Swim Daisy
Mama says don't look back
but the sky's gatherin dark
and my legs so tired
dust chokin my lungs
Mama says we be there soon
I know I shouldn't cry
Daisy don't know nothin
she don't look back
and she don't cry
makes me wish I had button eyes
and a heart of rags
Her face always smilin
'cause her courage drawn on
I'm not so brave
I sometimes forget how
My mouth don't stay smilin
My eyes seen too much
Mama says don't look back
Window's down
still nothin but hot
and the dust follows
every mile on and on
this road too long
my head too heavy
not like Daisy's
she don't sweat
she don't look back
Home's way gone behind us
Mama says we get a new one
I'm tired of ridin
Me and Daisy, we worry
Mama says we gotta keep our heads
above water
I hug Daisy real tight
I'm loving her drawn mouth
I tell her to swim
Swim Daisy
Don't look back
2006
cleansed
washing
she works, defiant, proud
bare-headed laundress
redeemer of their hatred
washing away the sweat
shit and sin of their shameful world
wishing
as she has all her life
that her children had been
as so many stars
falling from the sky
to slip quietly into the sea
where, returned beneath the waves
they might be safe
and free
waning
fading light drops from above,
from her heart
she straightens, stands strong,
the linens newly white
she empties her tub
watches small rivers mingle with her tears
creep through red dirt
streams of sorrow
her only absolution
July 2004
blue
At the edge of a sky so blue
it hurts
I make believe
her face - right out loud -
like the inside of clouds
misty and abandoned
anchored and bereft
of a cruel blue sky
July, 2004
Narrow
Night surrenders
determined, lingering stars
shine from a backdrop
blue as courtesty
grey as calm
Morning emerges
pale as sadness
red as heartbreak
triumphant
parting the world
December, 1993
warm obstacle
Mine is no ordinary face.
Mine is a face that has stood near beauty,
just shy of pretty, bearing a strength undefined,
a smile smuggling hope
disguised as endurance.
It is not the shadow of lovely
you'd spot behind the potted palm
in the lobby of the Ritz-
no Garbo in profile-
I am not an event.
Mine is a beauty capable; might support small subjects
like religion and romance,
not the likes of God and love.
So please don't look too closely at me-
makes me feel like everyone knows
that I have tasted backstreet mercies,
walked my way around an easy time or two-
and maybe I have.
What of it?
I expect no applause and
make no apologies-
"pretty is as pretty does" and I've told you
I'm just fond of pretty, just short of it.
What are the prospects
of true beauty defined?
As surely as it exists it is evolving
toward a permanent disaster, fading
into its own character of ambivalence,
vanity nourishing whispers of tragedy
from a now destitute pride.
Besides, a true beauty must lend itself
to others- mine is kept privately
repeating, like a bit of song you once heard-
keeps working its way around your head,
refusing to be identified.
It provides the possibility of escape
in the pursuit of naming.
You may wonder where you've seen me before.
It will, eventually, become important to you
to identify, elude the illusion
I am making it easy, chalking my surrender
on your walkway- how could you miss me?
To get to a beauty like mine
you have to cross Fairfax, moving west
toward a leftover, holdout southern town
lingering in a suspended world
between defiance and progress,
where summer is always a mysterious,
mystical burden.
By August, while temperatures seared, tempers
and thunderstorms raged against
a life from which all
young girls dream of escape.
There existed a sweltering need
for invention, for invocation.
Here whispered confessions
of no earthly significance
were wrung from my lips.
But what else could you expect
to find in a town like ours
but atrocities and prolonged relaxation....
In late
Leftover Sunday sun heats our skin
through the windows of the car crawling
along endless shimmering blacktop
in search of relief, salvation.
No amount of breeze could soothe
and then Mama would say no,
I had to stay in the back,
"Don't make me tell ya'll agin, ya hear"
and I heard and quick hot salt tears
burned my eyes and pricked
the back of my throat,
indignant tears impatient for release
as we all were
in the heat.
Evenings I would turn my face
toward nowhere and lie
still listening as the breeze
became movement in the trees,
rearranging dust covered earth
revealing a past that is perhaps best
left undiscovered, undisclosed as
in this explanation of myself.
Why unearth all transgressions?
Would true beauty take such risks?
