Poems (older)
These are older poems. It looks like they’re all before 1990. The oldest ones are from high school (1977 – 1981), some from college (1981 – 1985), some are between college and the point at which I started losing track of myself (~ 1990 – 1991). Some have dates, most don’t. Some are “finished,” others could use a little polishing. Some have no titles because they’re not really finished.
I don’t think I really need to drive this home, but I will: All these poems are copyright Mary R. Drews. Not that anyone steals another person’s non-professional poetry, but some people are just shits about taking things off Internet pages. Words on an Internet page are not in the public domain. You do not have permission to use them or copy them and pretend they’re your own. You are not allowed to put them on your Internet pages. However, if you like these, please do feel free to print them out and read them whenever you like. And take the time to send me comments, if you feel like it.
I am the woman
who is more human
than doll ―
I’m not cold
porcelain
I’m flesh and
fun ― real as
the weather ―
warm as the breeze
sifting though
a summer screen.
Mary R. Drews
6/3/1989
Woman
Understand this:
I am no lady
of the evening ―
I do not drink blood.
But each day I rise
by magic and want
all that I cannot have.
Mary R. Drews
A Man Soured
Puts lemons
In his vodka
Drinks it
Straight
He can eat
That fruit
As his eyes
Deny the sincerity
Of his
Propositions.
Mary R. Drews
This was based on a man I met in a bar when I was in college.
Dream of the Weary
The war closes in ―
a toolbox filled with
guns and bombs.
I wait ― sleepy-minded and
tired for time
to pull the plug ―
for the war to reach
my small room,
engage my interest, love.
Then I will burst
into flames.
Mary R. Drews
This poem was published (I have no idea where) in December of 1990.
On the Lapsing of a Friendship
I look for your eyes
in the faces of lean strangers.
I did not lose you.
I lost me
in you.
And now there is no space
for me.
You’ve pushed me out
and sealed the hole.
I wish only that I knew
why. The question asked
over and over.
We humans are not
intelligent ― we ask “why?”
when we know there is
no answer.
It is a cruel phenomenon
of nature that we seek
what we cannot have.
Mary R. Drews
From between college and the abyss.
Coming Regrets
You got a new baby,
I see.
It’s small, resembles
a person.
That’s your new
problem ―
hoping it can survive
until its
sixteenth birthday
when you’ll buy
it a Trans Am,
and wait
until the tree
jumps out
of nowhere
fucks
the car
and rapes
your China doll.
Mary R. Drews
This poem was from high school.
Hang-Over
I ought to stop
thinking.
Take a quaalude,
decapitate myself
or something.
A Pall Mall without
a filter ― awful ― but nicotine.
And on the other side
of the window’s screen
is a gestalt of green
because it’s summer
and 10:03 AM.
The eyes that worked well
last night
swim and swell in my head
like two throbbing hearts.
I need water.
And my hair has been electrocuted
with humidity.
Okay, I’m not important.
But look at the way the wind
gives its oxygen to my starving lungs ―
such selflessness, and the curtains
aren’t obnoxious,
they’re just slowly
slipping closed.
Mary R. Drews
From college, during a summer session I took. Not sure of the year. Maybe just before my senior year. So 1983 or 1984.
Burial
A kiss
suffered on the cheek of sleep
to console
a mother’s quivering lips,
a sweeping back of hair
from the forehead of death
to comfort a body that,
with no soul now,
can do nothing
but be sprinkled with incense,
washed and lowered ―
something proper ―
something God can abide by ―
what Mother thinks
is better than a kiss,
better than a touch,
but already as useless
as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Mary R. Drews
One of my favorite poems from either my senior year in high school or my freshman year in college.
Just the Red One
I will take off
my clothes.
Peel them away
from my body like
a blooming rose.
Naked, Dead ―
What have I left
to offer?
A stench,
the color of what
remains
inside me ― a stem,
a sex ―
thorns sharp
as hypodermic needles …
(Side them under your skin,
I want blood.)
Push them
into your thumb.
I want you
to remember
me.
Mary R. Drews
What Lasts
Sometimes I forget
making love
in your small bed
in that small room;
lying half-awake
wondering what I’d done;
and how you never said
the words “love” or “good”
or “thank you.”
