Joy Lise

In a Male Sky

I wonder if the embryo of the moon was carved by pain,

inside out like the fetus of my experience

where I carved my own language into my skin,

and secretly discovered the relief in the release of droplets, emerging like

life sprouting on a desolate land.

 

And like all of my pain,

he tried to claim it for his own

 

Walked on female art's surface

with two gentle male fingers

on unexplored territory,

planted his flag, disguised as nurture

filling cracks with store bought creme,

wrapped me in gauze,

like nebulae pillows.

 

On which I gave birth to this fetus

through broken water

blisters, in the middle of midnight

and he drove me to the hospital

where still-born agony would forever lay

darker than all that surrounds it,

reflected by the moon.

                            - Joy Lise (2001)

 

for my father

        In my memory

he's tobacco nights and

coffee mornings

        mornings far away at sunrise

in a dusty trailer

he calls me "desert baby"

        "desert baby," he tells me, "life flashes by"

like the vibrant orange of every sunset that passed

when i longed to be his girl    

        his girl and not a phone call

but where would the pain go, that he did not fight away?

and that sadness that rolled through my veins--while he rolled dice on a table in vegas

        in vegas, at sunrise he kisses me good bye

it's always time to go

before i even know

who he even is

except for the aftershave that lingers from his kiss, where tears fall

        where tears fall, in my memory

he's beer mornings

and noisy nights

        On noisy nights when the phone rings

I call him "desert daddy"

        "desert daddy," I tell him, "you're so old"

He's already fifty five

        fifty five and far away

we are together

in my memory

he's a short visit

he is sleeping nights

and gambling mornings at the casino

        at the casino until

we say good bye

and he walks to the shade to smoke a pack

and I drive away

        I drive away, and he's so old

life just flashed by

                            -Joy Lise (2002)

Fall

In this season of years so sad

all that faces me in the mirror

is the isolation in the embrace of my own arms,

the scars that found themselves to my arms

the soft musical trickle of blood so sad

yet so vibrant an image contrasting the pale silhouette in this mirror.

 

Is that what life is like when you're twenty?

When laughter's memory is the furthest I can't reach?

When the most solid realities are the ephemeral dreams in sleep?

And every day's sanctuary is the sedation of sleep?

When one stroke of release on the wrist has turned to twenty?

From the grave of a poetry lined coffin, red fingernails reach-

 

-to a platinum star exalted above.

Where razors couldn't find themselves to surfaces,

Where red toe nails could prance freely in a dance,

Where joy and black could form one dance,

And crystal tears seep from above

To fill every cicatriced surface-

 

-of this naked twenty year old body.

I see with blood torn eyes

red fingernails scratching at the door,

the red flesh of this door

penetrating with clearer eyes

this soft little cicatriced body.

                                                - Joy Lise (2002)

Finding Her

She hates to venture far from her domestic throne

so I go to her

where i cross a moat of cigarette butts and year old ashes

she's used the same ashtray since I was born

and that hidden cup from where she sips secret wine has never been washed,

just gets reused

and reused

 

in the middle of her yellow stained eyes

you can find two morsels of Ghiradelli's dark chocolate

from  where they made her in San francisco,

my granny and grandaddy, not stopping to remember,

that chocolate melts

and i saw it melt

when I left for college and she had nothing to offer me

but the dandelion crown she's always worn.

"all you can hope for is to always have hope,"

she said

and her dyed black hair stuck to my cheek where our good-byes formed an alliance to 

keep us together with tears

but failed.

 

I return sometimes to her, where I find sacrifices she offers

broths she made me as a child,

"to keep the dandelions alive" she says

and I eat in silence

among scattered poems we share

and I watch her melt

again

and

again

                                            - Joy Lise (2002)

I-5

Giving myself to you is like

sending kisses to the moon

they never bounce back as bright

and your eyes don't hunger for my body

my ears are your ash tray

and my heart is your shift stick

holding me

grinding me

forgetting to use the brakes

but i'll keep going and i'll wait

for you to call me baby

for you to wax my rear

i'll go fast and faster

ride me in fifth gear

                                    -Joy Lise (1999)

(published in vol. 5 spring 2002 "seele"-the undergraduate literary magazine at UC Davis)

 

lonesome in your arms

My heart sang

A melancholy song

Of time and space alone

And danced a solemn sway of slow

To middle of the night

Lonely sighs

And daytime darkness longing

And like a love, as often told, surprised it from a dream

It swallowed whole, my every breath, and every waking blink

As if a trance has taken over

My body’s not my own

I’m rocked and swung

From side to side

And my heart

Goes along for the ride

Not knowing where it’s going

                                                - Joy Lise (2010)

 

 

 

Sin in Flight

Musical tongue feeding Eden inspired creativity

where colors burst fourth from Earth's pores

and the birds of the mind never sleep

 

Feeding in song with feathered notes

that sometimes induce dreams

or build the flames of horrors on paper

the horrors that are clenched in claws and

draped across hungry stares

 

I hear the songs become man made unison

glorified in leaves and leaves of feminine trees

apple hued lips echo across waves and waves

of golden hair

falling like feathers of a molting canary

                                                            - Joy Lise (2002)

Pariah

There you dwell

In an ethereal illusion

A mirage in my essence

Just out of grasp

I drink in this poison

Seeking exaltation

And fortuity to imbue

A whisper of your soul

Fervent with fluster

Drunk with duress

Absorbed into audacity

Longing to seize liberation

From this forsaken expanse

of

you

                                    - Joy Lise (2010)

 

Spaces

In this quiet

As our baby sleeps

Breathing away his dreams

I am left to wonder

What a different life would be

I am breathing in this life

These lonesome dark hours

That fill my spaces

Have become the comfort I fear each day

These questions of strength

And love

Have become the only voices

That fill my spaces

And I miss your voice, your shower smells

Your lacing your boots up noises

This quiet has replaced our songs we make

When you fill my spaces

                                                 - Joy Lise (2005)