Julie Van Dyke/ Dover Poet
Arrival
In this sweet, loving death,
In a winter, killed to the core,
I would like to think of you
In a lone cabin in the north French woods,
Where electricity never dares to share
Sparks of tungsten,
Lightbulbed in glass laughter,
Miles above your head,
But in a paradise –
Devoid of frost and friction
Of precipitation,
Heat, leaping
In the smoky burn
Of fevered flames,
With the ghost of you,
Missing me…
A memory never met,
Spending moments
Toasty in the fire-front,
A scene of alcoholic heat
Reflected in your glass –
And a mouth, kissed red
With foreign wine,
Except for you, alone,
And me, a visage –
A near-mirrored miss,
Dancing on your goblet’s
Crystal rim,
Daring to jump
And bring you down,
Heady in the pool
Of sanguine innocence,
Set for your lips,
Where I’d play on your tongue
Daring talk of
My hidden image,
In French-kissed friction.
And in your fevered swallow,
I’d fly like I never did before,
Drowning deep inside you...
It’s only then,
In these snow-dust days of death
In the sweet, loving winter,
That you will finally know
That I’ve arrived.
The DoverPoet
1-29-11
Ear Candy
Your erection
Reached through
The conversation
Joining our ears with our cells
And pushed itself
Against my pelvis.
I gasped in hot air
And although you weren't
Even there
I felt every inch of
Your intention -
My tension
Building,
As our syllables
Caressed
And crashed
Into our ears.
So close,
I stroked your words
In precision-licked
Rhythm
Of heat and wit
As petals of humidity
Dripped from my inner,
Outwards.
But it was your
Dangling modifier
And your split
Infinitive
That finished me
Over the edge.
And afterwards,
When phone had
Long grown cold
I gathered together
my dew-soaked
Petals,
Bed-shed…
And still wet.
DoverPoet (Julie Van Dyke) 2010
“Redefining Landscape"
She hands me a tissue
“It’s okay to cry…”
(they say this all the time in therapy),
but I am embarrassed and hide my face in the Kleenex
dousing festering flames with tears.
I crumple the tissue,
now wet and deflated.
I mourn its expired usefulness,
while I take aim at the trashcan.
I stop In mid-throw,
as I notice my tissue will only serve
as the peak of a mountain
built by others’ snot and triggers.
“Are you okay now?”
she asks,
a smirk of well-worn concern
curling all crazy on her lips,
sort of like a bad hair day,
and I feign a smile with a brain-dead nod,
reaffirming her existence.
I throw that crumpled Kleenex
which soars in space
(like the Concord before the crash and burn),
and it lands perfectly
on top of the pile.
I congratulate myself,
for hitting a new height.
I shuffle out the door,
as her next patient shuffles in,
never letting me forget
that they are good and ready
to trump me,
in altitude.
DoverPoet, 2010
"Ritual"
Gray-scale insane,
I’m popping pills again,
in neighboring boxes, nestled
in days all ending in ‘y’
over and over,
the ladder of months
forming a double helix
upon itself,
from which the seeds of insanity
Perched -
Birdlike and proud,
as dumb as Dodos,
because they were the first,
Before I even knew me…
Before I even knew how…
Before I even knew me now.
They were soul-snagging smug,
despite good intentions and Heaven.
Things are never as they seem.
A Kindergartner on my first day
in some kind of smock
smiling sunny saneness and
class-picture posed,
The Princess of Caraway Road ,
simmering in innocence,
before the eruption
where my Kodachrome rape
Took place.
So now I’m deep-throating
Monochrome meds,
praying that after the swallow,
I remember
how to breathe in streams
of color
again.
DoverPoet, 2009
“Seasons of Consequence”
I remember you -
You bloomed upon the dying trees
And sprung among the time-stripped leaves
That dripped,
Then stopped the clocks
Between us.
You paved a red carpet
For nature's annual death drop,
Yet, you sang like the life
You projected back to me,
And I glowed in your greening,
Greeting you
In the grey threads
Of November.
