dasha-lee-poetry-blog

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Evie Untitled

The ceiling always felt much too high. Balconies above and light pouring in all sides drew up the eyes and tripped the feet. The stained marble floor reflected all of this I'm sure. My stumbling around and bright anxious eyes flickering from her up to the sun. She used to perch against the the top story window, between her sisters room and her own, and write lyrics on the wall. She would stare out into the street and wonder what life was like and I would watch and wonder what her life was like.

Her home was a maze of melodies and harmonies. Cats stepping on the piano, her sister screaming at her brother, us playing the first five measures of Heart and Soul over and over. Beautiful and sad sweeping wing-to-wing, always watching but never touching. Just how we were.

And then there were the times when we did. When she fell asleep after watching four Harry Potter movies in a row and I stayed awake braiding her hair. The darkest shades over the brightest shades. Those nights when I pretended to go to sleep fully expecting to be slowly nudged to the edge of the bed. Knowingly trapped in a bundle of bright duvet covers between the wall and her. I would fight back and she would steal the sheets. I would eventually slip down to the floor and she would move the bedding and the pillows down to me. She would play The Killers in the dark and dance and I would beg her to turn on the blue lights hanging from her four-poster.

The firsts night I slept over she taught me how to dance. She pulled me into her parents castle of a bedroom and pretended not to watch while I moved to music like Explosions in the Sky, Walk the Moon, and Keane. We would sing aloud the parts of songs we knew and she would fill in the gaps with made up harmonies and ballet moves. I would watch and wonder how much she could possibly contain.

Sometimes, I imagine her taking your arm behind the curtain of blue lights and leading you down the stairs and out into the woods. Across the golf course and down to the creek where we used to swim without her parents knowing and collect hot pink golf balls. At my worst, I imagine you standing there with her, holding hands like soft pearls pressed against cold cheeks. I imagine her kissing you in a way she never kissed me. Fully knowing and fully loving. And if you were lucky, she might have lead you to her perch from which she sees the world and showed it all to you. All the brightest and darkest shades she could see and understand. I imagine you standing there with her, up on that ledge by the window reading all the lyrics we wrote, and imagining what they must mean to her. I wonder if she pushed you off the bed the same way she pushed me and played you all the songs she played when we used to fall asleep.

But I'm gone from her now and you’re gone from each other. She's cashing in those good looks and that brilliant mind of hers at Vanderbilt and I’m sitting on the pavement outside of creative writing class and trying to find the best way to explain. Eight years of half-asleep dreams and broken poems about those damn blue lights and all those songs.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Beggar Boy

I miss the way he said please,

like he was born from the grace

poured from the mouth of a mythical heaven

begging for a kiss

from these wandering pilgrims

straddling the earth

and gagging for pleasure.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Empty Towers

We were all arms and legs

Chasing and exploring blue lights swinging from her fourposter

and empty towers in each new house

midnight waterfalls and endless stairs

casual fingers, knee-deep secrets,

and a push at the top

Nature’s check and Earth’s will

to bury me beneath her bed

and cover me in bright Evie red.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Deep-Six

Masters embezzle the spectrum

while beggars brawl over whats left

throwing punches on the harlem line

chasing lights with dirt under nails

and clawing at rainbows protruding with eyes rolled and colors blotching

Just cats circling the drain

probing for fare and drowning in scraps

of what your or I don’t eat at breakfast

nuke the louvre and sink the evidence

in that ship of fools

thriving on muslim moons on silk french flags

and those vagrants clinging to the plank

begging God for art.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Tourmaline Spines

Cleverly stitched

tourmaline spines and iron caste hands.

Chainmail bred hearts and a body fed hunger

for anything that grows

You are the Earth’s only demon,

the son grown stronger than his father

ground-bound devils twisting roots

and bending souls that were never theirs to touch.

A daily massacre between each shore

while 600 miles away

I dream of red waves.  

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Sirens

It’s 1588 and mermaids don't sleep

chanting to the Spanish

fucking in the deep,

roaring like sea dogs inhaling their last pint

buried in riptides and grass and sand.

Heathens kiss softly while the devil falls slowly

dark men in a dark sea

fucking spaniards.

my god I miss her.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Tangaroa

Samoa, Hokkaido, Tamaco, the Moro gulf

those waterlogged love birds

floating by the couch

her swelling main 30 feet over,

cages full of feathers and maori mixing colors

a world wars assault

in an ocean made for us.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

The Lake

Mother’s eyes have sunk

like the anchor I tried to pull from the bottom of the lake

when you were 12 and we were manic

grabbing leaves out the window and stuffing away the pretty ones

hiding them between the cracks in the car seats

we used to draw lines between your things and mine as if they weren't the same

remember that time we saw the kids kissing on the side walk?

remember how we wanted that too?

and how I told dad I was going to run away while we took turns on the red swing?

