Poetry & Prose by Jo VonBargen

come dance with words
and pry the labyrinth of
that secret place apart
to give your heart wings
like you know you should do
or is it avoidance?
another something else for you?
deep are these solaces
buried in the darkened heart
and only revealed so
that new stars may shine
across the endless universe

what are you waiting for?
don’t just stand there
crying the tears but keeping
all the pain in.
whatever in the world
are you thinking that you
could handle it alone?
good grief already.
painting life with words
is what got you this far
and together these crazy dreams
keep you in one piece.

catching the poet
in a moment of tragedy
or a blinding rage is but
words on a page
but we meet together on our
silent roads to watch
the marching of our dreams
toward doom or bright
reality.

and if we ask
what is this? then I must
say let the pipers play
for they are paying
for our dance and should we
vanish into the woodwork
they will know we were
here, the best of every season
in a lifetime of poets, our
life in a virtual coffee shop
stealing glances at “them”
but really ourselves, and all
those things “they” say
are but moments we missed

let us view
the self portrait of a species,
the long-suffering poets,
glittery little things, aren’t
they? in an eternity of
stars, with their
frozen words on fire, their
bleeding pens and retractable hearts
that cannot trust
words to be left to play alone
which is virtually how
I found myself right now

–Jo 2008

absorbed and pale, you
sit beside burning
walls and ponder

I see you breathe
without body or voice, betrayed
by reflection

look how you’ve gnawed
and swallowed memories, how
the rust is so
bitter

you are travail
and sun going down

someone has hung their gasps
in your eyes, and brushes
your hair with stony
silence

for evil you see
the strangled brook, still
gurgling, the curling
of the shriveled leaf,
the fallen deer

for good there is only divine
indifference, the drowse
at noon, the cloud,
the soaring wren

you are a benediction, a
destruction, gone mad
in the light

–Jo 2008

(For the tearful vet viewed on PBS
and all his fellow wounded)

I came up over the rise
said the vet, to find myself face
to face with death

a German soldier
pointing his rifle straight
at my chest; I had no chance
to raise mine

we stood there awhile, youth
to youth, desire to
desire, hair the same color,
tandemly clothed in
drab weeds of war, intent
on a mission planned out by
strangers, safe
and sequestered in a room
full of maps, far, far away from
this once verdant
meadow, this river
of blood

I saw in his eyes not man,
not monster, but an unwelcome
glimpse of forever; he saw
in mine a quivering
flame, unready, unwilling
to be snuffed to that
darkness ahead of my time

in that frozen moment, he
summoned a courage far
beyond killing for
country or cause; his eyes
slowly softened, freeing
the breath I’d held as
my last, and, shaking his
head, he dropped to
the ground the cold, hard
steel, leaning upon it
as if it were now a cane

he said in a soft, wistful voice,
for you, the war is over

I live every hour, each
undeserved minute, weighed
with the horror of
knowing for certain I’d never
have been that brave
or that kind

–Jo 2008

Poets surely have a deep
sense of giving, a need
to feed, a need to
satisfy thirst, a need
to fill our lamps with oil
and place in a window
to direct strangers
through the dark

Humanity is a storm,
and we sigh through the tempest
knowing it will pass,
and while they seek earthly
things, we seek to
purify our souls by the fire
of the torch and sear
inhumanity from
our hearts

A life of riches and substance
lacks the sustenance of
suffering; love and
lack, to poets, enliven us
through all the pain, and
make us clanless, tribeless,
universally related

Humanity is weak, and divided
amongst itself but our world is
too small in the universe to
have kingdoms and empires,
and poets rail against that
all their lives, joining
hands to build temples
of the soul

They can do to us what they
will, but cannot touch
our truth nor kill our
spirits because our souls
believe in the power
of knowledge over
ignorance and know that
tomorrow will never leave
a secret in the book
of eternity and what we say
today will be said
and felt tomorrow
by hearts and minds untold

–Jo 2008

(Parody - loosely based on ULYSSES, Chapter IV, by James Joyce. Written in Joycean style, Leopold Bloom and his wife, Molly, are superseded by Leapover and Mulie Broom. We’ve added a potbellied pig.)

Leapover Broom had a particular passion for feet, and regularly scarfed down the lower extremities of whatever birds or animals were obtainable. He liked thick henclaw soup, lightly braised insteps, toes fried with breadcrumbs, ankle bone stew. Best of all he loved sauteed crow feet, which gave his tastebuds the fine twang of faintly scented kudzu.

Feet were on his mind as he padded about the kitchen gingerly, putting Mulie’s breakfast on the humping tray. The kitchen was cold, though it was warm outdoors. It made him feel ruttish.

The burner reddened.

