Another language

expire

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

house rots my food. house stains produce
with bowel smells, and the flies. house
generates flies. house seeps bad breath
onto my plate. house palate and palace and not both. house gnaws at the hinges. house of gnats-hinged-fridge. house not a house. house a flat, but still house in fearful steeps of every step. house molds my meat; house turns my milk. house stays, and house stinks; house prays but spills the drinks. house a fringe. of grease and glue. house a bill long overdue. house that diseases the cured meats. house that will douse but never rinse. house that is ours and festers us. house whose treasure is maggots- ours.

Plaything Pretend

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

the waxen arms of a doll

its belly soft-grilled cotton

smelled like vanilla first

then a hauntingly sharp whiff

of glue acidic and silent remains 

later, I found that grown-ups 

do smell like those things too,

with their heads caved in, half an eye,

and supple feet by shoes

so readily bruised

yet our eyelashes whip the air

in fear of overflowing joy

while the doll keeps its own still

staring into blind light. 

Lesbian Poetry Simulator – Play Now For Free!

~ Iphis ~ 1 Comment

[que] la glace [se] terni[sse ?]
l’éclat (…) [disparaître ?] non pas (…)
avec l’ (…)…

(…) des [tresses ?] de mon aimée (…)

crossing each (…)
that didn’t appear
yet

after careful study of this poem’s remnants, one can only conclude that (…)

(moon through spilled windows)

… le texte, plus intéressant par sa graphie et ce qu’elle révèle des conditions de préservation que par son sens, son vers maladroit…

Undisturbed

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

gathering gray threads a field somewhere
shades itself in rain’s company
growing greener

in the old country unwed girls
would tie their hair with snake molts
so that pillows squealed
their silky solitude

It did fall(,) silent
in between tree tremors
their light guilt.

________________________________

after Ryan Whelan’s 2020 artwork, Somewhere there’s an open field undisturbed just growing greener, soft pastel and acrylic on canvas. from the series Holding two opposites at once.

Arany in the changing room

~ Iphis ~ 3 Comments

a plastic sheet explains 

how to cough; barely legible

under the cracks of this late morning’s

sad light, its white pools. they

quickly (calls the teacher) ought to remove

their shoes, leave coats

hanging on tiny hooks, and spill 

into the gymnasium. Arany

peers through the narrow window and tells her friend

look: i can see my mommy

right in that house over here, drinking coffee. it is all 

yet another miracle – not to see mom from school,

forbidden bird,  

but that joy – as her hastily shed scarf slides down,

and puddles on the invisible bench, its smooth surface, 

so cold, resin-coated – the locked-up bench, that has yet

to be forgotten. 

I Haven’t Done Algebra Since 2013

~ Iphis ~ 1 Comment

éblouie non aveugle

no staring, squinting’s suggested

right at the not-reach

s’évanouissant laissant la soif

& les sourcils fronçant –

……………………….

you might want to hurry

home

isn’t quite what exists.

///////

you might want to hurry

home

existn’t quite what is

/////////////////

((you) ((might)) (want(ing))) to hurry

(home)

isn’t quite what exists.

HAS ANYONE EXPERIENCED SOMETHING SIMILAR / GOT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PHENOMENON? (SERIOUS REPLIES ONLY)

~ Iphis ~ 2 Comments

Why, of course you’re not going to believe me. I mean, only old people find these little shits endearing anyway. I haven’t met anyone under the age of thirty who didn’t think they were absolutely nightmare-inducing. But hear me out – I have some other reason to hate garden gnomes.

It all started when I was about eight. You see, I had a pretty regular childhood. My parents never divorced, we had a suburban house, and my four grandparents were alive until recently. Oh, of course there was some family drama – whose family doesn’t have any? But it never got bad enough that we had to cut ties with relatives. My grandma’s house was as typical as our life: decently sized, with two guest rooms, a big kitchen, a garden with a vegetable patch, a swing for us kids, and a garden gnome. Now before that story started, I had no hard feelings towards that gnome. It was just some weird decrepit doll I wasn’t allowed to play with because, despite looking like a toy, it wasn’t one, according to my grandma. I didn’t pay it too much attention, since there were much more exciting things to do – namely the swings, and in the summer the strawberries ripening, for example.

