E·ratio

 

 

E·ratio Issue 10

 

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. 

 

 




E · Poetry Journal