Reds In a Black Mask by Jo Dancingtree (top 10 novels .txt) 📕

From the Outer Darkness

My nose is flat
from leaning up against the windowpane,
wondering what they do in there –
the happy people,
the people who belong.

And how did they get in?
They make it look so easy,
but when I try
I bang against the glass.

Me and the June bugs,
battering against the lighted w

indowpane
and dying to get in.

Dilemma

You’re such an angry

person,
he said, and it was true,
though I denied it.
Anger was my shield, my suit of armor.
When I was mad I didn’t feel the pain,
or not as much.
It warmed me in the cold
of I’m not good enough and no one wants me.
Since I was born I’ve wrapped the warm red coat
of anger round me.

I want to put it off now, lay it down.
I want to live by love, be gentle-hearted.
But gentle hearts are open to the pain
I don’t know how to bear.

Flower Girl

I bring my posies to you, and
you dash them to the ground.
They're nothing but clover;
what did you pick them for?
What kind of imbecile
can't tell the weeds from flowers?

It’s only my heart you’re throwing on the ground.
Don’t let it bother you,
I don’t care really.
It’s only my love I press into your hand.
It’s only my heart you’re crushing to the ground.

Reds in a Black Mask

Give me a cigarette.
Nails in my coffin, Grandma used to call them –
she had some names for me I won't repeat.

I won't repeat them. I've been called some names
even Grandma wouldn't utter.
Give me a cigarette.

For life goes on, I've found, and on and on.
Sentence has been passed – I only lack
an executioner.

Give me another nail; I'm smoking death
and trying to pretend
that God won't mind.

Sisters, Divided

You told me we were friends
but in my secret heart I called you sister,
and sure enough, I had it right.
For certain we’re not friends, not anymore.
Between abandonment and pity
there's little room for friendship.

But still I love you
as if we shared a bond of bone and blood
instead of cups of tea
and endless conversation,
sadness halved and gladness multiplied.

I think I’ll always love you,
for that’s the way with sisters.
Your gravel voice could call me back from death
to say good-night and
see you in the morning.


Internal Injuries

I guess you couldn’t see beneath the shell
of my too-famous strength.
It’s all I’ve ever heard,
how strong I am:
meaning impervious, meaning immune to hurt,
meaning it’s safe to strike at me
because I never crumble.

I never do, only shiver to
smithereens inside my shell.
If you could shake my soul
I’d rattle like maracas,
the brittle slivers of my life
clacking around inside that dratted shell.

Coming into the Homestretch

The best news I know:
I’m fifty-five, I’ll soon be fifty-six.
I’m getting closer, Lord,

to the end of crying
and squirming in the dark
for words I’ve said that
showed me up a fool
to those I love but somehow
can’t get near.
An end to pain is all I really ask.

Oh that’s a lie! I still would ask for joy,
but I would settle
for the end of pain.

Popular Opinion

What will you do then, girl, go
take a poll? Hold an election,
let the people decide
if you should live? Count
how many love you, or despise,
and how many don’t care much
either way. Is that how you can tell
if you are worthy?

A pretty sort of election
that would be. Make it universal
and we'll have no
population problem.

Smiley

I have a smile so wide and bright,
it warms the room.

My dear, you’re looking well –
confident, healthy, glad to be alive.

Healthy, worse luck. One out of three’s
not bad. The smile's a mask
so fine, you'll never see
the misery behind.

Oh Lord, how long, how long?
I walk on broken glass with broken feet.
Until your pity set me loose
I dare not step away.

Don’t count on death
to make away with pain.
Some things hurt
worse than simple agony.

Gravel

If I open my heart to you, what will you do?
Pour gravel in it,
dusty cutting stones,
and turn away?
Because someone did,
a lot of someones did.
I think I’ll keep my heart closed tight:
my loving trust has brought me to the ground.
It’s not that I don’t love you.
I love in fear,
my heart so full of gravel.


Hermit

I've decided I won't go anywhere,
only outside to see the moon at night
and listen to the owls.

But when the sun is just above the hills
I'll ride my bike on sandy roads,
pedaling hard to make it up a rise
and coasting down.

A world so solitary,
cold and safe.


Unless You Become Like Little Children

I'll be eleven when I get to heaven,
or maybe twelve, but not more than thirteen –
that's where I left myself
back when I still believed I had a name.

I have one now, but just because I chose it,
it's not the one I used to think I knew.
I'll be eleven, and I'll know my name,

and roller skate down all the golden pavements
slicker than marble and quicker than a smile.