A bit of a tradition in our family was that I’d spend a part of the summer holidays there with my cousin Lily. We were the same age, being born exactly six months apart (a fact our families loved to bring up at every reunion), and got along well despite our very different personalities, as is often the case with children. She was this fun, extroverted kid who would constantly drive the adults crazy with her questions while I was quiet, a bit of a coward, and very reasonable. Our parents liked to say we “brought out the best in each other”. I don’t really know about that – what I remember is Lily pushing too hard on the swing and falling down once, in a very dramatic way, shattering one of her front teeth. I did warn her, of course – but did she ever listen to what I had to say?

Anyway. Back to the gnome. This happened in the early 2000’s and, as I said, I was eight. I had just arrived to my grandma’s to spend three weeks there before my parents had their days off and would join us. Lily was there already. I got off the car and she ran towards me, screaming with excitement.

“Notice any change?”, Lily asked, her eyes bright with mischief.

“Now, Lily, don’t spoil the surprise”, Grandma warned.

I looked around.

“It’s in the garden!”, Lily shouted. “You’re getting warmer!”

I looked around and approached a rhododendron bush. Everything seemed to be as I remembered. I turned a corner and saw it.

“The garden gnome! You… changed it?”, I asked, confused.

Before Grandma could say anything, Lily shrieked.

“We repainted it! And she let me choose the colors!”

The gnome’s overalls were indeed bubblegum pink instead of their regular denim blue.

“That’s nice”, I said. And really, I didn’t know what else to say. It was a bit weird to see the gnome in that state, as I was so used to its old appearance – its face was more defined, but really that was all.

We all went inside and had a late lunch – it was about 2:30pm.

Now the weird things started right after lunch. Lily and I headed to the garden to play on the swings; she had been given a new bouncing ball by the neighbor and we were fighting over it. Suddenly I smashed the ball while it was in the air and it bumped into the shed’s door. We weren’t allowed in it, as it was full of sharp tools, dust and cobwebs, and so my grandma kept it locked at all times. Except that day, apparently. When the ball hit the old wooden door, it opened, ever so slightly. We stood there, abashed.

“Should we get inside?”, Lily asked.

“If we do so, grandma will ground us and tell our parents.”

“She doesn’t have to know.”

“But she will!”

“C’mon, Annie – just one minute! Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”

“But we’re not allowed”, I replied tentatively.

“Get back to grandma if you want, I’m going inside”, she decided.

That’s the thing with Lily: once she had decided she would do something, there was no stopping her. So I sighed and followed her in the shed – after all, I was curious too.

Now that I think about it, there was nothing remarkable inside the shed, and I can definitely see why adults didn’t want us in there. The sunlight glimmered over metals, all more or less rusty. Mostly there were bags of fertilizer and old garden tools. Nothing phenomenal, really. Lily closed the door and we were submerged in total darkness – there were no windows and no light bulb. I muffled a scream.

“I know what we’re gonna do!”, she whispered excitedly.

“Get out of there?”

“No, silly – I’m getting my glow-in-the-dark marbles!”

“Wait -”

But she was already out. I stood there, frightened. I wanted to get out of the shed, but I could hear my grandma not that far away and I was afraid she’d see me opening the door. So I just… stayed here, praying that Lily would come back quickly. And then it… happened. Or rather started happening. I heard a scratching noise from the outside.

“Lily?”, I whispered. “Quit doing that!”

