DANIELLE GRILLI

Danielle Grilli edits poems at the MAG. She lives in San Pedro, CA with her 2 cats, received her MFA in poetry from New England College and is presently completing her first book of poems. Danielle hopes buy an island where artists and writers alike can navigate a Utopic society. In the meantime, she sticks to loving the world, communicating with animals, painting pictures, taking odd photographs, swimming, teaching poetry,trying to make a living and meeting great spirits of the overworld through the MAG. Danielle welcomes any comments on her work. daniellegrilli@hotmail.com

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MORE

If there were more then the pale cast of midnight,
the distant creature call to mates, cubs,
as they follow the homeward echo,

would you raise your thin arms, press them
against the gold bands of the Vincent Thomas bridge,
embrace the blink and drone of America?

Would you pour something clean and fresh
over the brown families cooking their rats,
washing their filth down the banks of LA's discarded river?

If there were more than the bluesy twilight of jazz,
smoky spirit wailed through the labyrinth of
side slung streets in an answer to the reaper's hymn,

sung from skid row like a warning,
"you could be me, you could be me,"
would you lay your coins, your dark

Armani shades, your head down
beside the crumpled news, the matted hair
of your other brother?

Would you hold his filthy hand,
sing his sad heart a lullaby
from the bottom of your lucky soul?

Would you watch as he falls deep
into that opulent Eden of the mind,
images ripped from discarded National Geographics?

Would you bless his head with a child's kiss,
mark his tortured mind with an ashy cross just to say,
"Holy, Holy?"

If there were more than the memory,
speeding reckless around cul-de-sac streets,
the oily whirr of wheels to asphalt,

stones tapping your anthem in the wake,
homes, gardens passing in a spectrum streak,
in a heady whiff of lavender,

children baking mud cakes in the sun,
faces masked in earthy paste,
giggles echoing round, a sonic ring,

(you remember the change clinking its weight in your pocket,
pedaling toward the candy shop or the public pool
where you could hear laughter from a block away,

"Marco, Polo, Marco, Polo."
If you joined late, you'd have to be Polo,
or the Goose)

If there were more than this
or the sleepless music of midnight,
the steady drip, drip, dripping leak on porcelain,

the refrigerator humming it's presence,
the whoosh of traffic
as your red eyes move behind bruised lids,

replay yesterday, plan tomorrow, and the next day,
more than the wild passion of neighbors
tossing their china through your sleep,

screaming their misfortunes through your white walls,
the reminder of your flattened life-
would you open your eyes to the moon,

pedal your Schwinn to the long embrace of the sea,
immerse your naked self in the blue,
and praise your baptism into something truly salty?

If there were more than the even fugue of dawn
casting her red in the middle distance of your mind,
more than the sentiment of habit,

would you lift your face to a new life,
start something different,
or maybe, just breathe?

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SOLDIER DOWNED BY SENSELESS ACT OF VIOLENCE

I maimed an ant this morning,
seared his back legs
with a careless flick of ash.

I watched as he struggled to move,
Watched as he crawled around on his forelegs,
his brothers rushing around him, frenzied.

I gave him a push; a gentle breath behind,
and sent the creatures flying in all directions.
I lost sight of the wounded,

wondered, is this the helplessness of a god?
and, does hope carry any weight at all,
as I snuffed my Marlboro and turned toward the house.

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UNDERPINNING

You think it is the brick holding
this address here;

not the tiles, the struts,
the fanciful things,

or the low words whispered
through wide rooms at dawn,

just the brick or
some bolder cornerstone?

Is it fear that keeps you awake at night,
scares you from your dreaming,

the fierce lonely holding your lids,
despite dry eyes?

Have you wept them red
awaiting your last breath?

Who is that child
crying beside you,

could she lift those stones,
place them one by one on smooth concrete,

fill the spaces with mud, straw,
whiten the walls after spring's last rain?

Was it she humming down the hall,
a soft hymn, while the world slept?

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NECESSITIES

I.
A pack of matches,
a stick of gum squeezed
between a spent medical card warning
fatal penicillin allergy
and an out of state license:
picture taken 8 years ago,
before my hair fell to the floor,
long, thinning strands.
before I relented, released the razor

II.
She drops her bags, heavy with Huggies
and a week's worth of half-eaten microwave dinners,
the buckling back porch wet with filth
seeping through cheap plastic.

