Asphodel Madness: Lyn Lifshin

Showing posts with label Lyn Lifshin. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

SEPTEMBER 24, 2001

by Lyn Lifshin

brown leaves
on the steps, from
rust and green
to ashen like
the last weeks.
Now on the
metro, I’m sniffing
for something that
smells like
nail polish remover,
for someone
with a bomb.
Last night I
dreamed I gave a
reading but I
couldn’t find any
poems I wanted.
When I open my
mouth, I spit a
black rose

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Thursday, August 19, 2010

LUST BLOWING UNDER THE DOOR, BRIGHT AS STRAW

by Lyn Lifshin

Your smile’s like sun
flowers he said
as tho
embarrassed his
hands were
pressing
awkwardly the
ring on his
second finger
close to her
eyes
from that room
a wheat sea
lust
blew under the
door bright
as straw
and his warm
parts on
her belly
those small
bones that
changed her
small
bones to water
And not even
knowing
his name
until later
when the floor
fell
the room
turned into a
painting
and the paint
cracked

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Thursday, July 22, 2010

PAULETTE,‭ ‬LIVING IN HER CAR

by Lyn Lifshin

I was a ballet dancer,

then I got divorced.

I tried to be a

secretary but

learned that tho

I’m healthy

I couldn’t get

any job.‭ ‬I fill

my car with things

that don’t let‭

you know there’s

a person in there,

a lot of bags and boxes

and I cover myself

with newspaper

and hunker down

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Monday, July 19, 2010

CRUDE

by Lyn Lifshin

the blackness
rising to the surface
oozing up to
the surface, slick
oozing in the back
yards. “No trespassing
Danger” signs. Oily
muck in the street.
“If they stay
they’re signing
their own death
warrant” on a sign
near a house
Candidates come
here days before
the election
to shake hands

***

it’s like a ghost
town, houses boarded
up. I’m afraid if
I leave the house
they’ll loot or burn
it. I have a child
with birth defects
of heart, pancreas.
Kidney. Chloroform
was so high it
wouldn’t be allowed
in any work place.
I was pregnant.
The state told me
nothing wasn’t
safe

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

YOUNG GIRL’S DIARY

by Lyn Lifshin

There is nothing to eat.

We are going to die of hunger.

My teeth ache,

my left leg is frostbitten.

I almost finished the honey.

What have I done?

How selfish I am!

What are they going to say?

What will they

spread on their bread now?

Mother looks terrible–

a shadow of herself.

She works very hard.

Whenever I wake up

at twelve or one in the night

she is bent

over the sewing machine,

and she gets up at six.

I have no heart, no pity,

eat everything

I can lay my hands on.

Today I had an argument

with Father.

I insulted and even cursed him.

And this was because yesterday

I weighed the noodles

but this morning took

a spoonful for myself.

When father came back

he weighed them,

found there was less,

started yelling at me.

He was right, but I was

upset and cursed him.

Father just stood

at the window

and cried like a child.

No stranger ever

abused him like I did.

Everybody was home

I went to bed quickly

I thought I would die of hunger

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Saturday, June 5, 2010

SHOCK

by Lyn Lifshin

“It may have been the gradual loss of Millay’s beauty that finally put off her young lover and she would never get over the shock of it, the horror and the disappointment.”

*Daniel Mark Epstein WHAT LIPS THESE LIPS HAVE KISSED
page 242

When I did the Internet
search and found the
year you graduated
from college. When
I tried to remember
your face after the
reading at Luna Rosa,
chili peppers in the
hot November wind.
When I could just
think of your smile.
When I didn’t, could
not remember how tall
you were. When you
wrote “might go to
Europe and just fuck:
which didn’t fit with
the you giving insulin
shots to a stray cat.
When I wasn’t sure
what I wanted from you
till too late. When I
was relieved in 2 years
your hair was snow.
What else to go with
Winter. When it seemed
so close, people in cars
beeping but we only
could hear each other.
When I didn’t leave my
leather jacket in your
closet before the slam,
already close to mid
night. When i knew some
thing that was started
was over, gone, except
for this poem