The scratching continued. It felt like claws on wood. No way that a child’s nails could make such a sound. Maybe Lily had brought some kind of instrument – a fork perhaps? – and was fooling with me. I called her name again, threatened to scream for grandma – no response. And then – I can still hear it – I heard one of the wooden planks being… torn apart. Granted, the shed was old, so it couldn’t have been too hard – but why would Lily do that? My knees gave out and I fell on the ground. And then – how is that even possible? – I saw some light. One of the planks had been ripped off and there was a tiny hole, or rather a split, in the wall, that let light enter the shed. I stared at it for what must have been a few seconds only but felt like whole minutes, and then… something… something was behind the split. Staring at me. It was a painted eye – a black eye. I could not but recognize it immediately. The eye rose up, still staring at me (or at least that’s how it felt), and through the crack I could see the whole shabby face… of the old garden gnome. I opened my mouth to scream and as soon as I did that, it just… disappeared. As if nothing had ever been there, staring at me through a crack they (or rather it) had just created. Finally regaining control over my body, I jumped on my feet and stormed out of the shed – and you may have guessed it: there was nothing outside. No old shabby gnome. No prankster cousin. Just the grass. At that moment the back door slammed and Lily started running towards me. She stopped dead in her tracks upon seeing my face.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s not nice to scare people like that”, I accused her, although I was pretty sure that what I had just experienced was not Lily’s making.

“What are you talking about? I was just inside.”

I told her what I had seen, and showed her the crack – I think she was even more scared than me, actually. It was nice to have her believe me, because I knew no adult would. We went back to the gnome. It was still here, freshly painted, mocking us with its empty eyes, fake smile and pink overalls.

“You sure that’s not what you saw?”

“Yes. I saw the old gnome. The one that had paint peeling off its face.”

She frowned.

“Then I don’t know. We should ask grandma if she has some other gnome laying around. But first maybe check the shed?”, she proposed, her eyes brightening.

“Nobody’s gonna check the shed!”

“Alright, alright! I’ll ask her over dinner then.”

And that’s what she did. As I said, Lily was always good at getting the adults to give her information – she had been so involved in the whole repainting stuff her asking about the gnome didn’t seem to strike grandma as unusual.

“Grandma, do you have another garden gnome?”

“Another gnome? No, dear, just the one we painted.”

“Are you sure?”

She chuckled.

“Yes, of course. I’m not that old, I still know what I own!”

“Where does it come from?”, I asked.

“The gnome? Oh, I don’t really know. It was there when your grandpa and I bought the house. The previous owners had left a lot of things inside. We threw away most of it but ended up keeping a few. For example, the living room’s lamp was from them.”

We exchanged a silent look. Really, there was nothing more to ask about. When grandma asked us what we had been up to that afternoon, Lily made up a story on the spot – she had always had a talent for making stuff up – about our dolls being pirates fighting for a treasure (that was composed of her marbles). I suppose grandma believed her, as she didn’t ask any follow-up questions.

The rest of the holidays was peaceful. Sure, I had some nightmares about the gnome, and Lily and I still tried to elaborate theories about it – but mostly we played and argued. I’d not say we forgot about it completely: it just wasn’t our number one preoccupation anymore.

Still, I felt some kind of relief when we left, in addition to the habitual sadness. Hopefully I would stop dreaming about the gnome.

When we arrived home, after a five-hours long drive, it felt like waking up from some confusing, stressful nightmare. At that point I was pretty sure I had imagined it all. I mean, I’ve always had a rich imagination, and the sudden darkness had scared me so much I might as well have hallucinated the whole thing. Plus it made no sense I had seen the old version of the gnome – this was probably because I wasn’t used to its new look yet.

Anyway. My dad took my suitcase to my bedroom and I started unpacking. There were, neatly wrapped, all kinds of things I had taken home from Grandma’s place – a new doll, two books, various shells and funny-looking rocks, as well as scented paper. Under all that were the clothes, always the least exciting part of unpacking. I grabbed a pair of socks and felt something hard inside it. I unwrapped it, excited – my grandma often hid some tiny toys or a 10$ bill in my packages and suitcases. When I discovered what it was, however, I felt as if I had been thrown into a pool of icy water.

