From Sorry is a Girl, Grown Up

I buy a skirt because I am uncertain
about my position in the world
the skirt changes nothing and I return it
arguing small difference into ash
I am too expensive for my life, psychic life
moving coolly from room to room
in what is always
someone else’s house

Rendered null, he
plays for broke down glass lines
light hygiene and reserved love
the shoe of air travel and what it allows:
I am far away and only few

A gallant waste of cash

Has anyone congratulated me today? My father
asked if I was Still Making Art
no I am not. The dream I have not proven
has effaced being faithful

Everyone is ugly, once in a while
I tempt writing out of spite

In writing I come toward you like a dog
blown over the cellular thump of experience
smoking like a tart baby
subtracting consequence from the anyways
of our already small days

Tight and polished like a conker
your pride sits, seeded within

All straight girls sin for this
some grand fallopian tragedy

Some little laughs . . .
well, they are gone and I have to stay here

Spanked by the philosopher, a stupid maid
pushing cold hollandaise around a plate

Stuffing tissues into the open mouth of a wage
enough, enough

Fire

I don’t want to get up in the morning without my life
My life will be crying my face off, as this is true love
I don’t think we should be happy to sit in the room of life
I want to do something that feels great!

You want some advice? I’ll give you some
None of us want to get to thirty
Without knowing how to use a whip

If you’ve used it enough
I’ve certainly used it enough

Crack it

Against my commitment to servitude, how I love it
Against my bad education, the one I wear
Like a hat of lard

Crack it and then you will see
If you find the way to

If you find the way, then you too can be a father
But only God can be God. It makes no difference
If the devil has been defeated or if it is your character

To take hold of the wind
To turn your back without the aid of your wings
To take hold of the wind is pornographic

*

Being gone, we are all in that armpit
making possible the curmudgeon
of this tired salute upon my choices

with my eyes open and my face as still
and pointless as sheep bones on a hill, I wait
but I am afraid this too will become a curl

of austerity, toes stuck together in its mouth
eyes shut on the screen, eerie dead end error as
abortions for the climate make a joke out of desire

and then, she speaks in a tone of voice I have
come to regard as familiar yet different
I have come to regard her voice as familiar yet different

and yet, there is one word that always comes to that place
she says it again, there are plenty more
love

that’s the word –
where this came from
under a disposable plastic cup

we are all made into forever
daughters, remember
I will sacrifice nothing for this world

if it remains dishonest I will fill it with children
who all have demands, they will pour out their pails short
legged like the goat, they will make decisions, truly
their own

*

The smart ones have bent the salt lick into a signpost for the put-upon, open all hours. They rattle its register like dice. Sally is gagging on the dealer’s sole. Dumb as a rug we let her root about the back teeth like some unseemly cat.

Someone has to take the hit, honey

said smoothing her hair

one knee on the ledge, neck turned around to face her voice

so if the feeling

came it could

bent elbows, flat hands, a little force

which is a free thing, force

*

I am old enough now to be my own mother

I travel to hell with her in a shoe

*

(Echoing, unendingly)

clip clop, clip clop, clip clop

Epilogue

In the hell that I hankered for they built this big bonfire and a cathedral that looked like a lavatory and there were lots of people in black hats and flowers and lots of flames and I, hauled right up there with everyone watching, a real star. I had a button which I could press if it got too hot and they shaved my head and they tied me up and I had an escape hatch and a man with a plastic mask on and asbestos when the wind changed and Russell came along to keep throwing petrol on it shouting words of encouragement – Fantastic! – wild eyes fag dangling out his mouth and when I was actually really burning to death he said damn it damn it damn it.

Photograph courtesy of the author 

These poems are excerpted from Oliver Reed by Hannah Regel, out with Montez Press.