Down in the Valley.

venus.

They were in the produce section, picking mushrooms.
She was younger than him--maybe by twenty years--
     and I thought of them as father and daughter
     until I followed them to the aisle with red wine.
The way she stood close behind him, offset, staring at labels
gave her solemn dedication to his largess away
and I was certain he had cracked open a clam over in seafood,
then she emerged fully clothed with eyes so sparkled and empty
they closed the symbolic circle of nakedness.

She didn't seem to mind the cocktail sauce, to know what it was for
but even the second-rate night-clerk who hardly speaks English
     could call the bluff.
He asked her ID for the wine and was surprised that her driver's license
     didn't smell like the sea; still--
     there was something off about how she asked for paper bags
     while the man trailed away.
He was going to devour her. She paid for the butter, sauces, lemons,
     and complimentary wine without flinching.
I almost thought she was accustomed, new shells blooming her all the time.

I followed them to their car,
an opulent black affair that he pressed her gentle bones against to kiss her.
She stood with one hand on the cart, her head tilted like she was listening
to something underground while he loaded the groceries into the trunk.
When he finished she pushed the cart to the corral, soft-stepping
     and she caught me staring, defenseless, fascinated by her vacancy
     until I watched something stir deep in the tidepool that said "leave us alone."
I retreated hastily, embarrassed, knowing that the next time I bought a clam...

 

(c) Dorothy J Burk 2008

one-sheep two-sheep.

When the pale had come down
I found you in my bedroom
counting sheep.

You sit on the edges
of my skirt. The seems
ripped open,
you fail me
at evolution.

It was a good try,
you even made me think
you would stop counting sheep.

And there you were,
with your invisible-abacus invisible-numbers
in the darkness
waiting–
but not for me.

It was the same when the sun come up,
like you hadn’t closed your eyes
at all in the darkness,
like my glow back-lit
the dissatisfaction
a little more.

(c) 2008 Dorothy J Burk

after the hunt.

In the low rushes where the grouse was caught
it has a name they do not know that speaks
to the sage and the juniper berries,
to the breeze and the mother of the wind;
un nom de guerre to suppress the sort of attention
that has gotten him taken.

To think that a whole long parade of breaths,
a seamless string of organic interactions has totally ceased
in these few moments is absolutely absurd
but it is well known in these parts
that invested effort can come to nothing
in the long-shot moment of fate.

In the low rushes where the grouse was caught
silence prevails in the evenings where once
names were chittered in the foliage with affection
between this and that mortal little bird;
someday things will swing back to the unspoken language
of the sage and juniper berries, of the breeze and mother of the wind.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

the western.

One night,
after the shadows have fallen,
we will sit with our hands in our laps
and laugh at this small tragedy;
when we kiss,
the world will be still for a moment
and our sorrows will ride into the horizon
like Clint Eastwood.

Until that night:
You be my Lightfoot,
I will be your Thunderbolt,
and we will ride into the sunset
anyhow.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

the way-North.

I remember riding your indigo
to the train station, that you
tasted like sea-salt on fresh snow
between my teeth and that you manuevered
the publicity so well no one knew
what you were about.

I must have been magenta, I must have
tasted like curry and gin
with my hands wedged into the folds
of the cushions; keeping company with strangers
for a half-smile and whisky.

I devoured my discomfort
with corned-beef hash. I spooned you from an egg cup
against my eager tongue and you were too wet
but I kept going and your shell gave you up
to my longing.

I got pinned against the long grey of the platform
getting off the train and you let me go
like that; just like that, right there and the smoke
as it lifted from the stack to the sky
was frozen in suggestion and it watched you depart
with practiced omniscience.

And I laid on the platform,
and I stared at the stars.

 (c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

to the Southern Irish.

We weren’t around in 1916
for our uprising. we barely own
the recollection of what it must have felt like
to be our own depraved race
for the first time.
for some of us still
there is nothing to remember
but brotherly betrayal;
priorities and politics
& cardinal directions.

I try not to think about it very much,
how my features betray my geography,
lacking independence, and clime theory,
a long history of rickets
and vitamin deficiency.

I try not to think of how badly
you want me to be dull;
how you’d like me to betray my genealogy
and play nice:

the passion for history waning,
you have forgotten wars are always over meaning, symbol,
efficiency, linguistics,
interpretation and

my people, our people
die from rotten potatoes and fight,
dream of utopias, banshees,
spirits, energy,
physics

and have licked wounds for hundred of years
that have never healed.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

do things ever really change?

it was silly of me to suppose
time could pass in any way
but the way it has and I am
a bit disappointed that I
could not bend space like I thought
but I’ll get over it eventually.

I was banking on that mustard-seed faith,
I was banking on the power of conviction
to make it my way.

I guess I didn’t want to have super-powers anyway,
I just wanted to find a wormhole
to fall through momentarily;
here is a rabbit’s hole, you say
here is a looking glass.