In my hands, staring back at me, was a plaster fragment – of an eye. The very same eye I had seen spying on me through the crack: black and shabby, with its paint peeling off. I dropped it off like it had burned me and it fell on the floor with a dull sound, where it kept staring at me. I felt hot tears rising under my eyelids and stomped on it, hysterically, until the gnome fragment was unrecognizable; I then managed to overcome my fear and gather the broken pieces. What to do with them? My first impulse was to throw them in the garbage can, but I quickly resolved against it – my parents could see them and get suspicious. Besides, I didn’t want this thing to stay in the same house as me. So I opened the window, made sure no one could see me, and threw the shards into the overgrown garden of the neighboring house (vacant at the time).

I sat on my bed, restless. My first thought was to call Lily; but at the time, cellphones weren’t as usual as they are now, and I would have needed to use the landline, which my parents would have known about since they insisted on listening to my phone calls. Now that I think about it, I should definitely have told my parents about the whole thing – but the childish fear of getting yelled at, maybe grounded, for entering the shed, as well as involving Lily, held me back. And I knew my parents wouldn’t believe me anyway – they’ve always made fun of people believing in anything even slightly supernatural and constantly told me to “stop lying” when, younger, I told them about my imaginary friends and their adventures. No, I thought, the safest thing to do now was to try and forget it all. So I didn’t tell anyone anything, finished unpacking, and joined my parents in the living room to watch some TV.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I don’t remember my dreams but I think I didn’t fall asleep properly before dawn; I was woken up by my mom around 10:30am. She entered the room as usual and opened the blinds.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty”, she said cheerfully, “your kingdom awaits you!”

I mumbled something unintelligible.

“Come on, do you see what time it is? You need to get back to a normal sleep schedule for when schools starts again.”

She walked towards my bed and stopped. I was facing the wall, but could feel her presence behind my back. She grabbed something placed on my nightstand.

“Good lord, what’s that? Annie, why do you have to keep such useless trinkets all the time? And what’s it supposed to be?”

I turned over. At first, I couldn’t see what she was holding, being blinded by the sunlight. Then it became clearer.

It was the gnome’s eye.

“What’s wrong?”, she inquired, seeing the look on my face.

“Don’t touch it!”

She raised her eyebrows.

“It’s, uh, mine. Lily… gave it to me. She… has the other half. It’s a cousin-best friends kind of thing.”

“Oh, okay then. If you say so. Anyway – get up before it’s too late for you to have breakfast.”

The whole day was a blur. It was clear I needed to get rid of the gnome’s eye – goodness, this is one ridiculous sentence, isn’t it? But it was also clear it wanted to stay in the house. To mock me, or… I didn’t even want to think about it. So I figured we needed to find a compromise. After hours of febrile thinking, I found what appeared to be the best solution: putting it in the attic. Nobody would find it weird to have some old broken thing up there, it would still be inside, and hopefully it wouldn’t come back to watch me sleep. I shuddered. When I asked my mom if I told keep it there, she looked surprised.

“Don’t you want to keep it at arm’s length? To remember your “cousin-best friend”?”

“If I do, I’ll keep playing with it and it might break. Look, it’s really fragile.”

It was the first time I lied to her with such conviction.

“Well, it’s your stuff, you can keep it wherever you want. Just don’t touch anything in the attic. I know where everything is stored and don’t want you to mess it up. Also, you could hurt yourself. Oh and, I don’t want you sneaking around there all the time, so if you keep it in the attic, remember you won’t be able to go play with it anytime you want to. Understood?”