April, 1996
storm (for Temple Drake)
Your swollen, sullen lips pout complaint
to a blackening sky.
Clouds bruised and bullied into rain
force daylight down to memory,
reducing time to flashes,
sharp strikes reflected in your eyes.
I watch the wind toss and thrash
all beneath its mercy, beneath your scorn.
Overripe teardrops slide down a gunmetal sky-
I hear the soft hiss of wet rubber
as tires kiss the rain soaked streets outside, passing
headlights picking out shapes
in the murky dusk of early evening.
I've learned to listen to your rain-
eavesdropping voices, liquid whispers
betray no emotion.
Mist hangs heavy in ribbons from the trees,
resisting relapse into beauty.
I watch you rouge your lips a bloodied,
poppy red- you become a delicious candy apple,
hoping that he'll touch you
in a way god never could.
You venture out into the night
not waiting for me to say go.
19 May 1997
mi abuela
The old ones look to me
because I am that rare child,
brave, remembered, spared-
my baby goodness nurtured, prolonged,
protected by a rich smothering warmth
deep in the folds of women's love-
scented bosoms, the worn,
warm, soft-calloused hands
that rustle together like corn sheathes; silky palms
spider webbed labyrinths of mystery and knowing
passed over my face and hair,
their powder a taste like thick grey clouds,
and the voices murmuring, "She'll live long,
bring us pride"
They study me, these women
who have grieved great pain,
lost men to unnamed roads whose cruel winds
rained death- They have seen unknown
faces assume the familiar and betray.
I retain their leftover hope.
I will become their prediction.
My life means more to them.
They whisper, cry, confess
that they have seen- all before-
in the tears of the moon.
I am the fish in the sky,
the memory of relinquished balloons,
the uneven cadence of beginning, healing rain-
that rare child-
the one the gypsies could not claim
March, 1997
belonging
In the mornings it is grey; sea green
bottle glass mist mingles with waves
still restless from sleep,
soothing themselves into daylight.
Lake roads give way to mountains
and we are surrounded on all sides
by the well-worn path we've always known.
Small, wet footprints betray the stealth
of an early swimmer gone off
toward breakfast sounds that drift
over us as familiar moments of our own.
Birds call to us from water and air,
welcoming sun that burns away
remnants of our past night
and days of shared gifts: laughter, time, peace,
the joy of speed over open water and the house
that is simply home.
The even hunger of memory draws us nearer
to the sky of this place
where we are rescued from ourselves
beneath its veil of stars.
7 August 1996
celebration
You begin to speak of nothing
less than misery and the pieces
of my heart go scattered
to the world.
Now we are something less than lovers
more than friends,
debating our history as if one
confession could soothe
the ragged brush strokes or
fill in the holes dug by your
well-chosen, pointed words.
Time lies exhausted at our feet,
holding us together like the last
surviving revelers of some long dead party.
Do we throw our arms about each other,
stagger home through the post-fete fog,
embracing delirium long enough
to exchange flat kisses
of stale champagne and once sweet dreams?
You will fall into fitful sleep en route
to exclusive oblivion and I will wait and watch
for your wakefulness.
At dusk you will find me here
beneath your window
catching the rays of light
you've let slip through the cracks
of your fingers when you finally realize
you can't hold on to everything.
I'll be here,
making something out of nothing,
a gift you viewed with derision
but which I see as one of my truest virtues,
a remarkable talent,
a necessary gift so mindful of love.
May, 1994
careless
I want to be me out loud, reaching beyond
your random endearments to boldly proclaim
"I can't love you right now"
but there's never a parade passing by
when you need one and I couldn't possibly
make enough joy laughter music
color on my own - or could I? Here
I've settled on this look, sweetly sullen, perpetual
the look of one who is always keeping wild secrets or
tasting lush, forbidden whispers...this is how I'll entice
Often I ask myself, what does it take
to be a complete stranger, for I am
deliciously incomplete and familiar
If I were to listen to what you tell me
I've become, would I hear and believe that
I am someone you never knew yet
found you'd once loved?
