Tracee Coleman

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