I nodded and went back to my bedroom. I grabbed a shirt and used it to hold the eye. It was still staring at me, and although there was no particular expression to be found in it, I recalled the gnome’s face, constantly laughing for an unknown reason, and it felt like it was deliberately taunting me. I unlocked the attic’s door and turned on the light. It was a very regular attic in a very regular house, really, but not being able to hear my parents downstairs while being alone with the thing made me uneasy. I looked around, trying to find the perfect spot, and noticed an old suitcase we didn’t use anymore as its wheels were jammed. What decided me to drop it in that particular suitcase was that it got a lock – that was, fortunately, open. Obviously, I didn’t delude myself into thinking the lock would prevent it from doing whatever it wanted to do, but it was still quite reassuring to hear its clicking sound. Placebo effect, probably. I locked the attic door behind me, gave the key back to my mom, and for a while, that was it.

Of course it took some time before I could sleep normally again – to be honest, I’m not even sure to this day my sleeping pattern is something we can call “normal” – but the eye seemed to accept its new place and never showed up again. I avoided the attic on the pretext of being afraid of spiders and, as years passed, I thought less and less about that adventure. Actually, I almost managed to convince myself (once again) that I had made the whole story up – after all, my childhood was pretty boring and I could’ve used the thrill. I even wondered for a while if it could have been a psychotic episode, but nothing similar happened to me afterwards and the research I did on the question revealed that psychosis often starts manifesting during late adolescence or early adult years. Anyway – I also never told anyone this story before, and I would have kept things as they were if it weren’t for what happened last month.

I graduated last June. I found a job after a few months of job hunting – I admit I got lucky – and decided to move out. My parents initially wanted to leave my bedroom as it was to make sure I would feel welcomed when I’d visit them but I convinced them to use it as a spare guest room, which was lacking. I started packing my stuff. At the beginning, it was easy enough to determine what I’d take with me, and what should be thrown away; but eventually I stumbled upon some items (mostly toys) which, while having too much of a sentimental value to be simply thrown away, would be a waste of space and energy to take with me at my new place. I asked my parents for advice – should we give them away?, and they told me I should simply put them in the attic, at least for a while. Who knows, I might start a family a few years from now, and then I would be glad to still have my old toys to give to my child!, they reasoned. I felt uneasiness crawling up my skin at this idea but agreed, as this was obviously the best option. Had it been only a few years before, I would simply have asked my dad to move the boxes to the attic; but he had unfortunately hurt his back when I was still in college and thus wasn’t allowed to lift heavy objects or bend for too long. As for my mom, I knew she’d have made fun of me for still being scared of the attic – our relationship isn’t that great, if I’m honest, and I’d rather have faced the attic and whatever was in it than give her more reasons to call me a coward in front of people. I know it’s childish, and I’m not really sure how we even got there in the first place, as we were pretty close when I was younger, but it is what it is, right? So, long story short, I ended up taking the boxes to the attic myself.

I unlocked the door and turned on the light, looking around to see where I could leave them – I had hoped there would still be enough room in the front so that I wouldn’t have to get too close to the old jammed suitcase but unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. So I started walking towards the end of the room until I could see the suitcase.

The light bulb was too weak to properly light the whole room, but I could see that something had been placed at the top of the suitcase. I sighed, relieved – it was clearly too big to be the gnome’s eye. However, as I still needed to find a spot for my boxes, I kept going. As I approached, I could distinguish a silhouette in the dim light of the attic. A silhouette that looked humanoid, with a pointed hat. I let go of my boxes. Overhanging the suitcase was the old garden gnome, intact, with its blue overalls and its paint that was flaking off, grinning, and staring directly at me.