Knowing our spirits as I do, I am certain that
in some other life you might feel the freedom
to discover me on the stairs, head in hands, burning
copper, honey hair tangled in endlessly reaching fingers,
my heart so burdened by the angel's sighs that the steps
are slick with my capricious tears
And when you question me I will tell you that you
are fighting beauty where I have exceeded
recommended dosages and while you
examine the rumors of our souls
making careful calculations on how to proceed
with caution, I am approaching dangerous limits
without the slightest reluctance
April, 1994
constant rhapsody
Those birds woke me this morning
self-appointed sentinels of a new day
proffering no apologies for this
their intrusion
They are an insistent disturbance
demanding of me that
I listen to them, the garbled
chirping, ticking, rustling
noisy gossiping, probably about me
for what could be more interesting
even to a bird?
Look at them, their busy
persistent toes scurrying along
telephone wire on which they sit-
pompous pigeons, cheeky chickadees
rapscallious robins mocking me
in their fussy feathered suits
busily assessing, as if
their incessant clicking and scurrying
were responsible for conveying my words
from one end of that line
to the other, as if
I had laid my thoughts
beneath their feet, when really
I had shut my window tight against the night
but she flew in anyway, on bat's wings
it seems, all sleek stealth and
unhurried frenzy and then,
just as I had become comfortable,
almost welcoming, morning crept up
on her retreating heels, slipped in
just as darkness fled, taking with her
all promises of deep excitement and
the possibility of solace
she made good her escape
leaving me behind here, unprotected
to face the light, my unbridled thoughts
and these birds
March, 1994
hoping for a sympathetic moon
Caressing shore is all it knows
imperfections of blue green glass water
all anger, violence, tumult invoking unlikely
apology to its secretive
languid beauty-
gift of whisper and roar.
The crepe waves rustle
crashing down liquid
silk crushed into froth
white sweet salt foam hears
my confession beneath
a spiral of cold stars
The murmured reply bathes
my feet in cool wet absolution
I am released in peace.
March, 1994
after "The Piano"
my restless hands roam
the emptiness beside
me in search of you-
the curve of your back,
the soft thick waves of your hair,
the deep sleep sighs that warmed
my cheek, damp, salt-stained
in your absence-
but I find only the
space you've left behind
in fitful sleep the music
of dreams fills my head,
caressing, soothing, stroking
the silent void.
your hands are wandering now
filled with grace, strong
beauty and a voice
all their own
I feel a dream-sleep smile
welcoming these sure, truest
memories of you
willing them to play for me alone.
March, 1994
semi-celestial
I walk across the floorboards
singing stories
The words fly and dip and weave
wrapping themselves around your head
They tuck themselves into the soft curls
behind your ears
hurrying your dear dreams
sending you toward sleep
until next time
REM and all concerns itself
with what I have hidden in the back room-
stars to conceal my flaws
I sneak them into my pockets
by the handful
to breathe beauty into these whispers
You're not nearly vain enough to suspect
that they're all about you
until the next time
I walk across the floorboards
singing stories
January, 1994
photo op
Time makes me glad
that I have seized each restless,
random opportunity to preserve perfection.
Now I have collected my selves-
such pretty changing lies-
and find that I look different in each.
Something sinister about this process-
to be pursued, shot, captured,
occasionally with the slightly dazed,
surprised look of the hunted-
which presents finally
only an elusive and subjective truth.
If I could narrow me down to one,
I might dedicate this one to myself:
"to the only one who knows."
I am demanding of my admirers,
observed rather than authentic.
Will you linger over my of-course-I-love-you eyes?
be detained by my accidental glamour,
the prepared carelessness of my pose?
This is the me that cannot be contained.
I am not what I appear to be
within this frame
behind this pain
of glass and a frozen smile
May, 1993
terranium
Today I looked up and saw legs in the clouds
horizontal, grey tinged
inviting silhouettes
of ethereal sexuality
and I thought of you
Who else could appreciate
the soft, billowy hips
and smoky thighs
and why did they remind me of me?
The day when you showed me myself-
full-length-
and said, "Look at yourself"
and I did
inside and out
with critical eye
but I was afraid
to tell you what I saw
for fear of revealing too many secrets
If I give too much of myself to you
what will be left to me-
or do I have enough to share?
Am I enough for two?
I find myself wondering,
wandering
through the promise and possibility
of us
but it is too easy to get lost
in possibilities
only to find pieces of yourself
floating in the sky
February, 1993
All works Copyright © 1993-2004 Tracey Hallman. All rights reserved.
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