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

‭‭HE SAID HE COULDN’T COMMUNICATE WITH HER BECAUSE SHE WAS RUSSIAN

by Lyn Lifshin

it wasn’t the language,‭ ‬she spoke perfect
English but the way of life,‭ ‬being secret,
too careful,‭ ‬watching what she said so
wildly.‭ ‬She didn’t say what mattered,‭ ‬he

never knew.‭ ‬It was the culture he said,‭
the secrets,‭ ‬the knock on a metal door in
the night.‭ ‬It didn’t work,‭ ‬he hadn’t tried
as he could have but the communication,‭

it was missing.‭ ‬I miss him,‭ ‬but of course
I don’t say it.‭ ‬Miss,‭ ‬something we didn’t
have,‭ ‬missed like any connection,‭ ‬2‭ ‬people
passing each other in a town,‭ ‬hot to see

each other but not having a clue.‭ ‬Could it‭
be because my father came from Russia‭?
My father who hardly said a word,‭ ‬moved‭
thru the house as if a ghost,‭ ‬a stranger in

darkness.‭ ‬So many secrets.‭ ‬What I wanted
to say,‭ ‬I didn’t.‭ ‬I wasn’t direct but taking
my leather coat must have been an SOS,
an alert.‭ ‬I wanted but I didn’t say it.‭ ‬My

given name,‭ ‬Russian,‭ ‬the music I love in a
minor key.‭ ‬Sad Russian music,‭ ‬sadder than
the blues.‭ ‬Something,‭ ‬the way he pushed‭
his mother’s fingers from his skin after

the cycle accident,‭ ‬drugged on the floor
hours before she leaped Niagara Falls
saying nothing must be,‭ ‬like the phone calls,
all hang ups,‭ ‬what I don’t know,‭ ‬secret,

vague,‭ ‬stripped of all caller ID

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Monday, May 24, 2010

‭I WAS TO BE HIS VACATION

and he didn’t get a‭
bang for his buck.‭
It wasn’t the open‭
cove,‭ ‬the welcome.
It was a chance and
risk and I guess he
felt taken and not‭
on a joy ride.‭ ‬I guess
I was supposed to‭
be his rolling hills,
exotic flowers never
found in his part of
the word,‭ ‬rare and‭
there just for him.
He expected feasts,
exotic meals.‭ ‬He had
taken off without
pay.‭ ‬He wanted to
plunge into me,
wanted to shipwreck
in my thighs.‭ ‬He‭
wanted to do things
he wouldn’t do at
home,‭ ‬wanted his
money’s worth‭
or a refund

by Lyn Lifshin

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Saturday, May 22, 2010

‭IMAGINING HIM OPENING MY E MAIL

by Lyn Lifshin

the look on his face,
startled‭? ‬A grin‭?
Nauseous‭? ‬A huge
laugh‭? ‬Let’s say‭
he was on Candid
Camera‭– ‬the lens
moves on,‭ ‬focuses
on his fingers.‭ ‬Do
they pause‭? ‬Could
they delete without
opening‭? ‬Could I
be so unlike the‭
woman he made‭
up I suppose‭ ‬2‭ ‬years
ago and could only
long for when I was
the whole country
away‭? ‬Once he
wrote me he might
leave,‭ ‬go to Europe,
just fuck.‭ ‬Maybe‭
he saw me as all
those cities,‭ ‬my jacket
and books hostage
in his room and‭
when I picked them
up without anything
happening,‭ ‬I became
cock tease‭ ‬#‭ ‬722
as the camera moves
in to see him hit,‭ ‬since
he can’t touch me,
the delete button

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Monday, April 26, 2010

IF YOU’RE A RISK TAKER, MOODY, SADISTIC

by Lyn Lifshin

it could have said you, love, a word
dare devil with of course the best head
start, having a mother who plunges into
Niagara’s waters, falling away, hours
after she stroked your hair, on the
floor, it was in a living room or bed

room rug where bandaged from a
cycle crash you lay drugged and moaning.
“Kerplonkers are copy cat suicides. One
suicide will star a cycle. The publicity
inspires other suicides so that
the effect resembles a line of frogs along

the shore of a pond, one hopping in and
spooking the others to jump too.” I
think of you checking out this website
with its “scavengers, locally called river
rats,” and usually working on commission of
$150 per body in conjunction with a funeral

parlor prowl the banks of the Niagara River
looking for body parts or whole bodies. One
man has the record of 177 corpses. One man
was split perfectly in 2. Another was found
chained to his bicycle. If I found you icy
just reading how gulls are always on the look

out for fresh meat, how on the Niagara Falls
side you won’t be eaten but they burn you
and throw out the ashes, a clue to why
it was so hard to touch you

