Crème Céleste* & Arabella, the Jar Lid

Oh, Arabella! – I call you that, you know,

in homage to your lovely alabaster head –

such finely modeled rare translucent

pinkish tan and cream! – set above your

shoulders, elegantly wrapped in bronze,

delicately tooled – the sort of collar you’d

have worn as an adornment on a deep

blue dress on a perfect summer afternoon.

Oh! – know my heart is with you as you face

another hundred fifty years ahead as what

you’re fated to remain: the lid upon a blue

ceramic jar of an emolument called Crème

Céleste – featuring, though fortunately

at your back where you can’t make it out,

too blunt, too common an accounting

of white wax and spermaceti and the rest

of what cannot suggest the barest breath

of your bless’d gracefulness. It is enough

that you should have to bear the sore indignity

of acting as a jar lid on this hard blue jar –

and yet you pull it off as if it were a minor

inconvenience in your otherwise exquisite life –

which though you are a jar lid – hasn’t kept

you from imagining what on a round enameled

peacock blue container of emolument might

one day magically attract the gentleman

for whom you wait and whom you’re sure now

waits for you to make you his beloved wife.

===== 

* It was during [the 1850s] Crème Céleste became popular, which was a mixture of white wax, spermaceti (from an organ inside sperm whale’s head), sweet almond oil, and rosewater. This facial paste had moisturising properties, but it also hid blemishes and provided a light smooth complexion. It developed into a common emollient and cosmetic remover, soon known as cold cream.

http://www.katetattersall.com/early-victorian-era-make-up/

Stranger Than She Seems

Whatever a classic beauty was, he’d have to say

she wasn’t. Whatever a well-bred lady does

he’s very sure she doesn’t: wouldn’t, couldn’t.

She’s a scheme he summons now and then –

though often enough: every seventh dream or so.

She isn’t there to soften or be softened into

acquiescent pet – she’s there to test his mettle –

see what stuff he’s made of now. He’s told

his therapist about her – what the fix feels like

she puts him in – sharp mix of fear and lust –

a tug-of-war between their eyes, his fragile trust –

the prize of cheeks he wants to touch, lips to kiss,

tricks she plays. He weighs the silences his therapist

can be relied upon to wield: sure he sees

the dreamer’s psychic field of blood-red poppies

that the dreamer won’t confess he wants to pick,

but picks. The therapist has worked it out.

No psychoanalytic doubt about this dominatrix.

Perhaps. But not quite whom this dreamer dreams.

She’s stranger than she seems. If they were on

opposing baseball teams (as he occasionally dreams),

he the pitcher, she at bat: she’d bunt – to tease him,

see how much he wanted it, how clumsily he’d run

to it – to watch his awkward fall as he again

missed catching it. She’ll not deride, she will

affectionately laugh: invade him like a patch

of pleasurable rash. Oh, how he loves scratching it!

.

Including You

We needn't worry about aliens.

Nor ought we to resort

to sesquipedalian loquations

on equivocations we can spin

to prop up explanations

for the wisdom of relying on

the reflex to defend against

whom we regard as "those":

ergo by "nature" should oppose.

There's no plot to be exposed.

No malicious means or ends.

Aliens are literally made to be

our friends. We think we know

them not, but that’s a crock of rot.

Equivalently formed of gluons,

quarks and leptons, and the rest

of constitutive quantum stuff,

we and they systemically equate:

enough to state with certainty

that aliens are constitutionally

us. More than theoretically,

I know this to be true.

Think my tale absurdly tall,

but I can say as of today

(I’ve got my ways) I've met

them all. Including you.

You're one, too.

.

A Soft Entanglement

Somehow proceeding

malleably out of sight

of that tight brittle little

cage of fear which had

preceded and impeded it,

a soft entanglement

emerges easily now into

comfort. Stark form gives

way to something warmer,

darker, undulating into,

under and around itself:

a former ‘you’ slips

incrementally from its

containments to succumb

to the conditions of what

has become a latter ‘you,’

the folderol and subtle

business of existence

that you are. Its gentle

charms enrapture –

enwrap you in its arms.

.

Anywhere to Go

We don’t know why it didn’t wander off.

It hadn’t softened toward us since it had arrived –

whence we never knew – but harbored itself coolly,

glancing here or there at this or that or him or her,

occasionally where we were. We clearly hadn’t

caused the smallest stir. Then various components

on its surface of what we assumed was skin began

to glow. This turned out to mean that it would

speak to us, though very low.

“Is there anywhere to go?” We heard it

almost as if we had heard it in our heads, sleeping

in our beds. So deeply that it made us really wonder

if there were another place to go. We found ourselves

replying to it, “we don’t know.” And then we went

somewhere within we hadn’t been, which made us

slide down every slippery degree of yes into 
the singularity of no. We were aghast we had

to add, “but we don’t think so.”

.

Miracle Man

for Doug Melton

Miracles are tangible – they sprout

impossibility without a single doubt –

or the importunate desire to proclaim

or boast or flout what they’re about.

I know this now because my laptop,

which had crashed, has been restored

by the miraculous abilities amassed

by my computer guy who on the sly

I’m sure keeps planets turning in the sky –

that is, when he is not, through his

remote manipulations, altering the DNA

of apparatuses like mine, bringing them

to such unparalleled capacities for

fine performance laptops surely never

in their circuitry imagined could be had.

The very mention of his name –

Douglas Melton – melts the glowing

dawn of an enlightenment in the forlorn,

unclad, unknowing dark in me. What

else can I be but insubordinately glad?

.

Not Even You

Aerodynamically ill-advised

aberration in the skies

(by other better sorts despised),

awkwardness all undisguised,

poignant yearning in his eyes,

somehow flies.

Does life abound?

Has evidence been found?

Are we the only blip of it around?

The former has a hopeful sound.

But do not misconstrue

the “blip” side to be too

statistically unlikely to be true.

Nobody knows. Not even you.

.