Yes, I remember you
Beyond my worldly ability
To recollect,
And what I could not read between
The lines of our impending
Intellect, I surmised
In your sounds –
Notes strengthening
And abounding,
A remembrance from
Our souls' graves -
Ageless,
Like the ringing of guitar strings
Which still lingers,
Despite the singing
Of spring birds,
Who dare to compete.
I will always remember you,
Even in our mortal deaths
Which threaten our earthly
Forgetfulness.
You will always be there -
The tune that grooves
The steps in me,
You forge me forth
Through turning seasons.
The leaves may die
One thousand times
And be reborn before
I taste your soul – my heart -
My counterpart,
Within our timeless spring.
DoverPoet, 2008
“Butterfly Conquering”
I wrap my world's wounds around me
As a security blanket
Of my necessary destruction
I must possess,
In order to forward-function.
Back to the cocoon from which
I escaped too soon,
I retract my wings
And hastily-escaped statements
And sink back in
To my living
Fetal
Grave.
I was flitting against
Glass, unpenetrateable
With whimsical moth wings,
Bourne all-too-soon
Towards light, unreachable.
How I wanted in,
So I fast-forwarded
The light for my taking,
Scraping and shattering
My vulnerable
Wings.
So I am back,
Concaving and regressing,
In order
To fly forward,
With next-time butterfly wings,
Where I will soar
As high as I desire –
Just like Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
Or Icarus-unmelting,
Perhaps.
DoverPoet, 2008
“Depression for Depression's Sake?”
It's not that I'm down for the hell of it
Or for any particular reason
Or approaching my diurnal
Flow
Of wisterial thoughts which
Cling and kill -
Oh no,
I manage it well with a
Smile which cracks
The cauldrons of hell.
Who would know?
I teeter within lax controls
Of the borders of mediocrity
My boundaries -
Absconded and raped
By rabid, black dogs
Angst-angry and driven -
Blood-ridden,
Who suck love from me
In single, ruby-hued
Drops -
One
by
One.
DoverPoet, 2008
"Desire"
It’s like walking
On the blade of a knife -
A balancing act,
Where pain seeps into your heels
Presenting,
As an ever-present ache
Which,
If not kept in check,
Makes its way to your heart
Where the very same blade
Which bled your feet
Now twists in your chest
A forever-festering threat
Which transforms
Heartbeats
Into screams.
DoverPoet, 2008
"Final Act"
Sanity's
Reduced to a razor-thin
tight rope
On which I teeter;
My feet bleed beneath me
Yet I smile on
To the crowed I am blinded to
who all see me
It is a one-way conversation
of vision.
And as I inch forward,
The clowns
Way below me
Duck for cover.
Drops of ruby red
Splash their heads
as they scatter for safety
for they know the storm
will soon explode
when I reach
rope's end.
DoverPoet, 2008
“To Bleed Again”
As my body is a casket of witness,
And I flatline to all creativity,
Spirit smashed in Wasteland trashcans
Of the mentality of the mundane,
My shell shudders under
Shocks of paddles
In earnest revival battles.
Yet again, I always find you
And your words that perk me to life.
My lurker smirks to smile again
And my blood, which has dry-stuck
To the bottom of the cauldron
For oh so long -
Swills,
Til once more,
It boils
To the spill.
Dover Poet, 2007
“Unnoticed Murder”
"Why do people kill themselves?",
You asked, shaking your head,
Face to face with me,
And a razor blade.
I take it you must have been rhetorically speaking,
For you looked at me
Through, to the rotten core,
And saw no more
Than you needed.
And while you pondered,
I took a vertical slice at life,
Right in front of your
stare-into-space gaze.
The answer was right in front of you.
However, you chose to ignore
The non-verbal response I implored.
Silently screaming sentences,
Only visibly ended by periods
Ruby, red-dripped periods,
Which punctuated the miles
And miles
Of pristine sheets
Between us.
DoverPoet, 2007