I don’t know about you, but I never did and it feels like I’m still swinging.

pushing and pulling the ground further and closer

I'm still not sure if I want to jump off, or if I can

did you know that they burnt the forest?

and built a barricade in-front of our childhood?

as if the place and it’s memories were there’s to defend.

She is speaking quietly now

and the anchor is still trapped under years

of missed trips to the lake

and the clay we used to grab with our toes

and fumble into bowls with tiny fingers  

sometimes I wonder where our leaves are now

staining and decaying between the leather

and I imagine my red swing covered in weeds

I even miss the boundaries we drew in the car

and the names and broken armed knights we fought over

often I like to believe

ponce is playing war in the back yard and the magnolia petals have littered the pavement,

the snow sheets of our kingdom are still draped over your parents dining table and lofted by the chairs,

our burrow on the bottom shelf in your parents closet still hold untold secrets and dozens of dirty duvets,

and your fathers black moors still bump innocently against their glass

mother is gone now and you're breeching twenty-one

the river has stolen you just as the woods have taken me

my sword is still hiding under my bed, have you found yours?

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

In the Basement in December

When I was five, I warmed away the frost killing our garden. I melted the ice climbing up the weeds that choked the fence and the roots that crumbled under the dirt. I used to sit next to the beds while Mom dug up the lawn looking for her wedding ring. She would singing Russian ballads to the dead juniper trees and I would breathe warm air on every bud I could reach with my open mouth.  We used to count all the crow feathers caught in our neighbors fence each time I remembered they were there.

“Crows are omnivores, they eat plants and meat” she would say, and I would stare up into the sun and cover my head with my hands, fingers fully spread. Then she would place her fingers in-between each gap of mine, where my rough, dark hair stood out against the bright sky.   “Sons are like birds” she said “flying upwards over the mountain.” But Ive only ever been able to see the Hurricane Cliffs a few hours from home and the Great Basin in the winter. There are no mountains here, and certainly none that I've managed to reach the top of.

                                                 * * * * *

Mom and Dad are getting a divorce now and all my uphill clawing has landed me here, still looking for that ring, hiding in the basement on a Thursday with father’s old, broken, gargling computers trying to get away from it all. The homework, the parents, the “you’re supposed to’s”, the “why aren’t you’s”, and the “when will you’s”.   Just two tabs kicking in and three more to go before they both get home from work in a few hours.  

The internet is less inspiring than usual today: two posts on Reddit about legalized weed in states that I'm not in, several about our country acquiring a dumber president than before, and one about happiness written by someones dead aunt. “Happiness is a talent” it says, “life has no smooth roads” writes the aunt on her death bed.  All of this from a woman who doesn't have to try anymore.

Dad’s basement office is temporarily more colorful than usual, the blinds are closed to keep out the evening sun and color-changing LED strips line the bookshelves. The off white carpet is littered with old fishing magazines, boxes filled with clutter, photo development equipment, and a full spectrum of lights. “The moon is always facing us and moving away at an inch and a half per year and I realize now that it is backing away slowly,” says the forum. “Do you think they call it sand because it’s between the sea and the land?” It asks. My eyes glaze and refocus on my reflection in the monitor as I imagine myself as a strip of beach running miles along the coast. Stretching out in the sun, soaking in endless warmth and infinite, gentle pushes from the sea.  The blue colors pulsing off the walls are beginning to sound likes soft waves and the ceiling is definitely more of an ocean than it used to be. As I gaze at my reflection absent-mindedly , another reflection appears. A girl, maybe 16 or so, kneeling in the corner of the screen. Her waist-length brown hair is draped over her green-long sleeve shirt and she is crouching on her toes as she rummages through a box. I check the reflection one last time before I turn around and face the figure itself. She is really there, not just in the monitor. She looks completely unfamiliar.

“Hello?” I question tentatively, knees up to my chest in Dad’s swivel chair.  Startled, she looses balance and lightly hits the floor with a soft thud next to the box. Her hair reflects the light as she pulls half of it behind one ear and meets my gaze slightly above her own.

“What are you doing?” I probe gently.

Her eyes dart from the box back to me “I’m looking for your Mom’s ring.”

“Oh, well… It’s in the yard I think. Thats where she saw it last.”

“Thats not what your dad says” She responds automatically as she continues rifling through the box.  I slowly lift myself onto the ground next to her, crouching partially beneath the desk.