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

THE SAD GIRL

by Lyn Lifshin

once was the blonde
boys gave watches to,
even teachers
tried to lure
and kiss. Sales
men in furniture
stores gasped at her
beauty, looked
sorry for the
fat sister, glued
to her mother’s
sleeves, hiding out
behind thick glasses.
Too pretty to
bother to study, her
perfect legs cheering
the football
players on while
the other made
science projects
of the eye, studies
of carbon, papier mache
models of the eye,
making beauty
out of nothing.
While the pretty
one didn’t bother,
couldn’t care, just
smiled at the watches
boys gave her, got
bored, got into crushes
on married men, anything
not available, wanted what
her sister had, snatched
sweaters and sweets,
tried to snatch the
quiet one’s lovers
but by now, the fatty
had slimmed down, had
contacts, long hair
no longer in braids, now longer,
curly, lighted by the
sun and Clairol, as the
pretty one thickened, no
longer smiled, grew fat
around her as a barricade
against any drunk or abusive
man, let her blonde hair
go grey, let herself
go but not in the way
she had as a child, dancing
in restaurant aisles, twirling
batons, showing off her
lovely lovelies but like some
one who has nothing left
to hold on to

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Sunday, March 7, 2010

THE FUNERAL (2)

by Lyn Lifshin

my sister’s face,
a swollen pumpkin
of anger. I think
of the spring that
never was, how just
going to get paper
towels and ice
cream, we giggled,
away from the
sick room but by
the end of the year
weren’t talking.
My uncle, safe in
his coffin, waits
outside, waits in
blue Vermont
light. My sister
spits, “murderer,”
in the voice of
a stranger, a sad
girl who wants to
sue the stars,
grows another
layer of fat, a
barrier, a fence,
the way she cages
her cats and turtles.
Fat seals her
lips tight. “Do
you know what
this is,” my aunt
says after the
service, whispers,
“shit,” into my
ear and tho I’m
not exactly sure
what she means,
I know it’s true

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Saturday, March 6, 2010

THE FUNERAL

by Lyn Lifshin

I hardly think of my uncle
in the coffin outside, waiting
when my sister guns the
air with, “You murderer,
you stole the souls of the
murdered by writing about
them.” My face white, some
one tells me later. It’s a layer
of ice. I get thru the rabbi’s
study wrapped in its glaze
thru his open grave, the one
time my aunt weeps as
the coffin is pulled from the
hearse. I shovel dirt,
wrapped in its numbness,
shovel after shovel into
the grave and walking near
this stranger, back to the
car. I always forgave her
when she was a brat, spied
on boyfriends, didn’t
come to my wedding
party or visit me in the
hospital, said my car crash
didn’t happen, a few scrapes
she sneered. She threatened
to sue me for the title
of a book, had others come
after me for other poems.
I’m in this glaze, like
glass at the meal in
the synagogue, each
of us on one side
of our aunt, the only
one left of the
Vermont Lazaruses.
Ice crystals on grass,
topaz sky. I bury two
family relatives

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

DELILAH

by Lyn Lifshin

Sure geraniums are
carnations. She loved
my tangerine plant,
the heavy sweetness
like musky night
wind in Guatemala.
I will think of her
asking, “Is it true
in this country they
chop up the dead
and put them in
coffins?” Delilah,
when she couldn’t
eat, she waited,
passed up fruits and
fresh things she
loved and when
they found what it
was, hoped her hair
wouldn’t fall out.
Anything green and
growing charmed
her, anything alive
was a miracle.
She prayed and
prayed and her
church prayed with
her. There was
chemo and radiation,
9 months long as if
to grow a baby
or oranges, raspberries.
Delilah with your
soaps of raw potatoes
that didn’t work and
the drugs that changed
your voice. With your
mop and vacuum you
were always singing.
Now that the honey
is coming into what you
say on tape, the sun, a
little giggling, even with
out you unlocking the
door–“Miss Lyn, are you
here?” her radio bleats
Spanish stations. She
gleams at my cat’s
clear green eyes

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Thursday, February 25, 2010

IT MADE ME THINK OF YOUR WOODEN LEG

by Lyn Lifshin

plastic of course,
not wooden,‭ ‬leaning
against the gray wall
near the stain from
the Vaseline to make
it fit you as I kept
trying to.‭ ‬From your‭
all night radio show
I knew about the‭
grenade,‭ ‬those years
in the hospital.‭ ‬And
I knew I wanted the
you that talked from
midnight to dawn,‭
told stories of your‭
first day out,‭ ‬how‭
your prosthesis twisted
out at an odd angle,‭
knocked the man‭
on a stool off with its
swing and a little boy
saw it and said Mama
that man is walking‭
forward and backward
at the same time.‭ ‬I lured
you with words,‭ ‬with
poems.‭ ‬Did I wonder‭
how it would feel‭
touching‭? ‬It’s a blur I
don’t remember.‭ ‬Only
how I slithered from
leather jeans as you
held me said‭ ‬you know
Lyn, I can get closer,
deeper.‭ ‬How there are
things‭ ‬he said there
are, Honey, some things
I can do better
without it

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

ROOMING HOUSES, ABANDONED HOTELS, SARATOGA WINTER

by Lyn Lifshin

Old men’s dreams
in the bedroom.