And sometimes I even forget
my embarrassed incompetence;
and that you never mention
what we did.
But often I am suddenly
pleased by the memory of
your voice, your touch,
the smell of your skin.
Mary R. Drews
Not sure when that’s from … probably late 1980s or early 1990s.
Self-Portrait
I am a blue calm.
I am a pill
you take
for vision,
for blindness.
I am the chill
you feel in quiet ―
the comfortable cushion
of humidity.
I am to be swallowed
like red candy ―
dissolved to smallness.
I am the red stain
I leave on your tongue ―
the red sweetness you taste
for hours.
Mary R. Drews
Late 1980s.
What I Will Say
Be very small.
So I can hide you,
keep you
in safety’s way.
Keep you
from the enraged oceans.
Be small
so I can cover your eyes,
protect you
from the others.
I want you
to see your pain
reflected clear
in my expression.
I want you
to know these words,
like parasols to the sun’s ravage,
are yours. For you.
Know this, my Gospel:
In the tortured dark
behind your eyes,
the boy who swore devotion
gropes like a leper at lesions
that seem more real than truth ― but
there is no disease.
Know this:
Your beauty’s strength waits ―
the miracle salve ―
to cure your pain,
make it cringe, shrivel,
dry to dust.
Listen.
If light reached that boy,
splintered the black world
that holds him prisoner,
he would see
no sores he cannot heal.
Listen hard ―
every word in writing:
Believe me ― much more for knowing you ―
and believe
there is nothing
you cannot do.
Mary R. Drews
Fall 1990
Wishes
I wish for peace
like the starving wish
for food or the thirsty,
the desert-trapped, wish
for the oasis.
I wish for you with the intensity
of the first star I ever
wished upon.
And these desires fill me up
like food and water
and love ― they keep me
alive ― if not
sated.
Mary R. Drews
Famine
Not even death
can sever the
mother-child connection
between you and me.
Neither death nor time
can erode these ties ―
fifteen years
since you were buried.
Fifteen years since your body
moved graceless from bed
to stretcher
to slab and casket.
Still, you’re with me ―
like an affliction one
adjusts to ― however
inconvenient.
No, Mother, I would not
choose to let you go ―
not even now, knowing
it was never you
who refused to die,
but me who refuses
to let you. Knowing
there is only space
left in my body ―
a gaping mouth
you will not fill.
Mary R. Drews
This must be from 1988. I was 25.
So You Know
It is not a rock
onto which you pour
the tears of your bitterness,
your weakness,
it is me ― human
as a saint, sinful
as a whore ―
and I absorb
your unhappiness
like an ocean
absorbs mountain snow ―
mingled inextricably
until I do not know
which pain is mine
and which is yours.
It’s all right, though.
I ask for little
in return. Not
for you to drink my tears ―
another thankless duty in kind.
No. For you to see
that you stay with me
long long after
you’ve gone ―
for you
to know
you must not leave me
to imagine what I will.
I am not that stone,
eroding slowly ―
I am disfigured by
each acid teardrop ―
I would have it
no other way.
Mary R. Drews
Hmmm …
For the Doctor
If only I could climb out.
But the walls are so high
I can’t see
what’s up there,
out there.
If only I had strength ―
clean strength ―
but these impurities
cover me ― an obscene blanket.
“Live,” I keep saying.
Make things of nothing.
Breathe, dammit, breathe.
But my pleading is
empty. Cold.
You promise I’ll feel better.
When?
Mary R. Drews
2/13/1989
Alienation
Morning’s dullness climbs
the sun’s arc through day.
Hours drift endlessly ―
dreams on the edge
of sleep, too nebulous
for recollection’s touch.
Stars shift, planets
curl around their orbits ―
a baby’s grasp reflex,
instinctive as a blink.
On the fringes, an eye
locks onto these
machinations, pours knowledge
into a mind ― weary,
waiting for the dullness
to return.
Mary R. Drews
3/22/1990
Filling Out Forms
I am in my human
form ― wrists
creased from years
of function.
Alien form ― this
exquisite imperfection.
Glued
into this skin ―
bones
driven through me
like Voodoo pins.
This sentence will end,
the crimson muscle cramp,
and I will return
to the Uniform.