I don’t exactly remember how I got out of the attic. I left the boxes where they had fallen down, locked the door, and didn’t tell my parents anything. Now you might be wondering why I am telling you this, you who are total strangers, when I kept quiet for so many years and didn’t even tell my relatives what happened. Am I crazy? I don’t think so. As I mentioned before, I’m not showing any symptom of mental instability, whatever that means. I never have, really. No, if I’m telling you the whole story now, it’s because I need advice. Should I tell my parents about all of this? Letting them know they most likely have a haunted garden gnome (if that thing really is a garden gnome) in their house? I’m conflicted – on the one hand, I of course don’t want them to get hurt, and who knows what that thing is capable of – but on the other hand, I don’t want them to freak out (maybe for nothing) when they’ve spent the last fifteen years unbothered. And before you tell me to get back there and destroy the gnome – given what happened when I broke the eye and threw it away, I’m not sure that would put an end to it; actually, I’m afraid it would only make it angry and craving retaliation. I’m also afraid of it following me to my new home, obviously. I’ll keep you updated. So, yeah – in need of a few tips and opinions about all this, please.

TL;DR: I’m apparently being haunted (?) by a garden gnome since I’m 8. What should I do?

Short stories are back… but they’re not what we’re used to!

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

Hello everyone!

I personally hate summer. It’s hot and makes me sweaty. So, in order to send some chill down our spines, I decided to take advantage of the free time the holidays grant me & try out some new writing style – namely, horror.

I’ll post new stories regularly, and you’ll be able to find them all under the “Summer Horror” tag!

Enjoy your summer and see you soon!

 

Becoming chimère

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

Part in the rising waters agé
The frail bark ploys it all

*

Les champs de la neige s’éloignent
L’oubli keeps you floating
A single tree on the mud shore
With a disemboweled rope
De pendu il y a (de) cela trois morts

*

Si léger light eats you up
Déjà

A Very Obvious Allegory

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

she passed us in a frenzy
black robes where we’d expect white
eyes punctured
throat sewn tight
she passed us in a frenzy
and hollers through the corridors

the palaces cry for help
heavy marble busts abashed
won’t tell the dust (off)
that she left

only she could knead the cries of pain
roll them around
but she’s passed through
and cannot cry –
she passes us in a frenzy
cold breeze of night
under children’s windows
who meet her once
and go quiet –

*

and still it seems
that rivers flow…

The end of a project… and its beginning!

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

(french below)

I am very glad to announce you I’m done with my latest poetry project, Goodnight, listeners! It’s a collection of poems composed and told by a radio host during its live show that airs on Wednesdays between 2AM and 3AM. Mostly an exploration of what night, memory, desire and identity can mean… with a plot!

To read the completed book, as well as my 4 other books, you can suscribe to my patreon or send me an email (carmine.g.denis@gmail.com)!

It’s not over, though: Goodnight, listeners is meant to be a podcast so, while that might take a while, you can already listen to the playlist! it’s meant to alternate between songs and poems, starting with the poem (poem n°1; song n°1; poem n°2; etc), although you can of course listen to it the way you want to.

I’ll keep you updated about the podcast!

love,

Carmine

***

J’ai le bonheur de vous annoncer que mon dernier projet de poésie en anglais, Goodnight, listeners, est terminé ! Pour celles et ceux qui n’en ont pas suivi le développement sur patreon, il consiste en une série de poèmes composés par un présentateur radio pendant son émission en direct, qui passe entre 2h et 3h du matin le mercredi. Il y a (en quelque sorte) une intrigue et les thématiques principales tournent autour de la mémoire, de l’identité, du désir et de la nuit.

Pour le lire, ainsi que mes 4 autres livres (un en français et trois en anglais), il vous faudra soit vous abonner à mon patreon (prix libres !), soit m’envoyer un mail (carmine.g.denis@gmail.com) afin que nous puissions en discuter plus avant.

Mais ce n’est pas fini ! Goodnight, listeners se propose de devenir un podcast : cela peut prendre du temps, donc en attendant vous pouvez écouter la playlist dédiée au projet sur spotify,  idéalement dans l’ordre (poème 1 puis chanson 1 ; poème 2 puis chanson 2 ; etc.), bien que vous puissiez évidemment l’écouter dans l’ordre que vous voulez.

Je vous tiendrai au courant de l’avancée du podcast!

Carmine

The Unexpectable

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

Watchman watchman during dawn
What have you seen that’ll make us frown?