Women who
held them once
in that cradle,
their hips

rocking all
night, shadows
sucking. The

walls press
on pillows
like hair,
empty cradles.

Downstairs
wet stone,
ash blowing

back into the
room as if there
was something

outside, trying
to come back,
trying to

be that
warm again

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Saturday, January 30, 2010

AFTER THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS

by Lyn Lifshin

It hurts to come back
and then, like stripping
a bandage off raw skin,
to leave, turn around.
It feels as if I’m facing
away from where I’m
going, pieces of the
house stapled into skin
and nerves. The cat
seems to feel at home,
jumps to the same chair,
eats as she hasn’t for
months and may not
again. My mother and
sister move back into my
dreams while the walnuts
die back a few branches
each time, more ragged
and bare against this
March snow that shows
no signs of letting up

*http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Saturday, January 9, 2010

IN THIS HOUSE WHERE THE PHONE RINGS RARELY

by Lyn Lifshin

geese parade in late afternoon
icy light. The cat’s coiled
on the table as if to share
something she doesn’t know.
Last night was definitely hell.

The cat, coiled on the table is
apricot, soft as little feels.
I’m tired of looking for things
that aren’t worth it. The
geese intrigue me, parading,
soaking up late afternoon

I’m tired of looking for things
that don’t matter:
rings, horse paintings, photo
graphs. My cat nuzzles,
shares more than she knows.
The geese, in rose light, glisten

Last night was definitely hell.
The cat knew something was wrong.
The rings, the horse painting on
orange, the photographs of my

father touching my sister and I
so lightly, as if even then there
was a softness that wasn’t,
never mattered

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

BECAUSE I WAS NEVER

a cheerleader, never
hot in high school
because each Sadie
Hawkins dance or
Junior Women’s
club party meant
having to ask one
boy after another
who turned me down.
Because I was fat,
no beautiful body
like the girl who’d
lose her face when a
car tried to merge
with it. Because I
was Miss Middlebury
High, not for being
popular or my looks
but for winning art
and science contests,
I thought only the
pretty, skinny girls
deserved clothes,
worked for months
on my science project
of the eye as if to say
Look at Me. The pink
pique dress in my
uncle’s store seemed
too beautiful for me.
When I fell for one
boy and he dropped
me I lost 40 pounds
and boys in Hillel,
with so few Jewish
girls in town, began
to ask me out. But
tho there were many,
I still see myself as
that shy plump hardly
popular girl in glasses
who turned red when
Mr. Dewey weighed
us in class and boomed
our weight out. He might
as well have had a loud
speaker. I never felt I
had a time to be pretty.
Skinny was supreme.
Now I look at the young
girls in strapless dresses,
their beautiful arms. So
if I buy clothes more
appropriate for a thinner
me than I was, leave my
hair long, in spite of all
who’ve tried to cut it,
(that only makes me think
of women in Auschwitz,
stripped and shaved) I
think it is to try
to celebrate

by Lyn Lifshin

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Sunday, January 3, 2010

THE E MAIL PHOTO OF COVE POINT

by Lyn Lifshin

how some man googled Cove
Point, came up with my poems
and then wrote me. I’d forgotten
one high school love brought
me here before he shipped out.
Parked near the Cove. The Lake
water lapping. Unzipped, un-
buttoned. The moon a white
plate and his dark eyes moved
all over me. When he left I
thought my life was over. I was
13 and didn’t eat until he wrote
weeks later from Guantanamo.
It was the summer Groucho Marx
pointed me out in the audience,
my ravishing hair and shoulders
he said and my turquoise strapless
gown. If only I believed what
he said I would not be so wild to
prove I am now, would have
felt less shy with the man who
took me to canoe on the lake,
never touched me. He painted a
water color, caught the quiet after
noon. I need to take it out, feel
that calm again

*Lyn's website: http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Monday, July 19, 2010

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Monday, May 24, 2010

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Monday, April 26, 2010

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

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