"I am not a plural," she screams
through the heat of an L.A. August night
face in her hands she hears her echo snake
through the labyrinth of tenements

this and her shallow breathing
a music to set her sobbing to.

III
Talk to me about something serious,
something deep and biting;

nights spent crouched in the corner
watching the feet of the rodent
as he spins his wheel,

Pitying him as we pity ourselves,
silence or joy humming like light off leaves
on a warm New England afternoon.

lV.
Depression is an open wound.
we pick at it, scratch away in the corner,
feed it with starvation, day-time TV,
late nights, nicotine, Jack Daniels, unemployment

just because we're afraid of leaping,
afraid of jumping off the wheel,
though anything different would be better,
might even feel as good as screaming.

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7 DAYS

I want it big:
I want it blue and green
I want dirt and liquid
Heaved in piles around
Not everywhere mixed to mud
But in some places, yes!

I want it big,
But smaller than the sun
I want it close to the brilliant scorch of rays
So it might glimmer in the light
While I'm watching.

I want it big, I want
Little monsters swimming, crawling
Slithering along dirt and liquid
I want them to change,
Evolve into difference
I want to watch.

I want it big,
I want them to suffer
To feel the dirt and mud,
The depths of liquid in their bellies

I want them to drown and choke
On their own blood.
to know the long lurch of the sun
they could never reach its distance, magnificence,
That they glimmer only for me.

I want it big,
Big conflict.
I want them warring
With metal and stone
I want them to want
To slash blinkless
their very brother's breath
I don't want them to know why
But to create some reason
Removed from logic.

I want it big and chaotic,
I want hunger, disease
Lust, guilt, glutton, greed
Tides rising, falling within each
Different, separate, conflicting.

I want silly joy,
I want to laugh,
I want them to know me as something greater
And themselves as my product

I want it big,
I want entertainment,
Let me have it!

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WHILE YOU'RE AT IT

While you're at it, mop the floor, do the laundry (mind my silks), clean your room,
Clean my room, feed the baby, wash the car, pet the cats, put the dog out

While you're at it,
Call your grandmother, do her shopping, move her baskets, dust her shelves,
Take the trash out, call the doctor, change the linens, check her meds, pray the rosary.
Go to church.

While you're at it,
Put your time in, press your suit, pay your taxes, plan your future,
Plan your wedding, plan your funeral, reproduce, don't complain, save your money,
Fuck your husband, fuck your husband, fuck your husband, fuck your husband.

While you're at it,
Keep your mouth shut, keep your head down, comb your hair, wear your make up,
support your government, mind your elders, smell the roses, do your duty.

While you're at it,
Obey,
Obey, obey, obey, obey, obey,
And be happy about it,
while you're at it

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SHE'S WITH HERSELF

She's with herself most the time
but for a hot cup of black coffee,
lit match, long flame, a warm breath
of nicotine sucked deep in her lungs,

and the occasional bar stool small talk,
where she wears a new face, a new laugh,
and tight lips that reveal her jagged movement
between one mad world and another,

tight lips that remain long after the wine settles in,
after the pale V.P. confesses he never really loved
his wife, but stays anyway then winks
and rubs a sticky hand down her arm;

remain till she settles back between four walls,
between blank pages where she writes of his raw breath,
examines single holiday pictures
just to remind herself she lives in a tangible world.

She calls her mother at midnight
to verify her own breath, birth, childhood
and a past that never unfolded as it should.
And sometimes she cries but she can't put her finger why.

She wears her hair in pigtails most the time,
belts 'LA woman,' while shaking her round hips,
steals kisses from the white cat limp in her arms,
then falls to the ground howling,

'what the fuck am I doing anyway?'

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THE WASHING

They swish around like that,
cotton, linen, acrylic,
cauldron of hot powder, held rain,

your filth, mine, dirt and ash of
cigarette calm and breath
rubbed to thin fiber.

We touch there,
flung violently against the cool slip of tank,
cling and simmer back.

and maybe it's just there that you wrap me
just there where we lie washed clean
spun tired of dust, frustration,

just there that we settle down,
untouched by the world,
but somehow that's enough.

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I AM

I am the great white buffalo

your grandfather's dying breath,

your child's first…

I am the weave of wool wrapped
around the slender waist of
a Romanian bride,

the black knit of a veil
draped over the dark eyes
of a widow.