*

Rocks
My sister
Rocks started floating
And a stray star went dull
And the milk plate went sour

*

Watchman watchman during the day
What have you heard that’ll make us stay?

*

Streetcars dance in noon’s shadow
And said shadow rejoices
But make no mistake
Grab its hand and get poisoned

*

Watchman watchman during the night
Have you smelled the latest blight?

*

I smelled it first, o my sister
Its heart of rot, its bones of white
It ate us whole like grains of salt
O my sister
Your shawl is loose on the great walls

What did you taste
When death went live?

*

Watchman watchman dusk has risen on the horizon
Leave the tower, and carve some rest
Out of the night that crawls quickly
Feel its hot rain on your fresh corpse.
– Haven’t you heard?

O my sister, ’twas me traitor
Who let it enter.

Embodied grief of bodies…

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment
embodied grief of bodies
I am a cathedral
 
gargoyles sing away, away
stained glass does nothing
but lets the light through
 
my lover is a spade of grass
she digs deeper and deeper
but saves the desperate worms
 
embodied alas at long last
who can stand
where beauty was?

oh wondrous day – the start of a new project

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

oh wondrous day

I went out all night walked my way out of town

and stars were many, and trees verily

bent down and whispered to me

things my mouth is embarrassed to say

(too many teeth, so little tongues)

I went home to the woman spinning wool

in our room, singing

a song of faith (and the knight

swore his love was enough to sustain him

and he ate lilies

and the lilies were venomous

and oh no the knight died)

oh wondrous day

soon my lips will be sewn tight

and no humming will escape

but I’ve been out all night among

trees who wore their bridal attire

for the first time in tree history

I bathed in a cold spring

oh wondrous day

my lover’s lute glimmers in the light

at spring’s death all dressed up

I’ll be nothing but a wife

oh wondrous day

Just so we’re clear

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

just so we’re clear
so clear the light won’t even
have a body to cross

just so we’re clear
bag of bones spilling on the countertop
hello I’d like to borrow this
take a coin
take a pill

just so we’re clear
the transaction isn’t complete
and I’ve seen my mother smoking
eyes closed in the backyard

just so we’re clear
somebody sliced my tongue
and my nails have grown long

just so we’re clear
I am no obstacle anymore
and dawn will bend and not see

The traveler clears time…

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

the traveler clears time
bushes of forgotten tears
useless crystal

*

oh what i have seen
countries where deserts meet the sea
salt plains and nobody to lick ’em
forests where vines intertwine with fate

*

and with a machete
he fails to set his mind
ablaze like the summer trees
and cuts right through
his childhood self

*

mind dried clean and polished
like a wedding shoe

First loves in the sun

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

Watering my rotting garden when
A single hand-sewn patch of sunlight
Washed over me with joy

*

Oh to be a single particle
Of pollen up in the air
Middle-school children laughing tearing
Grass apart I didn’t know you’d die
I just kept ripping the grass apart
(Of me won’t dry out)
And poured it all on your hair
Bitter tea

*

I never ate my sorrows like I did with yours

A funny story that horrifies

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

how old were you when you first turned
to stone? your eyes made up
of snow-white goo
and strangeness dripping off your sex?
how old were you when reflections
suddenly didn’t matter anymore, when every quartz
and amethyst and pebbles at the sea
came in, whispered,
“it’s alright, it’s alright”?
how old?

As ladies of the past…

~ Iphis ~ 2 Comments
as ladies of the past
took flight in the mistaken mind
I lay my arm on the warm stone
it’s March, like a fresh fall
of light, the leaves
the not-yet leaves
leave a bitter odor in the air –
once upon a time a boy gave me
a branch of pink flowers he broke from a tree
as I walked home from school –
and at the time I didn’t know
anything but the lady of the hill
(I should have given offerings
to bribe her mercy) I didn’t know
and put the branch in a glass of water –
blueberries stained our summer fingers
with nails as black as the plague
for spring is diseased
and, stillborn, will choke us soon.