One more slice of Popptart for the tray. Not too many. His wife didn’t like her gut overly full. He turned, set the teakettle on the burner. Its spout stuck out, pouting. Hot water soon. Good. Parched.

E.G.A.D.

The potbellied pig waddled into the room.

“How now, brown sow?” laughed Broom. “Pray, saints! For all men need aid of hogs!”

“What is this esthetic babble you breeze?” sneered the pig, raising her tail.

“Oh, no you don’t, you arrogant swine!” he shouted, pushing her doorward. “Do your dirt in the dirt or I’ll pickle your feet for dinner!”

“Eat grits and die!” Piggums screeched, nostrils flaring.

“When pigs fly!” bellowed Leapover Broom.

THOSE SLIGHTLY OBSTREPEROUS PORKERS

Mr. Broom watched lovingly as her portly brown paunch cleared the threshold. Wonderful to see: her piebald swine hide, piggiferous butt, her piglet-pink eyes. He bent down to her as she returned, his hand held out.

“Here, Pigster, give us a kiss!” said Broom. “Want some prosciutto?”

“Hold your horses, Cyclops!” said the pig. “I’m sweating like a hog!”

And they calls pigs stupid. Absurd! Pigs understand us better than we do them. They forget nothing. Ineluctably, Piggrims progress.

“This little piggy went to market…” he said, wiggling her foot.

“Don’t threaten me!” shouted Piglet.

“I’m only teasing you, you four-legged whale!” pouted Broom.

“Call me Ishmael” commanded the Pig.

Afraid of mailmen she is, he mocked. Afraid of cats. I’ve changed my mind. I never saw such a stupid pig as this.

“Goat! Belial!” shrieked Pigwiggen.

“Quiet, you gassy gargoyle!” hissed Broom. “Enough!”

“Let us pray…” intoned Piggums.

Frisky, her nature. And Argus, the dog, never squeals. Seems to tolerate her piggybacking so long as he gets his pound of flesh. Maybe I should pound her fustian flesh for being such a pig in a poke.

“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo” the pig sniffed.

“Could’ve just as well cast my pearls before Circe” said Broom.

“Pigs is pigs” shrugged the shoat.

HOW A GREAT ORGAN GOT TURNED DOWN

Tea poured, Mr. Broom climbed the creaky stairs to her room, pausing by the door. Mulie might want something good. She liked it in the morning.

He said softly in the hall, “Want anything this morning besides breakfast?”

“M m n n n”

No, she didn’t. Broom moaned sotto voce. It was the wettest of times, it was the burst of times. The bed squeaked as she sighed and turned over. He should leave her and go home to Tara but, what the hay, tomorrow’s another day and frankly, my dear, he didn’t give a fat ham. He must do something about those bed springs. You could hear them all the way to Ithaca.

“Mmmmnnnnn” said Mulie, stretching in her half sleep. “Povey, are there pigs in heaven?”

If we don’t spoonnestle soon, you’re going to find out, thought Broom, depositing the tray on the table.

“I have to go to a funeral” he told her, eyeing her ten little piggies piggishly.

Drool pooled his corner lip.

“Mnnn…who?” asked Mulie.

“Pottrose. You know, that miserly, landhogging pig farmer. At eleven. St. Canard’s.”

Downstairs, he put on his hat. Felt his pocket for the keys. Outside. Warm sun. Might wander all day. Faces. More faces. Places. Evening. Children gone in. Flutes. Violins. Moon up, the color of Mulie’s new drawers.

He approached the neighborhood bar.

OMINOUS GATHERUM

“Poor Pottrose!” said the Lotus Eaters browngravily.

Gathered round them were all he knew:

Harley Homogeneous, Barley Bronchopneumaeus, Fitzlow Peritonaeus, The Dharma Bums, Who In The Sam Hill, Ichabod Crane, Henry Chinaski, Pliny the Other, Kokomo Joe, Curly, Moe and Abednego.

High, high, they carried their mugs, clinked Pottrose away round by round.

“Oh Potty Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling….”

“All bets on the pale horse” Chinaski breathed heavily.

“Rest in peace, Pottrose! wailed Fitzlow.

“Pabulum Acheruntis” Broom sneered. “A fool and his pigs are soon parted!”

“For shame!” cried the profane herd.

“Well, if you want to know…” sniffed Broom defensively, “he amounted to nothing but a lot of pig wind. The tight geezer was so narrowminded he had to stack his prejudices vertically!”

“Three six nine, the goose drank wine,
They sent him off to Heaven on the rail car line,
Four six eight, Hell was his fate,
He’d counted on his porkers to trample Heaven’s gate!”

Broom changed his mind about the funeral, leaving the lot of them behind. Inexplicable, he mused to himself. The idiots mourn the fresh absence of a long-nagging wart.

