Bobbi Lurie


behind the dark i see a woman with just a head

she holds the secret in her missing
back breasts legs thighs
a white sheen envelopes the dream
i am in her house of nothingness
all has fallen for her
all have quit her
she is an old hen and everything’s been taken
fleeting seam on her dress unraveling in back
rifling through the trash by the train station
is what i am doing for her
and her head is overhead like the head of a crow
longing to fly in the wind
but it is a place with no roses only thorns
a bouquet of it’s ok whatever happens
worn to translucence is her face
the smell she exudes is the truth of what we are
unlatched and unlocked on the streets
waiting for a handout curtainless facing humanity
like a window bolted shut
sharp horizon broken line
rails gleaming as the train passes
no water no trees
hasn’t eaten in days
a half eaten egg mc muffin falls from the bucket
her hunger is enormous
the boxcars pass
seasons change from what is said
she told me “find peace within yourself”



Bobbi Lurie's poetry and visual art can be found in issues #8 through #16 of Otoliths. She has also published work on-line in Big Bridge, diode, Moria, Kill Poet, Shampoo, Venereal Kittens, Black Robert Journal, Sawbuck, Hamilton Stone Review and others. Her work has also been published in numerous print journals including New American Writing and American Poetry Review. She has received 4 Pushcart Prize nominations and she has also tried out for poet laureate of New Mexico, judged via slam, and lost that as well. She has also lost in love and life and the multiple so-called professions she has attempted, but better to have loved and lived and failed and found it all meaningless than to never at all (so “they” say). She is currently working on her fifth book titled Book Without a Blurb.

 
 
 
 
previous page     contents     next page