Kindergarten

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Oh the crystals broke
In my chamber of wood; no shard
Is left for me to nurse
Til blood greets me – I put my hand
Under running water, no shard
To put blood out of its torpor
To pour it like coffee
On the sink’s teacup –
Oh the crystals broke
My broom’s delight
To gather it
Whole still intact still somehow destroyed
Oh the crystals broke

A poem that waited five years to be written

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

as one climbs cranes…
not to reach the controls, muscles
bent and high on caffeine –
as one reaches the highest point of the machine
with its war paints of red and white
and much to the surprise of its husband
and son, the machinist
as one climbs cranes…
maybe, up there
the sunset
will last a little longer; maybe
the streetlights won’t light up your way…
as one climbs cranes…

Radio

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

goodnight, listeners

to you, driving alone across the fields

it’s 3am, a fresh new

Wednesday just began – and you,

lovestruck teen, who cannot sleep

(looking at the stars

like they do in the movies)

and you, mother of two

with a mewling baby in your arms

goodnight, the sun

is all the way through the planet

and the wheat is growing nicely

goodnight, listeners

I’ll let you wander alone in all that cold

while citizens sleep

and cats awake

goodnight, listeners

take music as your last rites

smooth your wrinkles

comb your whitening hair

goodnight, listeners

goodnight.

Story of a street

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My street for sure
Got strange castles
One made from ice
(So you can lick
The walls, water
Crawling up your sleeves)
One made from sand
(Itchy, it makes you blind
And scratches your eyes)
One made from snow
(You can’t see through
Its frost windows)
But the most pleasurable place
For sure is ours
Smelling like fish
And cabbage soup
Regular walls
Regular beds
We’ve got a cat
That meows through walls
As if seeing
The Great Corals…

Adolescence

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

(We see a figure, crouched, or is she
Stretching? under opaque rain, or is it
Snow already?)

*

Mud on my hands
Love is inside the stadium
And sweats doing cardio

I let the wind
Punish me
But there’s not enough of it
For rain to cleanse thoroughly

*

And someone cried out,
“What are you doing out there?”

Dog of my dreams…

~ Iphis ~ 1 Comment

dog of my dreams

I’ve been roaming the streets at night

holding the scarf I wore all week

so you can tell me

with your ever-so-meaningful eyes

what I smell like

*

I call you

by the name you don’t have

*

and it sometimes seems, lost dog of the fog

that my shadow growls

with hunger

*

I suppose

Frozen puddle

~ Iphis ~ 2 Comments

G. requested a poem entitled “frozen puddle”. Here is the result!

***

In some other
Quality of time there is
A school’s playground
With a leaky gutter
Crystalline winter

One morning, one miracle
Out of space this town is
Bound to if not higher at least
Other hands
It snowed all night
And the gutter froze

The early child
Looks at love

Soon boys her age
Will shatter the icy
Gutter

But at least once
Having seen it
Mourning
As the sun elevates

(Scent of smoke
In the air)

December 24th, midnight minus a minute

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in the glass train station
all gathered
in their finest clothes
dining off expensive china
at candlelight

*

I walked miles in the snow
following the railway
to meet them

*

all dead
sitting at the table
only the wind sings
a Christmas carol

*

the girl in black velvet
black hair and eyes
white teeth and skin
won’t pass the salt

*

at the corner of my eye
always

_________________________

Read this poem and many more on my Patreon! (patreon.com/carminedenis)

Pandora

~ Iphis ~ Leave a comment

Can you see what’s in there?
Buttons, pearls, some broken necklace
still glowing faintly, like a year;
a pair of eyes in your face;
– What’s next? You,
stepping into the casket,
up and down the stairs, raising like dew
in the winter cherry basket –

 

But what’s more? You, my dear;
into the water, come,
into the purple sea.