PIGMALION

Passing one drunk, two travelers and three widow pigs, Mr. Broom followed the heady scent of entrails to the butcher’s. In the window, two mismatched feet, last of the lot, crow blood oozed on the plate. Blood of the crow. Crud of the blow. Bleeding Croesus!

A girl at the counter, placing her order. Nice hourglass shape. The butcher wrapped up a ound of pigglypink hot links and took her money.

“Thank you, Miss. Your change.”

Mr. Broom ordered quickly, watching her hips swing side by side out the door. You-push-me-up, I’ll-pull-you-down. You-push-me-up, I’ll-pull-you-down. GLORY! His heart went like mad and Yes, he thought, Yes, I can. Yes! Hurry up. Chop or get off the pot. Moving away fast. Delectable. Ham, gam, Shazzam!

“Three dollars, please” said the butcher.

Broom’s hands closed lovingly around the crow feet. He slid the white packet into his coat pocket, fumbling three bills on the counter.

“Thank you, sir. Come again!”

The girl was gone. Broom’s fantasy down the commode. She could have been his next mistress…fine enought for a waltz on the Danube. A calypso on Calypso. Alas.

Broom walked back slowly, reading billboards. COME TO JAMAICA. COME TO MARLBORO COUNTRY. Y’ALL COME TO ARKANSAS.

It was getting hot. Apples at a street stand. Long days pruning, picking, packing. Pied, sauced, baked, stewed. Mulie slurping down coolcold cider. Apples in crates. Mulie, bobbing for apples. Bobbies, mewling for apples. Nice to fondle, nice to smell. Heavy, always the same. Washington apples from everywhere. Hallowed Be This Day.

THE WIND

“Kindly ebb, sir, to that place where our gists converged and resurrect sesquipedalian eruptions!”

BROOM

“I’m blocked.”

THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

“And we all whispered madly, Persephone come, please come.
When pigs fly, says she, or after the snows, in your softer years,
when your drifts of blood become pools of tears,
when I won’t (newly budded) be trampled to death
by your angst, your fears (she hasn’t yet come)”

THE TREES

“Badda bing, badda boom.”

A SHOAT IN A SHIRT

Mr. Broom picked up the mail, sifting through it on his way up the walk. A letter for him, one for Mulie.

Upstairs, he pulled up her blinds. She opened an eye.

“Mail for you, Mulie. Gonna sleep all day?”

“Ummm. Povey? I want coffee.”

It never ends, he said to himself. Waiting for the perk, Broom opened the letter from his daughter. Gossip, gossip, gossip, thanks, gossip. The bloody feet, unwrapped, lay by the pan. Butter sizzled. More gossip. Silly girl. He smiled. Plopped into the skillet, the crow contracted, hissed, crisped in the butter. He poured Mulie’s coffee. Forked the meat, flipped it. Lowered the burner.

Index finger hooked in the steaming mug, he slogged up the stairs.

“You took your time” said Mulie.

The springs squawked as she raised up on an elbow for the coffee. Broom leered at her feet peeking out from the quilt. He thought he could smell them, all piggeous and toejam redolent.

“Who was the letter from?” he asked.

“Guggenheim, chair of the program committee.” she lied.

“What are you going to sing?”

“Little Egypt” said Mulie.

“Came a-struttin’, wearin’ nuttin’ but a button and a bow-woe-woe…?”

“The same.”

“I won’t even ask what you’re wearing.”

She slurped the coffee and, watching him ogle her toes, pushed the letter from her lover out of sight.

“Something burning?” she asked.

“Gadzooks! The feet!”

He galloped down the stairs, harpooned them with a fork, tossed them on a plate. Good. Not much char. He poured himself an iced tea. Speared the first bite. Slowly, unashamedly, he closed his eyes, mouthing the crow. What a beautiful way to die.

“Dearest Papiya,

Gossip, gossip, gossip. Thanks for the FAB birthday present! My friends all love riding around Troy with the top down, with their tops down! Oh, and I got Mam’s glow-in-the-dark raincoat assortment….cool! Gossip, gossip. See you soon. Send more money.

Love, Macadamia”

Sixteen. Only yesterday, a babe in arms. The nursery at the hospital was full. Babies everywhere. Crappy diapers, vomit. A lot of vomit. His son, Telly, would be alive now if Broom hadn’t slipped in it. STOP IT. Don’t agonize. Little girlie can take care of herself.

EFFLUVIUM IN EXCELSIS

Piggins, done with Broom’s orts, nosed the crow cartilage off the plate and waddled to the door.

“Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones” she oinked, rocking back and forth. Thunder in the abyss. Broom felt it, too.

Piglet grunted.

“Oink!” teased Broom, holding her back. “Wait, already!”

“Wait yourself, you pompous, pigowning poltroon!” yelled the pig.

“Hey, diddle diddle, forget the old fiddle
A pig’s gotta do what a pig’s gotta do!”