I am the sweet blood of a peach trickling
down your chin,

the hive's sacred molasses squeezed
tapped from rough wood.

I am the first

and the last,

the in-between,

the stripped stem,
withered blossom,
the bruised petal
stirred back to soil.

I am the melted steel
folded with the flesh and dreams of thousands,
the crash and flame,
I am the ash.

I am the bloody fur
of a million tic ridden dogs,
each tic holding to flesh for life
by a scab.

I am a hymn lingering
over the great breadth of the Himalayas,

a childless womb,
reborn under the light
of a San Diego dawn.

I am a stone
tossed into a still pond,
the ripple passing like a tidal wave
over clear blue,

the single sand grain,
flake of snow,

I am the wail of a banshee,
the third cockcrow,
the smear of blood on an oak door.

I am a word,
a vowel, a grunt, a sound,
a click of your furry tongue
and You.

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CRANKY

You're awakened from deep slumber by your mother.
She drags you from bed in a single heave,
the old tabby wounded and yelping in the wake.
You turn to soothe, but time evades you.

She spits you onto a wide plaza full of strangers,
you with your boxer shorts, the taste of sleep in your mouth,
the inhuman sun shining her bitter spotlight on you.
You feel ridiculous.

"I need a shower," you say.
she gives you the silent eye reserved for public communication.
"I'm not dirty or anything, I just want a shower."
She winks.

"In our family we're never dirty, we don't have needs, not with our fortune,
Not when father worked day in and out with potato sacks wrapped around his feet,
flour sacks weaved as my only dress,
backyard bunnies skinned and cooked for dinner."

Not while I ate my steak every Sunday after church,
attended prep schools, drove my own car at 16
not when even I, a female, went to college,
not with our fortune.
Then she's gone.

You find yourself on the deserted corner of a southern street
in the dead, wet heat of summer.
Amid dilapidated houses stretched
deep into the distance,
You cry.

An older, wiser, rounder woman comes toward you,
moving slowly, sweeping slowly her faded dress as she does,
takes you in an embrace, pulls your head to her soft shoulder and says,
That's alright honey, you crying about that UFO?

You look up, shocked, you have no idea what she's talking about,
you just miss your mother.
And you begin to answer as she walks you slowly
up the narrow street of busted up white fences, dusty yards riddled

with rusted car parts and toddler toys
"If I'd seen that, I'd be hyperventilating right now, not crying."
She just nods, pats you on the back.

You come to a crowd on the corner.
this desolate southern landscape now a veritable metropolis.
There are a dozen rottweilers surrounding you,
held on leash by a young black man with a pleasant face.

You try to shield the woman from the dogs,
but she just smiles calmly,

You cross the street to find
your frazzled mother tapping her impatient foot.
Are you ready yet?

You turn to see the broad woman, the pleasant-faced man
disappear around the corner,
They laugh at a joke between them.

You find yourself in your old '56 Chevy,
Flying helplessly down a long hill
Useless in the drivers seat as you slam and slam the brakes,

You yank the emergency brake,
it comes loose in your hand.
You keep it steady, going nowhere, nowhere.

As your childhood home hovers in the rear view mirror,
Your mother looking after the speeding car with worried eyes
Through the second story window,

getting smaller, small like a pea now,
vanished.

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SIMPLE

It's not that simple is it?

Blue delphinium seeds,

white peonies pushed to dry soil.

You could sing millennia over those hard eggs,

pray the rosary onto infinitude

but God still won't spit on that crumbling earth,

or give that small life a heartbeat.

It's not that simple now is it:

you chanting your love to the cosmos

as though you knew that wretched beauty

as though you knew it is the tears of it,

the moist breath after all.

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THIS FACE

You'd think I'd know it by now, this face,
See it as mine or maybe
accept it's subtle existence.
But it is always changing,

and sometimes the child stares back
big brown eyes, black lashes still
with a terror of the world,
meeting a wisdom she hasn't earned yet;

or the pock-face adolescent,
her chubby cheeks a reminder of the new hips
wide and spongy that live below, of the new magic
that runs monthly between her thighs;

but most the time it is the old woman I see
looking back at me: thin hair, skin,
deep lines under her eyes, down her face,
around her lips, the sag of neck and chin.