Wise St. Francis

Sister Death, he named her –
Il Poverino

had the rights of it.
Merciful Sister Death, who calls
me home, who drags me from the fire
that's charring my heart to cinder.
I share his tenderness
for this so gracious sister.


Cold Sober

Don't waste your time in wishing you were dead .
That's one wish will come true,
soon or later.

You needn't do a solitary thing
to make it happen.
But when it does,

what will you wish for then?
What thing undone will dog you?
Go and do it.


After the Fire

How do you bear the pain?
Endure, like rock.
No, rock's too cold and hard -
like earth, then, tramped and tortured into dust,
ignored, forgot,
and weaving every spring
a cloak of living green across the scars
of last year's outrage.

The burnt-out ground
and blackened tree trunks clawing at the sky
trail veils of bittersweet,
and sprigs of infant trees
pop through the ash and flex their springy boughs:
wood winning over fire.


Do You Make Mistakes, Lord?

You could have made somebody else
instead of me.
Someone more talented or lovable,
more pretty and less prone to run to fat,
more charming, funny, someone who knew how
to be with people.

What do I add to earth by being me?
Gnashing my teeth in silent agony,
smiling in public and saying the wrong thing –
I am so weary, weary,
endlessly weary, Lord,
of being me.


Lifeline

If you knew how desperately I need
the reassurance of a tender word,
could you
find your tongue?

I don’t know why it matters, hearing the words –
I’ve heard them all before
and they were lies.

Damn lies and delusional lies,
and little white lies to bridge the awkward moment.
But still I need more words

to tell me I’m okay,
to say I have a foothold on a world
slippery as ice,
to pitch me in the void.


Hope

Despair strikes down like falling in a well
a fathom deep and narrow as a rod.
I can't get
out. Chilled to the core,

hopeless beyond tears, I'm lost
in dreams of death
alone – alone.
A whisper in my mind: there's light
above, a disc of white -
there's daylight still
out there.


Interrogative Sentences

You disappeared and left so many questions
and nobody to answer.
You didn't want a daughter, I know that,
but once I got here, were you a little glad?

And were you really gay,
or was that just another of their lies?
The ones who hated you,
the only ones who ever spoke your name.

And was it an accident or suicide?
Oh, Dad,
you left too many questions.


At Home in the Desert

Bitter water, you can't drink that water –
no thirst can sweeten it.
Baby, you'll be dry, you drink that water!
Pour it out, let it run
in sad futility on forsaken ground
to plump a cactus thornier than you,
if anything can be.
You can't drink that water.


Child Abuse Looks Like This

She wanted a swing,
a wooden board suspended by its ropes,
horse of wonder to carry her away
into the treetops.
And paint it red, please, let the ropes be smooth
against her palms, and she would sail aloft,
hour by hour flying to and fro,
singing the music of her young knees pumping.

Too bad she was so noisy. They took a rope
and hung her by the neck.


Choices

I know I'm not the first one
tempted to turn my face against the wall.
It's been done before
and probably with better reason.
What difference does that make?

Sunlight floods the forest
and dirty snow is melting;
the crows were raucous in this morning's dawn.
All the world's alive and quickening
and I huddle in the dark and cry for death.

A simple case of choices:
Behold I set before you death and life.


High Wire Girl

It takes a toll, pretending to be normal,
saying the right thing -
what is the thing that won't give me away?
Peeking through the eyeholes, seeking clues -
how do you act if your life has not been chaos?
Resist
the kindly question, don't fall in the trap
of letting down my hair,
crying on someone's shoulder,
someone who doesn't hurt from head to heels.

For if I do, they'll take me by the heels
and lay me in the dust.

It's safer to be normal
if only I knew how.


Hitchhiker

Yo Sam, can I walk awhile with you and Frodo?
We seem to all be going the same way,
trekking through dusty Mordor,
the Mountain blasting flame and ash before us
to blind our eyes and fuddle our poor brains.
And you at least know what you’re doing here.

Me, I don’t know, and don’t know how I got here.
What quest is mine to set me on this journey?
If Mordor without hope is very torment,
how when I have no Ring to cast away,
no friend to lead?
Samwise, lend me your hope, be my friend too.

Or can it be my Friend is here beside me,
hid by the Mordor-dark that dims my eyes?
Who sent the Eagles then for you and Frodo,
and maybe too – for me?


Solidarity