Four Poems
by Carol McCarthy
The American Heritage Dictionary
defines dizzy
(below a daguerreotype
of Dorothea Dix),
“bewildered,” “confused,”
suggesting women must be
silly or scatterbrained.
DJ is an abbreviation
for “ditzy Jane”
a boy once said about a girl
who questioned fate. (or faith?)
One entry can define
DNR
DMZ
on the same page as divorce and divider,
implying some basic difference.
Dissent is not for those
whose time is better spent
traversing from Djakarta
to Jakarta
simply because.
To Zebra and Mead
The inutility of a marionette, at best
a dance through a visceral page.
Sanskrit and little pasties?
Beauty as you believe
in sophistry, an enigma.
Her right hand a state
lines sonorous and brisk.
A light dims the affection of something
not yet revealed by its adulation.
Open your ears and you can see
some beat she cannot sing.
Gaze closer and you can hear
her calloused hand knit
the utterance of another tongue.
Still Life With Postman, Ennui
Scents left by you on my dresser
by way of a torn envelope.
Sable and sage hanging
from my ceiling fan in the den.
I once met a lion in Breaux Bridge,
Louisiana. (I brushed his coat
and he sang me a lullaby)
Lull is only time standing still, wishes
granted on a Tuesday morning
hung over on two bottles of red wine.
(the brown lemur is nocturnal for survival)
The mice are missing from glue traps
(I am forced to relinquish control)
When I open my mouth
bees swarm out
Convergence
(OED.) Time between the flash and the thunder.
(n.) The act of coming together.
(math.) Approaching a limit.
(Phys.) Eyes inward to focus.
(Plato.) “The inmost eye.”
(biolog.) Adaptive evolution.
(tech.) The Motorola C-340 phone is also a camera, recorder, and mp3 player.
(entomol.) The wings of wasps.
(pseud.) Marriage X.
(ant.) Run like hell!
(syn.) Standing at the edge.
(naut.) Go in head first.
(onomat.) Crash!
(20th C.) Globalism.
(NIV) Eph 5:21 Submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ.(interj.) Watch out!
(euphem.) Let’s hold hands
(grammatology) “The end of linearity is the end.”
(fem.) I’ll love you forever.
(masc.) I’m not ready for commitment.
(derog.) Sometimes divergence is a good thing.
(Confed.) Y’all ain’t like us.
(DHS) An army of one.
(dimin.) Ubiquitous buzzword.
copyright © 2008 Carol McCarthy
Carol McCarthy lives in New Orleans where she is a poetry candidate in the MFA program at The University of New Orleans. She has poems published or forthcoming in Wicked Alice, Ellipsis and in Natural Bridge, among others.