I guess the approximate is good enough,
it was silly of me to suppose
it would be any other way
than the way it has always been
and I am a bit disappointed that I could not bend the fabric of the universe,
but I’ll get over it.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

Arliss

“Is the girl really dreaming she is a butterfly? But what if she is a butterfly dreaming that it is a girl? It is only when her lover is able to discern the butterfly that is in her more than the girl herself that he will passionately desire her, that making love to her will not be only copulation.”

–Slavoj Zizek

This is not a startling realization for Arliss Jones.

Arliss stands in her kitchen, chopping potatoes. A slip of the knife spreads her iron-rich maroon-red blood across the top layer of au-gratin ready thin slices. “If I wash them off,” she thinks, “no one will ever know the difference.” Whether or not this is sanitary bears little on her decision and she is secretly glad inside that Tom will be eating tainted potatoes. Since the phrase ‘Tom eats tainted potatoes’ has such a nice ring to it, she proceeds with bandaging her finger and turning on the faucet to rinse the tainted potatoes. “Yes,” she thinks. “I’ve never made better scalloped potatoes in my life.”

Tom is a decent man, more decent than most men even. They met through a friend three years ago who thought they would get along well. She was right; Tom was immediately arrested of Arliss and vice versa; they had been living together for a little over a year now. Employment in real property law had brought him good fortune in life and he was pleased to afford Arliss any freedom she wished, and any she would take. She had been reluctant at first, he thought, but things had come along well. He is pleased when he comes home and dinner is ready. He is pleased that she is happy. This is exactly how he imagined his life would be when he was in law school hanging around the hippy-ish book shops with the pretty girls.

Arliss is a bit indifferent to the excellence of her potatoes at dinner. He congratulates her, apologizing afterwards, for being an amazing woman. This is an alright way to live life, passing your evenings in good company with good food and enjoying the comfort of a warm home. Many lives have been passed this way, and none of them were wasted. Still Arliss can’t help but feeling that relationships are all good and well until you start worrying too much about how exactly you are related to the other person. She can’t help but feeling that Tom doesn’t know this at all. Philosophy has a way of evading people who are too good at following rules in language, but this is a fault that can be forgiven with ease.

The tea kettle whistles sharply (what other way do tea kettles whistle?) and she excuses herself, slipping from the elegant leather couch to the kitchen island with a little chirp of indiscernable words. As soon as she is out of Tom’s sight, Arliss closes her eyes and drops her perfect posture. Donna, in a cornfield in Nebraska with long hair and a bunch of marigolds. Donna in a white cotton dress in the breeze. Donna between her legs in the birth of sin, Donna as the birth of Venus. Not unlike Tom, Donna is extremely intelligent, light-hearted, faithful, brunette, and magnificent at bocce ball. Not like Tom, Donna doesn’t like eggs and has a vagina. These are the only real important differences between the two. Arliss can brush them aside immediately, ready to dispose of such meanderings.

The problem with Donna is not that she will turn out to be imperfect in the end; the problem with Donna is, Donna does not exist. Arliss started playing this scenario a long time ago. The first time Tom told her how she was the kind of woman he had always hoped he would meet and pass his time with. It’s not that she thought Tom shouldn’t feel that way or even that she didn’t like him. But she never felt herself a woman; not that kind. And here she was, enjoying it. Even more to worry about, enjoying it because she wanted to enjoy it. “I could do with my womanhood until I subjected myself to it,” she accidentally says out loud. Over-intellectualizing again.

The longing for Donna, the thirst for the perfect other whose flaws she most enjoys; hungry for Donna laying naked on her chest while she weaves her hair into silk ribbons, traces her lifeline on the palms of her hands, feels the rhythm of her mother-earth hearbeat deep and full. Donna in a cornfield in Nebraska with a bunch of marigolds. Donna in a white cotton dress. Donna in the real, goddamn flesh. Arliss, chopping potatoes for Donna. The tea. “Donna does not exist,” Arliss says aloud (intentionally). “Donna will never exist, at all. No Donna. Tom. Tom eats tainted potatoes, Tom buys you flowers. Tom, Tom, Tom.”

Green tea has never tasted better in anyone’s home, they both conclude. Real property law is a fine profession, Arliss concludes. She is a fine woman.

(c) 2007 Dorothy J. Burk

Grammar:Shy

Dorothy was born in Reno, Nevada and raised in a small town in Northern California. She holds a BA in Systems of Power & Social Control and is very fond of both classical and critical social theory, as well as linguistics, manatees, and thoroughbred horse racing. She is currently composing an essay on ethics and de-secularization.  

As a creative writer, Dorothy considers her strengths post-post-Modern poetry and pulp/noir detective fiction. She is largely influenced by the American West, romanticism, Steinbeck, and the art of daily life. Two self-published collections of her poetry, “one-dot” and “two-dot”, are available for purchase at $15/each or $25/set.  

Dorothy can be contacted at dorothy.burk@gmail.com. Her spoken word and visual art can be seen at http://www.myspace.com/grammarshy.