Bobbi Lurie

sunflower 15

sick people in pain alone talk to themselves
incomprehensible are these words to those who see your face
unimaginable deeds done dare i say it to any creature not struck with it
murmur something they cannot truly understand speak in monotone
dare not express incomprehensible words
cruelty possible always to be surpassed man’s lasting attribute
“plain before my eyes” said he eyes swathed in bandages covering sight
oozing yellow fluid is this life thought i
screams mixed with volleys of shots soaked in shrieks
“our massacre was in revenge for all the troubles in the world” said he


the subject of a pamphlet people don't read but throw away contains the
ones without pamphlets who are then taken revenge upon for original
thinking/ they'd rather not read pamphlets/ they'd rather be nomads
with past lives/ they'd rather be myocytes in petri dishes scaffolding
their migrations into biology…

but some hearts dissolve in a day… they leave you bleeding constant flow
of morphine they leave for new entertainment for isn't the computer just
like TV/ a new shore of heartbreak a new shore with condos to contain
them/ changes in morphology cell to cell while strangers dwell in
duplicity with strangers who speak in foreign tongues the mother tongue
is english and they want to be among you if you offer them a contract
for a book they believe will make them famous but if you speak the truth
they think let's see martha's vineyard instead let's say no one speaks
on the ferry to there everything minus me can't see what this life is
its vision apocalyptic yet expected rumors spread like cancer and
friends appear like…and disappear like….but scars remain framed in
imagination embedded in skin appearing in their jeers invisible via
internet but appearing just the same like an invisible fungus among us
are people who cheat yet imagine truth in their pocket as if in a
notebook it contains what they imagine in such subtle ways and in such
masses they limit their image to essay form adorn you with flattery till
you fail to entertain

forgive them says who not being jesus for no reason for friends will
greet you differently like someone they knew once but thought had died
on an island they forgot the name of but just the same they greet you
and cloak you with news of their latest addictions and admit at last
that what surprises them is to see you still alive like someone they
loved once but now choose to lie to

like someone abandoned in a field of regret your friends greet you like
a stranger rearrange you in their mind for they have books to sell and
one calls her readers her "fans" her thighs are not tanned but cellulite
while you bleed to death she sees you in a different light

aren't you must be says their rumors form tumors doctors take out
through knives and anesthesia then a scar around your heart will stay
forever so you empty self of poetry from those who cover feelings with
ambition and sentiment

don't want to hear the sirens don't see your abdomen's bleeding people
recede in the backdrop lonely and dark forgetting the answer they asked
the question you made in their mind their mission is networking on
commission cell to cell the other side of strangers is morphology of
strangeness cell to cell abandoned

Bobbi Lurie's two poetry collections are Letter from the Lawn (CustomWords, 2006) and The Book I Never Read (CustomWords, 2003). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in numerous print and on-line journals including American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Shampoo and diode.

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