“Outside!” ordered Broom.
He plopped down, too, in the loo, to read. O, hallowed walls of contemplation!

Sang Piglum:

“Doots, doots, boe boots, bonanna fanna foe feuts,
Fee, fie foe, feuts….Pig Doots!”

Kindred spirits, indeed, thought Broom. Fraternal Order of Doots. It was perfectly logical, this so, so common ground of humanity and pigs. The coiled, steaming plasma of history.

Broom smiled. It all, well and truly, comes out in…

THE END

–Jo 2008

in the night, in the myths
I tell myself, there is a secret
haunt, a cave of darkness
where my heart wanders,
sometimes in fear, sometimes
in wonder, the heart
being so dessicated one is akin
to the other, really

my battered consciousness
is etched with cryptic pearls
of illusion even as
there is a wealth of
brightness above

there is no dearth
of wariness, and the riddle
cannot be approached
by what anyone has promulgated,
but I will not be disentangled
from the cave of night
and always howl against
the injustice of the blight
but become blind
and amoeba-like
in the sun

I draw darkness around me
like a shawl, and something
inhabits one wall…creatures,
I’m sure, conceived on
some torture couch of Hell,
and always room for one
more…me…
happily, though…
knowing they’ll break
their chains and go for
my throat, violent in their
madness, mutilating my
body in ways unspeakable

Make it my sanctuary,
nevertheless, for
sweet wind blows upward
from the depths
and to the dim end, no
matter what the magic of grass,
water, precipice or
pain of wounds,
the dark makes death look dear
because beauty will go savage
in the secret mountains
before the end, when
I crawl out on a ledge of rock
and die snapping like a wolf

–Jo 2008

after kicking her crazy
he stood over her, picked up
a towel and reshined
his combat boots while she
sobbed on the floor,
curled fetally

he sneered at her
pain, walking out through
the door, and imagined
her out on the bend of
a path, loathesome carrion
on a bed of rocks,
legs raised like
the once-lustful woman
she was, belly spread open,
ripe with exhalations

he smiled at the thought
of her as a rotting
heap, as if to bring it all
to a boil and send her
back to nature
through the flies humming
on her putrid belly,
larvae in black battalions
spread like a heavy
liquid along the tatters
of her flesh

in her tear-stained face
were the fears of
all the years she’d been
with him and she waited
til he was gone to check
her wounds, her bruised body
covered with black
shoe-polish, her mind
humming a strange music
like of running water
and wind, or of grain in
a winnow, rhythmically shaken
and tossed

she knew that one day
she’d go beneath the grass
and flowers to mold
with the earth which would
preserve her form
and the real essence
of her decayed love and
endurance and only then
would she be
the queen of all grace

–Jo 2008

think of the first thought
think of the first person to have one

think of time
think of all time that’s passed

think of all that have died
think of all that live

think of all those thoughts
think of all those experiences

think of all the universe’s wonders
think of all who wonder

think of all possibilities
think of all realities

think of everything evil
think of everything good

think of all evidence
think of all proof

think of all mysteries
think of all secrets

think of all the gods
think of all a god must know

–Jo 2008

(From “Numbered Days”, J.J. King,
Redbird Books, Calcutta 1990)

The turn __

            of the screw, the worm,

            the tide, and once in a while,

            the stomach–inside out,

             and the earth, thank the stars,

            regularly, like roads,

            familiarly, and events,

            surprisingly,

            of friends–on us in anger,      

            to us in need,

            up at the worst times

            and to God, when nothing

            else is going for them,

            of ourselves, too–around

            at roadblocks, in at night,

            back–when the going

            gets rough,

            on to a good deal, and over

as in new leaves,

            and sometimes away–

            from the unbearable,

            from responsibility,

            or both–as in

            from a world crying

–Jo 1990

do not say how I pierced
and abstracted your
liquid-cherry center

do not ebb to that place
where our gists converged for
additional syncs of lasting import

do not give more than its worth
to the supposed entelechy
of my affection

do not plethora me whys to tuck
you more inward or aggrandize
your space for my essence

I must have time to calibrate your
fragrance, to perch with my
countenance gyred to your orb

I must have time to rote
this aesthetic vulgate you breeze,
to translate this stir in my crux

do not finesse my quick acquiesce
for I would burgeon, bloom
prematurely and wither the vine

whence all this joy

–Jo 2008
For those who find this poem pretentious
and unreadable, here’s a translation:

I seduced you, stupid.
Ever hear of the heat of the moment?
I always look my prey right in the eye.
Don’t waste your charm on a snake!
Ahhh…the stench of you, googoo eyes!
You talk too much, saphead, you’re
give me gas!
Yeah, sure…I’ll call you.
No, I don’t have a phone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *