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Karla Linn Merrifield




De-myth-i-fy-ing

I see the poem
in a waking dream
in strands of sea kelp
where I swam
in skeins of Spanish moss
curtaining me off
to perform my madness
I make lines entangle lines
lines weave elaborate
palm braids for my crown
my metaphor is nude
my simile is naked
you wonder why
symbols masquerade
fig leaves
symbols allude
leaves of grass
because the poem says so
& if it wants to come
all over the Jackson Pollacks
so be the poem
who will not release me
makes me fear I’ll do something
            I’ll be sorry for tomorrow
the poem needs it quickies
& it needs to erase the image
of Prometheus Bound
paint over remains
of mythic bondage
the poem throws off chains
in the poem Medusa is
the beautiful Madonna
I am here to do its bidding
until the waking dream sleeps
​

Antidote

​even as the darkness oozes
overland, it spews into the sea

spewen… spīwan… speien…
spȳja… speiwan… spuere
 
as verb…as noun…eleven hundred years
of vomit human vomit oceans of vomit--
 
but even then…even now…I commit
hope….hopa…hoop…Hoffe—with you
​

Dramatis Persona

This is the gestalt of Ego Everypoet,
E.E. (not e.e.), Psyche’s female lead:
 
To the Superegos—  all egos are illegal aliens
in need of severe restraints, ergo:
 
wing-clipped zoo flamingo,
casino macaw chained to tiki bar,
caged cockatoo in $ Store window.
 
To the Id named JoJo the Poet--
E.E. is a wildling enraptured raptor:
 
Rio Negro harpy eagle, Amazon-eyed,
Nile River falcon-headed sky queen,
Colorado River canyon-conquering condor.
 
She admits to a certain ferocity of syllables.
​

Aubade in Nine Amphibrachs

I ponder dawn, listening, repeating
his koans in amphibrach whispers:
 
            I’m writing
            the troubles--
 
            Your brother
            may be your killer--
 
            into the music
            into the music.
 
In December’s
blue raincoat he arrives.
 
            If my woman
            is sleeping and dreaming,
 
            she is much older
            and nobody’s fool.
 
Humming Aurora’s love song
with the poet, the old monk remembers to chant:
 
            I miss you,
            forgive you your enrapture
 
            glad you took the trouble
            to say your morning prayers in my name.
 
            Sincerely,
            L. Cohen

[
with lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” (1971]
​

Bang

No wonder you checked out 
of the regional medical center,
the nomenclature finally wore
your old brain to a numb.
 
You sure as heck weren’t going to fight
no hospitalese disease no more.
You could swallow FALL RISK stamped
on a cartoon-yellow wristband,
 
but NDD-2 Mechanical Soft Diet?
No way, José.  Mechanical?
Think pureed. Think strained.
Think baby-food-Pablum. Bleah.
 
(At least Mech-Soft Entrée is spelled correctly.)
The sterile scene is suffocatingly abbreviating:
MRI, CT, BP, CCs…
Don’t expect a doc on his/her rounds;
 
he/she’s a hospitalist now.
Say lumbar puncture because 
spinal tap is too Frankensteinian.
I like to imagine it was
 
the LPNs, RNs, and NPs
who shorted you right out,
a few final pains at the ass end,
right before your last word.

[with lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat." 1971]
​
Picture

Karla Linn Merrifield's Profile

New Word

​[skuh-too r-ee-uh nt]
(skəˈtjʊərɪənt)
scaturient I become
geyser
flashflood
vaudeville showgirl in feather boa
hussy in stilettos
exclamations
em dashes
volcano ashes
hurricane surges
 
I leave myself breathless
​

Backyard

This grandmother cottonwood
is ideal for the tree house
I am reconstructing in its limbs.

The old native welcomes one
from the past, c. 1969,
one that stood on stilts.

You climbed a ladder, clumsy;
I followed you, fumbling,
to where bunk beds had been used

by Ann’s older brother, and Jean’s--
boys-to-men’s beer spilled sperm.
Knees hugged to abdomen,

we sat on bare plank flooring
and kept each other’s secrets.
Who knows? You. Me. 

And now the old witness tree.
​

Archival Artifact

quoting from a loose-leaf
sheet of ruled filler
recto in bold red
Woolworth’s R-4963 N-3
verso partly in cursive
partly printed
in fountain pen’s black ink

They made us
alone in the world
hopeless or not
not anymore
look forward 
David
believe all this
The sun
and the stars
come out

Not a diary entry not a poem but
sans salutation sans signature
unfinished perhaps
and undated (probably autumn 1968)
it is the undelivered note
of possibility rendered impossible
​

The biz
 ”I came so far for beauty/I left so much behind."
           ~ Leonard Cohen, “I Came So Far for Beauty”

Fashion flash forward
filigree gone by waysides
 
embroidery by machine
seed pearls and sequins
 
Made in China
the thong’s the thing
 
flipflops
& faux soie fake fur
 
but Barbie®’s Vogue Chicks
hip riche skinny
 
live on lipstick
dying of vanity

  ~for Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick

I have saved all my ribbons for you
(Dear Diary 8.5.69)

If he loved her at all,
it was for flawlessness
on the cusp of full womanhood,
before the scars like his came and came.
Pure, heart unhurt, virginal, safe.
If he loved her at all,
it was for the lightness
with which she lifted his damaged
body and broken soul, at raw sixteen, 
flensed by life’s bullies, deaths, a suicide.
Research indicates she became
the muse for his magnificently haunting
 composition for piano duet:

Etude à la Pieta.

[title from Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire” (Songs from a Room, 1969]
​

Font

In the dream as in the flashback
I invented colors for the major consonants
employing Crayola’s® pre-1990 24-pack
(minus 3 lost hues)

I crayoned D as in David violet blue
I made my K green yellow
and because we Clashed (that cap C
a garish orange red)

because I could not dab the P
of my Pretending in Peach--
missing from the gaudy box--
I made the L in our Love story gray

Comments?

***

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