No one knows true luv
Like me
Who let Yugo
Who let
U
G
Oh.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Saturday, October 29, 2016
The Tempestuous
Four years since the storm came
Marked by "a," "n," and "y"
A sudden squall, an upending,
Then abruptly: Goodbye.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
The Ghost-Child's Chimera
The Ghost-Child's Chimera
I used to think I was someone, but
I'm no one.
I do not exist.
I never was.
I am not the granddaughter of Yurik,
not the progeny of some tenacious teen smuggled out of Lviv,
I do not exist.
I never was.
I am not the granddaughter of Yurik,
not the progeny of some tenacious teen smuggled out of Lviv,
a.k.a. Lwów,
a.k.a. Lvov.
Sent to a Brave New World:
Before his home morphed into a moat in the
a.k.a. Lvov.
Sent to a Brave New World:
Before his home morphed into a moat in the
tug-of-war
between Schörner's Wehrmacht and the Reds.
Before everything was devoured by the
gut-of-war
in pre-perestroika peristalsis.
Before Plan Zachód headed south,
and he headed west.
Alas, poor Yurik, I knew you well:
In my specter's reverie, in a phantasmic delusion
Where you made it to welcoming New York shores,
Where you received salutations instead of renunciations.
Where you felt your cheeks burn in an American kindergarten class,
Where you pretended you weren't an adolescent swapping out Slavic for Greenwich Willage slang,
Where you eventually rose up the ranks to your rightful post.
Where you enlisted in the US Army and entered stage left into the China-India-Burma Theater,
Where you smoked horseshit and dreamt of your old home, but also of your new one.
Where, when you anchored back in the Hudson's maw, you danced the Hopak and closed down McSorley's before stumbling down 7th into morning Mass at St. George's.
Where you fell in love and kept on living, though not in Lvov,
a.k.a. Lwów,
a.k.a. Lviv.
Where you became a woodworker and worked as you would.
Where you shepherded five children to the Unisphere of the World's Fair, on the other side of the world from where you were born.
Where you smoked not horseshit, but tobacco, in the bent billiards and Dublins that your smart-ass American-born kids occasionally crammed with weed.
Where you still sipped wodka and wisited your parents in the Willage,
Where you paid your taxes,
Where you gave your grandkids Dorothy Hamill haircuts in your cellar woodshop and caravanned some of them to Kerhonkson to learn what it was like to be from
Lviv.
Where you died on an island far from your origin story, proud to be an American, eating forbidden kielbasa to the very end.
But there were no salutations, only renunciations.
You became a bolus—the Euro-intestines got their fill.
Another St. Louis sent back to the motherland, or whoever would take them.
Those were all just my dreams—a ghost-child's chimera.
I used to think that I was someone, but
I'm no one.
I do not exist.
I never was.
between Schörner's Wehrmacht and the Reds.
Before everything was devoured by the
gut-of-war
in pre-perestroika peristalsis.
Before Plan Zachód headed south,
and he headed west.
Alas, poor Yurik, I knew you well:
In my specter's reverie, in a phantasmic delusion
Where you made it to welcoming New York shores,
Where you received salutations instead of renunciations.
Where you felt your cheeks burn in an American kindergarten class,
Where you pretended you weren't an adolescent swapping out Slavic for Greenwich Willage slang,
Where you eventually rose up the ranks to your rightful post.
Where you enlisted in the US Army and entered stage left into the China-India-Burma Theater,
Where you smoked horseshit and dreamt of your old home, but also of your new one.
Where, when you anchored back in the Hudson's maw, you danced the Hopak and closed down McSorley's before stumbling down 7th into morning Mass at St. George's.
Where you fell in love and kept on living, though not in Lvov,
a.k.a. Lwów,
a.k.a. Lviv.
Where you became a woodworker and worked as you would.
Where you shepherded five children to the Unisphere of the World's Fair, on the other side of the world from where you were born.
Where you smoked not horseshit, but tobacco, in the bent billiards and Dublins that your smart-ass American-born kids occasionally crammed with weed.
Where you still sipped wodka and wisited your parents in the Willage,
Where you paid your taxes,
Where you gave your grandkids Dorothy Hamill haircuts in your cellar woodshop and caravanned some of them to Kerhonkson to learn what it was like to be from
Lviv.
Where you died on an island far from your origin story, proud to be an American, eating forbidden kielbasa to the very end.
But there were no salutations, only renunciations.
You became a bolus—the Euro-intestines got their fill.
Another St. Louis sent back to the motherland, or whoever would take them.
Those were all just my dreams—a ghost-child's chimera.
I used to think that I was someone, but
I'm no one.
I do not exist.
I never was.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Monday, October 27, 2014
gee: thanks
gentle
gift of
goodwill I grant with
genuine
grace.
And yet:
I'm just
lying
flowers on your
grave; a
grim godless
genuflection to prop up a
greedy, prideful
guise—
Grief's
grit
engorging my
gullet,
leaving me
grasping at rotting roots,
grinding,
gnashing,
gasping,
gulping down
nitrogen and
oxygen and all the Earth's
gases as I
manage a
guttural
goodbye and
go.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sun-Gazing
Remove all sight as I face my great fear
God strike me blind as your shadow disappears.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Aspirations
Every 10 years they scrape me clean
But oh!
The miracles in between.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Loose Lips
i'm sorry i didn't tell you then i'm sorry i had to tell you now not sorry i told you
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Vanity and a Funeral
And now it appears as if
My heart will leave my chest!
I must confess,
I could use the rest—
I'll go get dressed.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Mag-Lev Meditation
whydoimetastasizeallthispressuretodowhatmostotherscan'tdoanybetter...
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Stop, Drop, and Listen
Turn down the gaslight, dear, so
YOU
won't beeeee
dIsTrAcTeD
ANDSOYOUCAN
hear me.
Tweets and treats at @jenngidman.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
No Tell, William
Twoscore-three seems like a
Long time to nurse such an
anemic hand.
I'd consider folding but for the
2 of hearts.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
The Every Day
Part I: Trickle
Gravity and fate
Plot to desecrate, create
a chance sanguine mess.
Part II: Gush
Gleaning meaning from
the crimson Rorschach I left
on the diner stool.
Part III: Hemorrhage
The day confiscates
and clots my vitality,
So: I wait for night.
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