My Shadow
is a Cat
Published in April 2010
———— Credits:
Poems by Peter Hlinka
Artworks by Kaori Mitsushima
Marriage of
the Honey Bee
to the Tree
before the first
there was the third
form of thunder
it did not arise
from a jagged line
but from a furred
point
a rumbling hum that shuddered
pollen from velvet
petals
and covered in gold
wrote the secret
heart of tree
in wax and paper
labyrinth
the Queen
the Queen is only One of We
who knows
the sacred lambent
amber art of bee
Honey
————————————
Djinn
a heart inside the brain
that is
a frog turned into stone
a tongue that’s used
for cutting things
a house inside a bottle
to call your home
————————————
The Feline
Colossus
Guards the Door
the cat sparkles
like a tiny god
by the door
that is opening
lying on the floating
bed you consider
the long drop
to the floor
and the walk
that will shrink
your body
to the size
of an eye
by the feline colossus
along the ancient
trade route of ants
you hesitate
before the light
of the bright carpet
and then it is closed
everything is as it was
once before
————————————
The City X
She told him she lived
in a city
where every third person
was disfigured,
a large part of the face missing,
a brain that is a fetus,
scars from acid burns,
limbs that grow in strange places,
but everyone pretended
it was normal.
On the morning commute
in the subway
a man’s ear fell onto the seat
beside him,
he continued to read
the paper
as she picked it up
and put it in her pocket book.
Later that day,
the butcher tells her
while wrapping meat
in wax paper,
“there are ticks
you can’t see
that feed on fear
and they are all over
my body.”
“Something has happened here
that no one can speak of,”
she says as she empties her purse –
“there is the man’s ear,
a lady’s pinky,
a child’s nose…
all of these things tell a story
about the city
their person could not tell.
Only in dismemberment are they free
to give voice to their history…
closing her eyes
she presses the dead
ear to her lips
then returns it to the table
she listens to the voices
this person has heard
all his years
funnel from this flesh
gramophone,
feels herself turning
into furniture,
her lover now an old chair -
soon it will be
only an empty room
with the missing pieces
of humans, and the sense
of their presence
of never having fully cleaned
death from this room.
————————————
The King of Signs
Clip my shirt and pants of their price tags; let wigs
of brown hair flutter beside the open bag.
Cloak my face with a suitcase; lead me by the hand
The King of Signs has arrived.
Count each pound as it falls through the body and
piles in a mound, paint my lips and nails
the color of bloom, pierce my tongue with metal
studs – brand me with tattoos.
Bind my collar with golden rings, pull my head
from its neck, tie my body in corset, yank
the leather strings, place my feet in shrinking shoes,
cocoon them in wounds.
Let all those searching for the perfect version
find what is lacking inside. Let me be the
scene in the mind of beauty and happy times.
The King of Signs has arrived.
————————————
The Smiling Spiders
outside the world
he sleeps inside
a boulder
that is hollow
like a womb
but cold
with gray light
falling and silver
silk lines
the orange light
of spider eyes
is only one
of many colors
wrapped in gray
cotton fur
they make their way
to his sleeping mouth
trembling
they step inside
————————————
The Bird Cage
there were two birds
in the cage, perched
on the swing together
one brightly feathered
one with long coarse fur
————————————
A Soldier in
the Army of
Rose-eaters
of the army
you married me
because I came to you
unmade
in lieu of a ring
I gave you
a tiny black box
tied with pink
silk ribbon
all my tattoos are sub-dermal
I am a soldier in the army
of rose eaters
I am trapped in the body
of a dinosaur
free me
only because I asked
did you make my mouth
a basket for flowers
so people would not fear me
but then I could never say your name…
pulling flowers from my mouth
you sang
the army of rose-eaters
is marching.
Follow me.
————————————
Dirt poor
cupping the hands of liars
ancestors gather
at the same age
when they are dead
and once were fathers
all of it took residence
in the face
————————————
Suburban Prayer
Goddess of mirrors and sacred
unnamed places
you are the angel
who turns on street lamps
in passing
Grant us safe passage
through the torpor
of suburban nights –
the touch of your finger
like the ignition
of a car engine
the wind of one wing beat
the sense of death
from a near collision
in a dormant village
carry the souls of all pets
in your plaid micro-skirt
may your monthly blood-letting
be the passing of all regrets
do not let my life
become worthless
————————————
Amazed
by the Night
the bowl of stars
filled the all
with awe
and myth
they were centaurs
and satyrs
no longer lost
in the forest
they dreamed
of floating
on the ocean
or flying
in space –
their tongues
could taste
words
they circled the blaze
beating the drums
of their red chests
someone started to tell
a story
in the fire light
their eyes shined
like teeth
what they ate
was everything
————————————
Attack of the
Blue Whale
parting
the baleen curtain
drifting backwards down
the tunnel of the hanging tear
your heart is a dying rabbit
you hold in your hands
————————————
The Hunter
to the hunter and the hunter
lies to me
I tell the body where to go
of the heavy city
to the distant office
in the trees
and unzip
from within
the paper songbirds burn
the butterflies pile in heaps
like dry leaves
one day they say the prey return
to their skinned bodies
I lied
to the hunter and the hunter
————————————
Rabbit
Full of Milk
and Morning
an unseen hand
grabs a handle
on his back
when he prays for wings
he fills with milk and mornings
dawn pours
from his mouth
as he drains
the symbols bloom in blue
on his hard and hallowed body
————————————
Hula-Hoop
from Hell
Don’t ever touch
the plastic rabbit
flat like a cross
over her bed.