Mary R. Drews
Watching the Pot
Water bubbles ― plays ―
jumps up ― looking soft ―
touchable ―
but
Don’t.
This soft, fuzzy,
playful-pretty water
boils burns ―
It’ll take the skin
right off your bones.
Mary R. Drews
Nine Questions
Give up? But Hope
is an amnesiac,
dispensing promises
like leaflets.
She forgets her pain,
her disappointment
as each smug-faced illusion
passes her by,
pushes aside
her hand.
Give up? But Love
preens, struts naked ―
Adonis-perfect ―
beckons, then hides
just beyond touch.
Every hour he bestows
the doom of Tantalus
on one more
dream.
Give up? But Loneliness
is only pausing stone-like
in the doorway ―
she knows dancing
is not solely for strangers.
A sculpture unborn,
she’s waiting, waiting to be
shattered.
Give up? Do I want
Hope to recognize
rejection’s face
and forget herself?
Do I want
Love to cower, ugly, ashamed,
offer no temptation,
no hunger, no thirst ―
no chance for satiation?
Do I want
Loneliness to anneal ―
a tomb untappable
by human hands?
Do I want
to swim a bitter pool?
Give up?
Mary R. Drews
I found it ―
amid this chaos ―
the time to cry
for ― not all that
might have been but―
all that was.
The love that lived
in and around me.
The love I never noticed
because it was always there.
The love that years
have sorted from
the everyday, the breakfasts,
schoolbags, and 1960s television.
I see it now ― clear as a good diamond,
clear as childhood’s complexion.
And, for once,
I do not stop the tears.
Mary R. Drews
Kindling
The leaves have gone
from bright to brown ―
they litter the lawns
of this suburbia.
Another November ―
still I say
the same things
again and again.
If each of us has
one story to tell, then
this is mine:
Once, I was alive,
and, trying to get back
to that,
I soak myself
in the kerosene of words
and rub my bones together,
praying for the sparks of poetry
to ignite my soul so I may
burn as the living ―
if only for a short while.
Mary R. Drews
Vacillation
Soon light will drool
through windows and corridors.
Eyes will break open.
The sky will glow.
Until then, Contentment
waits uneasy in these
dark rooms ― folded
like a fetus ―
afraid of dying
or living.
Mary R. Drews
Hunger
I eat these
bones of sadness
one by one
knowing this
will not fill me
with wisdom
or immortality ―
I slake thirst
with blood
sucking and smacking
the life down
to quench the death
in my stomach ―
I pray
and God lies
down
next to me
but rises
with the sun
and leaves
me ignorant
as before ―
Mary R. Drews
This was written sometime in college.
Acidwash
A sad month ― heavy,
and course as burlap ―
folds loosely around ―
Time, indistinguishable from
this weight in my bones,
pulls me to the ground.
Blue sky shifts ― perceptibly ―
through clouds. Dim light
makes colors dull, but fine.
The clean feeling has gone
as soil works its fingers
through the coffin’s lining,
touches me abusively ― tenderly ―
abrades flesh. Starched sheets
engrave ― fingernails shred.
Denying the ecstasy, I twist
to face the sinless hours
I shall spend in this bed.
Mary R. Drews
This was from sometime in college.
Schizophrenia
Trapped. A key turns.
Here, in the Thorazine room,
balled up in the corner, drooling,
a new birth bursts forth
in red & gold & green.
Out, in this world.
Alone. If only a door to close,
a place to go, now,
if it’s okay, folded fingers of sight,
a double exposure. Black walls ―
pearls of perspiration on the upper lip;
forests of bees waiting to sting.
I see you and you
are not there.
Mary R. Drews
This was a high school poem. I have always been fascinated with abnormal psychology.
Thursday Morning
In this quiet ― trucks,
cars pass slowly out
there. The ticking
of the clock floats
through me like the
smell of the dead woman’s
perfume.
There is a ghost in
this house ― leaving trails
of faint noise and
fragrances of her
life for me to
wonder at ― try to
recall.
But in this silence ―
no visitors call ― no
stunning visions eclipse
sight. The sun slides in
through the window and
I catch it in the corner
of my eye.
Mary R. Drews
From senior year of college. Yes. There was a ghost in the house.