And I wonder who saw into those dark eyes
in the years that haven't come,
and what magnificence they looked upon or didn't
while lost between four white walls.

I wonder what beds she slept in,
how many lovers she really had,
and just how many dreams were lost
under her everyday burdens.

I wonder if she ever made her own child,
watched it pulled from her belly, or her womb,
and if her eyes ever met love and if it was lost,

and if she laughed,
could she laugh,
did she laugh?

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EVERYDAY

Because of your single saggy sock,
your single bare foot propped upon the tiles
of my father's homemade coffee table each morning

as you watch the BBC, scream at the shaky images
as if Cheney himself could hear you,
as if your small wisdom could bring peace to the world,

because I know you hate wearing socks to bed
or those blue pajamas I bought for you one Christmas
printed as they are with Dalmation dogs in fire-caps

but you wear them
just so I won't feel your cold skin
against my bare legs at night.

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ANTI-WAR POEM

I believe the calculations to be correct
that between quarks and protons, numbers
wiggle their veracity along long stems
along the rough edge of thorns.
I believe truth to be the sharpest of points
the trickle of blood through the skin's tear
the most beautiful of maladies
I believe the calculations to be correct.

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ALL WRONG

When she prunes,
they give her the evil eye;

because it's so late in coming,
because the clips defy the ideal angle.

They ogle her sideways,
leaves raised mishmash to the sky,

waving frantic like a stranded pretty boy
on a Watts midnight,

bow their heads and quiver,
little petals puckered in disapproval,

trembling like the red smear of grandmother's lips
as she eyes the new ink across my back.

She can almost hear their tongues click
with each clumsy snip,

can almost feel the tap on my shoulder
'excuse me, you're doing it all wrong.'

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ABOVE THE FIFTH LEAF

I have watched you kneel
between the long thorny arms of your roses;
balanced on the ball of one foot,
then wearied, the other.

Mother, you smear your lips a precise crimson,
let your dark hair fall loosely to your shoulders,
as hands pass delicately
from limb to limb, head to head,

and every prick goes unnoticed,
as you turn the frail bud in your palm
after a clean clip above the fifth leaf
just because you know it will flourish that way,
and drink, and drink, and drink.

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WHAT SHE WANTS

She wants to be mean,
to lash her children with a forked tongue
with ash, with flame.

She wants to scream rape in the night
to hear her husband weeping,

wants to lift her skirt and piss on the roses,
just to hear the red buds shriek.

She wants to kill the pets,
to kick the unfed kitten into the rain

wants to blame the world for her shadows,

wants to cry, to beg for forgiveness

but she can't.

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WHAT DID YOU THINK?

As you stood at the machine
waiting for a soda,
Spent after a long night
walking the white labyrinth,
your wife leaning heavily on your arm,
as you waited for her dilation?
What did you think,
rushing the stairs
to the empty room,
the nurse's hand clamped
suddenly on your arm,
'get washed. Now.'
Of her screams painting the walls
'I just want to hear my baby cry,
I just want…'
pushing through the doors to find
doctors, nurses hollering their orders
over your wife?
What did you think,
Seeing her writhe
the bed of blood and pain,
her insides out,
as they shoved you from the room?
Than waiting quietly with your daughter,
your arms linked,
her head on your shoulder,
What did you think then
the black shock of fine hair
small lips sucking on her full breast,
when she smiled,
and behind the red of her eyes,
the dazzle of blue.

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THE UNSPOKEN

What he didn't mention
standing before the blank field of pale faces
was the way you looked at me when I cracked,
bled my failures on your lime Formica floor,
shred up and citing the end of me at 6A.M.:

He didn't say that we talked Philosophy,
Theosophy, Sociology,
cured the world in your living room
Over strawberry Jell-O
Than wept when we walked outside.

He didn't say that we argued like sisters
Despite the 60 year difference,
didn't mention how you laughed
when grandpa returned home
toothless, shamed.

He never spoke of the five children
pulled from you without heartbeat,
of your husband's dissatisfaction with one woman,
and he never spoke of your single child
who played careful alone with porcelain figurines.

He never talked about the phone calls,
Crying to me over our broken family
Or the cookies you grabbed from my hand
So I wouldn't get any fatter.

Never said you weren't perfect,
Or that I loved you just because of it.