Evie Ivy

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The Poem Goes
              "There was a little girl who had a little curl..."

He too had a little curl, 
just a little.
And when he was bad 
it was worms all over.
 
And when he was good
he’d be a heaven’s gate.
The silence of reality set in,
it became confusing.
We were and stayed friends.
 
I moved away a bit.
Then I looked back,
thought only of doves,
and heaven’s gate.
​

Rhythms

Why judge
Whom you don’t know
When you hear
Half a story?
 
I don’t know anyone.
Who knows anyone? 
That’s why they’ll
Say he was such a nice boy,
After the fact.
She was such a good mother,
After the act.
 
My heart pounds
Yet strums the guitar.
 
I don’t know anyone.
I could only say I know
A song,
Music,
A dance.
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The Swim

I’ll not dispel your mind.
You’ll not perish in a deluge
of words here.
A typhoon will not pick
you up to discard you in far-off
waters, lost trying to decipher,
still clutching this paper,
reading this as an
archaeologist would, searching 
to find truth or reason,
because if there’s any sense
you’ll be the one to find it.
I’ll be simple, not use metaphor
or simile that will leave you
in a turning torrent.
 
There are times I go back
turn the hourglass over and over,  
tell myself—life is strange,
stranger our acceptances.
 
We were human,
and had become stranded
in our own cloud-built castles.
In the end, there is so much
you can hold on to  
each other before you fall,
and kick your way to land.

Free Elephant Shoes

That evening at someone’s book party
he told me “I love you,” and I told him
about the Staten Island poet who wrote--
 
when you say, “I love you” fast it sounds like 
“elephant shoes.” He became upset with me. 
But I know that true love isn’t something 
 
to put away in a shoebox, or to hang 
up in a closet, or could be easily 
thrown out. I had to see him myself walk 
 
in, and sit with another. I then saw,
remembered “elephant shoes,” and realized 
“elephant shoes,” “elephant shoes” were truer. 

The Girls and Their Savings

They’re saving men, two pretty girls down the sidewalk 
Are saving men. We do need them in paradise. 
One has a straight blond pony tail and a brunet 
With long wavy hair, are giving out religious tracts
With invitations to the church. “How do you do?” 
“Please come, and be saved,” they are saying to the men--
Young men and still healthy looking middle aged men. 
The girls talk and they giggle. “Come to the service!” 
I walk behind them a few blocks, before I enter
A store, and had noticed they didn’t offer one 
To the ladies, younger or older that passed them by. 
We do need those good looking men in paradise, 
(And I think, who would want their husband in that church?) 
On my way home an older woman gives me a tract.

I then wondered if it was the same church, because 
The girls are happily saving men. And praise the Lord.
Up the avenue they walk, and they’re saving men.

Evie Ivy's Profile

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Dreams

There are dreams engraved in the mind
morning did not have a chance to dispel
from the real. You could bring them on,
vivid pictures on the screen of memory.
 
But some dreams fragment, move on out
leaving behind sad or somehow felicitous
feelings, but you can’t remember the dream.
Its pieces flow with your sad or happy
 
dream into a huge mental void that can
match that of the universe, with your dream
embossed on them. They float in so slightly
uneven colored shreds - a lost work of art?
 
Fragments of something have left you wondering
whether it was an important piece or not...
​

The Movements

And he holds my life
only to let it go then 

catch it again. I 
breathe in the tango. Somewhere

we dance. It is just 
a dance—a dance, but a dance 

is more than a dance.
I then almost slip, it is 

the music that caught 
me. And then we move on; he

holds my life to let
it go, then catch it again.

Some Don't Spare

I sought to move cautious with love.
I didn't want to wound someone
I thought possessed too many selves.
I only wanted one, and because
of this, there was no pull of love.
I wished to spare a heart, allow
some time to move on by. He'll be
just fine. So, I didn't answer
my love's question. Soon, everything
in its time, my thought. How quick he
gave in to another! He cut
as lightning in the darkened sky . . .  

he revealed himself like Newton's
apple racing toward the earth.

Reflection

From the platform
I see shades of blue on blue. In

the distant sky
the bridge to elsewhere goes from blue

to blue. Then blue-
grey, soon grey-blue. The train’s rattle

disrupts silence.
Here and there comes a spatter of

silver ribbon--
grey on grey, then rain. And the world 

becomes shiny 
metal reflecting on itself.

The Old Drum

The good drummer knows the ancient sound.
Sacred instrument, ceremonial beat of life,
universal resounding. The energy flows
with primitive break through time.
 
The sound, the rhythm flows with life’s
vibration. Let this be not war, but good,
we need the good drummer, the call
to life – think of the birds, the sky, 
 
the trees and the drum that brings you 
from one day to the next—the pounding 
heart. The drum leads with the festive 
call, diverse, whether in the hand, the lap 
 
or the floor, it sways the body, the feet 
respond. Its rhythms bring the mind into 
ecstatic places. It sets the tone, the call 
this striking beat punctuates living, it
 
will resound in space, primordial
heart—the beat of the good drummer.

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