Don’t ever tell her
her teeth are chalk,
when she sleeps
she screeches words
backwards
on the blackboard
of her hell.
Don’t ever trust
the advice of others,
close the bubble,
throw the dice instead.
Little sister,
who never steps
outside the ring
of her pet demon’s
hula-hoop – I fear
I will never see you
growing again.
————————————
Delphic Celibacies
in the Temple
of the Floating
Island
There is the wall
made of peonies
the tire irons broken
on the front lawn.
All the sprinklers are waving in arcs –
the design of palm trees outlined
in beads of radiant water
Neglected, the German gnomes commiserate by the tool shed.
The mushrooms have begun to grow.
The peasant climbs down the ladder of the tree house,
his bag is open and empty, ready
to collect the soft umbrellas.
Everyone is wondering when the snake will make its first appearance,
when the shower cord will coil and flicker a hidden tongue
when the branch will crack its sheath and slide through the grass
When will we bite the apple to free the worm from its core?
————————————
Toad
People are mistaken when they see my dog
who likes to sit on a pile of wood
in the front yard
and stare over the fence;
he is in fact a large toad
who holds the souls of insects
in his chest, their gears whirr deeply
beneath his furred neck
like heavy silver balls
rolling in a stone pit.
————————————
Anchor
each night he constricts
a certain sorrow
that reaches down
past his knees
curls around
a calf
to shackle
an ankle
and burrows into
the earth
an anchor
that hardens
with each image
that passes
a pulsing
of light
the distant
knowledge
of objects
that move
through him
————————————
Dog
follow the dog
under the bed
into the hole
in the wall
crawl
there is a room
where all the lost things are
and nothing is paired
there is a mound
of socks that sinks
as you climb it
in each soft sleeve
you sense a hardness
a tiny stone
but you are wrong
they each contain
a little toe
————————————
Kitchen Olympics
broomstick
curtain rod
javelin
coffee mug
shot put
discus
dinner plate
toxic
aerosol
anger
sprinting
without
breathing
a coach
who yells
in every
mirror
the butane torch
that is always lit
in the endless games
of self
destruction
————————————
The Question Mark
Someone leads me
through my memories
through the hundred
drifting buildings.
On each door
the angel of forgetting
has left a question mark
in pink blood
to guide the elderly
Through the parted door I see –
the querulous curve
of the cat’s tail
the dot of the puckered
star
the furred beckoning finger
I leave my body in its bed
and take my clues:
a walking stick in the shape
of a pink flamingo,
a question mark
where an angel bit
my upper arm…
I am the puzzles hung on each wall.
Nothing is ever
where I left it.
A glistening red
dentist chair
where there are no answers.
Someone leaves me there.
————————————
The Linoleum Blanket
Her wings singed and worn like oven mitts.
Her fingers wrinkled like shrunken heads.
Her likeness trapped in the thick pane
of the oven window.
His briefcase full of blank pages.
His suits of unfashionable styles.
The texture of his rubber hands.
The furred line of his spine.
Her ceiling fan lapping shadows in the kitchen.
Her coffee mugs with maps of dry river beds.
Her hawk pinning swallows to the clothes line.
The lightning rod of the bird-feeder.
His temper like a small red light.
His fear of all affection.
His humor of circus mirrors.
The goat unicorn tethered to his leg.
Their secret meetings in the kitchen
hours after midnight,
peeling back layers of old
linoleum floor,
falling asleep in the plastic bed
under the table,
their snores are a dream rewinding
through the lives of many strangers
they have been before.
————————————
Mad
statues of me
carved in dense Idea
now defaced
burnt and broken signs
of Goal and Intention
a village
and then a city
the places I almost died
a thousand times
when this war was waged
to a standstill
I was a giant underground
who somehow could not move
————————————
Oracle of the Throat
She has an orphic goiter
and a mouse
tied to her wrist
with dental floss.
Pressing two fingers
to her carotid prune
she prophesied
what he already knew
but wanted to hear
from another person
she said,
“you know,”
and then she left him
in the forest
that was once
a sewer.
Sometimes he thinks
he can feel
her voice
reaching inside him,
his throat burning
like an oil fire
deep inside
an abandoned mine.
He dreams of meeting
this woman
that has never been
apart from him,
he dreams there will be
an end
to prophesy
when he awakens.
————————————
Owl Dream
It is a winter story and Snow White
is an owl
haloed in blue before the waxing
gibbous moon
floating over the frozen lake
the only sound
is the who and scythe of passing shadow
of a question hung in wind and wings.
A hail of mouse heads begins to fall…
a dream
of the first Christmas tree,
never severed from the earth,
garlanded in seven dead friends:
in Snake and Frog and Mouse,
in Rabbit and Rat, in Bird and Fish –
downy pellets of excrement dress the bottom,
and you are perched like a dread angel
or turning star at the top.
————————————
Underwater Aviator
an empty Cessna flies through seas
around the hidden mountains
above the burning parting floor –
a pyre of onions smolder
on the driver’s seat
————————————
Aspic of the Godless Mimes
sherpa informers have led you astray
in narrow corridors of corporate hotels
where Hutsul dancers pair and pirouette
down the darkened cul-de-sacs
the majordomo of powdered bone
has been gifted with a laundry bag
in which are hidden three
sleeping beetles
you take them to the room
of burning maps
there is a Jell-O mold
for all possible forms
but you’ve misplaced it
you do not trust
what you know
of the world
but you pretend to
————————————
Opening
the Mirror
there is a way
to empty yourself
by staring in a mirror
if you believe
it is a window