“It would be spectacular if you could find it, I was thinking that it might bring them back together a bit… If you know what I mean. They haven't been the same recently…”  Wow, I opened up quickly.. This must be the acid talking…

` “What are we listening to?” She asks, head still buried.  I completely forgot that my old playlist is running amidst the chaos.  

“No Moon by Iron and Wine” I respond. “Did you know that the moon is leaving us?”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure… I was hoping you might know.”

She shrugs and pulls a lighter out of the box. “Do you have any candles?” I nod and duck underneath the desk to the shelving on the other side of the room. It looks truly dark outside at this point and the temperature has definitely dropped several degrees. I half expect her to not be there when I turn back around but, sure enough, she's there, laying on the carpet with her head resting on a shoe box, flicking the lighter above her chest. I sit next to her about four feet away and place the candles between us.

“Well, did you find out what it is?” She questions as she flicks the lighter and moves to face me, laying on her side.

“What what is?”

“What the ‘is’ is, of course” She prods with a mild tone of sarcastic confusion.

“What’s the ‘is’?”

“The whole, the ultimate, the us, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. The in, the out; the all around ?”

I laugh, maybe for the first time in months, “Not even close.” I respond, laying on my side now as well, facing her. God, I like this girl.

“I found it” she mentions casually, shifting onto her back, and tracing the lights on the ceiling with her eyes.  I fight the urge to reach out and touch one of her green sleeves pushed up to her elbow.  She must have read my mind because in that instant she locks both of her dark hazel eyes on me and moves to lean her arm gently against mine.

“You have me on the edge of my seat, what is it?”

She reveals a small gold ring between her palms.

“It got warmer in here when you laughed.”

And then I smile like an idiot and take turns staring, dumfounded, between her eyes and the little thing resting in her cupped hands.  Just as all the “how’s and “why’s” start pouring out of my mouth, light shoots in from the thin windows along the top of the wall. I hear the garage door open, the impending unlocking of the front door, and the typical oppressive silence my parents emit when they get home.

“Hide under the desk and please don't leave, Okay?”

She nods with a worried expression tied up in her eyebrows and darts under the desk. I take a few, final moments to hide all the paraphernalia, not to mention my dads bottle of rum from the kitchen, pull some homework up on the computer, and run two steps at a time up the stairs.

Dad slams the door behind them to keep the wind out.

They are quite today, but a little more so than usual. Mom’s hair has fallen out of its usual tight bun and Dad’s briefcase is sporting a new coffee stain. Can’t have been a good day.

“How was work, Mom?”

“Too many parent complaints and not enough tax support from the district. Glendale is rough on their teachers. ” Dad has already walked into the kitchen and mom’s eyes have dropped from mine to watch him throw his jacket on the dining table and turn on the television.

“Mom, you wont believe it, I found something in the basement today..”

Her heavy eyelids perk up slightly behind her red-rimmed glasses as I reach into my pocket to pull out the ring. It’s not there. Of course it isn’t. “One second”.

I leap lightly from the landing, six steps down to the carpeted basement floor.  As I swing around the corner and back into the room I step on a small lit tea-light candle. It burns a small hole on the bottom of my sock before I yank it off and notice about two dozen more candles. Dotting the floor in concentric circles like domino chain reactions.  The room is warmer and cleaner now too. Dad’s boxes are closed and stacked neatly in various corners of the room waiting to be moved. “Are you still there?” I breach into the darkness as the computer hums and the speakers continue to sing:

“Mother don't worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed

Mother don't worry, I've got some money I saved for the weekend

Mother remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body?

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten

Sons are like birds, flying upward over the mountain”

over and over and over.

[dasha-lee-poetry-blog]

Berliner Dom

He lost them last time he was here All the roman souls he had collected from Berlin in 1944

up in the golden frescoes

tongue tied in the macarons, glaring from their gold plated perches.

He used to run up and down the stairs from the base of Saur’s organ to the angel-lined turrets always facing south searching for his favorite Mary plastered to the dome

Until the allies struck twice and liquid fire rained from jesus to the crypt while he slept between the sun-stained dias and two dozen newly furnished pews

It was always his job to paint to will the sun to cast his shadows gently on the crucifix and gloss the looming marble columns he used to kiss when no one was looking

“Pray for rain” they said with their palms clasped and overflowing with boiled candles seeping over each soft, raw thumb

Theres only cinder on the carpet now resting under a pile of shattered gods, stabbing at a hole in the sky it is his job to fix

Just a poor steward commanded to recreate a heaven that must not exist