Soft Skull: Why Things Burn by Daphne Gottlieb

mastering the art of poetry

(with thanks to Dossie Easton; some text kidnapped from her manual, The Topping Book )

make sure you have everything
you will need
on hand:

pen paper or computer keyboard
dictionary thesaurus scissors (surgical)
tape first-aid kit plastic wrap
feathers candles clothespins
gag rope handcuffs
an assortment of whips
from fat thudding floggers
to bitey braided cats
maybe a wooden paddle
rubbing alcohol
piercing sharps
scalpel
a cane or two
and a riding crop.

got everything?
good.

negotiate,
negotiate,
negotiate.

if you want your poem to beg or struggle,
make that clear.
listen to your poem's desires
and get ready

to be powerful and terrible.
your poem is quivering in front of you
and your iron will
as it kisses the collar you hold.

begin.
start
slowly.

gradually.

maybe a little stroking, teasing pinches, a few
words chosen
carefully
go a long way.

now escalate.
if you've startest with your
gentlest, sweetest metaphor,
it's time to build up to something a little
harder.

feel it? your poem opening up, reeling,
writhing, relinquishing control?
good.

take it right to the edge of what it can stand
then back off
then right to the edge
and back off again
up to a farther edge
as your poem swells
with the marks you leave on its skin

one thank you master
two thank you master
three thank you master

as you push it, drag it, hold it down
raise it up

THANK YOU MASTER

tell your poem
"you're about to get a verb you'll never forget, you little slut."

tell your poem,
"I want to hear you scream."

tell your poem
"you only get forty more words, you greedy bitch!"
and when it has taken all it can bear

hold that precious poem close
show it how much it has pleased you
and rest. give it your name
and kiss it
goodnight.

why things burn

My fire-eating career came to an end
when I could no longer tell
when to spit and when

to swallow.
Last night in Amsterdam,
1,000 tulips burned to death.

I have an alibi. When I walked by
your garden, your hand
grenades were in bloom.

You caught me playing
loves me, loves me
not, metal pins between my teeth.

I forget the difference
between seduction
and arson,

ignition and cognition. I am a girl
with incendiary
vices and you have a filthy never

mind. If you say no, twice,
it's a four-letter word.
You are so dirty, people have planted

flowers on you: Heliotropes. Sun-
flowers. You'll take
anything. Loves me,

loves me not.
I want to bend you over
and whisper: "potting soil," "fresh

cut." When you made
the urgent fists of peonies
a proposition, I stole a pair of botanists'

hands. Green. Confident. All thumbs.
I look sharp in garden
shears and it rained spring

all night. 1,000 tulips
burned to death
in Amsterdam.

We didn't hear the sirens.
All night, you held my alibis
so softly, like taboos

already broken.

what I am asking you for when I ask you for breakfast

To say the place, Albuquerque,
your mouth must do three things:
sigh, kiss, then almost smile.

I ask you for breakfast
something to fill the mouth
when what I want to ask
you for is something else
for my tongue to do:

a new word to wrap around

and it is not in me
this morning
when what I need
is coffee
and what I am
supposed to do
is say goodbye
to Albuquerque
to you

to four days built of words
and breath
to four days of the living bodies that hold them
to the words living for you in my body

Albuquerque, a word that is not made of
English, my tongue,
so I will borrow someone else's to give to you
with coffee:

a shalom, an aloha
any way of saying departure
that is also a greeting

this is a word that I want to give you over coffee
a word in Albuquerque,
the sigh, the kiss, and the smile

a word that means I will se you again,
that there is something I want
when coffee is done.