My Abdication

Rivalry

2009-09-12T21:05:00.003-05:00

slept in

awakening
to soft sunshine,

silence.

I
stretched

moving dreams

from deep in
muscles.

Your
words linger
still, haloed loosely

around ears,

a touch of gold,

a slight of hand,

that

rivals Midas,

for every pound

he’s worth.

Aleathia Drehmer 2007

Published by The Cartier Street Review 7/09

Saiyin

2009-09-12T21:02:00.001-05:00

His grandmother yells at him every morning,
in a tongue from the old lands of China,
before the bus pulls into the circle, and its yellow hull
lines them up without being corralled.

Defiance marks his face despite
his features being on an even playing field
and he roars back at her, his tongue not as old,
as he reels from her field worn hands.

She is exasperated at what this country
has done to time tested customs of respect
and authority for elders. He baits her
until she begins again.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by The Cartier Street Review 7/09

Harbingers

2009-08-16T01:02:00.002-05:00

The darkened room harbors concentric circles

on the hangar's peaked roof,

haloed light circumnavigates

the flying machine's crown.

Bulk metal rectangles pounded

into submission, the blacksmith's sweat

splattered on its walls with each drop

of his hammer, the reverberation echoes still.

Molten angles come together

as conjoined twins in blue fire

still fresh in the welder's eyes,

retinas burning with possibility.

Our shoes clink loudly

as we enter the arched rod canopy,

ancient poles for poisson, hugging

the air and rooted in metal.

The framework holds us all

fast to the dream. We take flight

in quiet overhead breezes

and the hum of shared imaginations.

Aleathia Drehmer 2009

Published by Munyori Poetry Journal 7/09

A Rebirth of the Sun

2009-08-16T00:51:00.005-05:00

Outside, snow falls in circles.
Moons hide.
Suns elucidate elsewhere,
anywhere but here.

The oven warms my hands
as I wait for toast to brown,
to be covered in butter and strawberry
jam; wait for the new fallen snow
to be driven from my knuckles.

This orange glow shrouds my face
in the quiet aching of the kitchen,
produces memories I never made,
about flames used to molten plastic
into burst tears on rough painted papers.

Fingertips blistered naming constellations,
tongue licking verses of the Gita
transmogrifying words into animal brethren,
smelling volcanic after emerging
out of calculated graphite strokes.

Those silver stained insect wings
are imprinted into grooved skin,
dry and cracked like desert earth,
and knowledge lingers. Words
give rebirth to art, lost treasures of color
web together in universal law
with disproportionate dimensions.

I am left with stiff fingers
and floods of ideas moving slow
through mental gorges, once dry.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Munyori Poetry Journal 7/09

Four Invisible Hands

2009-07-15T23:48:00.001-05:00

Esperanza awoke to the cold dew of a desert night. Sagebrush and Yucca perfume stroked her face and sent a chill down her body. She opened her eyes slightly, just until they were slits and they captured the image of a globe of stars swimming in the ink of the sky. Esperanza took inventory of her limbs slowly; she moved her shoeless feet, driving pains through her hips up to her back.

She felt the ground with her fingers and noticed the dry earth was still warm from the day’s sun. She dug the heat with her nails, lodging it underneath, wishing she could pull it over her like a blanket and fall back to sleep, fall into that darkness once more, but the aching in her bones would not cease.

Esperanza lay there trying to remember how she came to this place in the desert where no lights flicker except the stars, where the silence was interrupted only by the wind moving devils through the dust.

"Yes," she said, "the sea is outside the window. I heard it."

I told her, "We don't have a sea, not here in Indiana."

She is now feverless, and she dreams of the sea in every moment, night and day.

The church has proclaimed God will save this poor girl and Father Amis comes every afternoon to do the saving. He is an expert in sodomy, disguised as ritual saving, and his face becomes luminous when someone says...exorcism. To him, every mind is like a scout knot; the unimportant facts are suppressed and the imperative ones, only vital things, survive. The trivial things merely vibrate the strings of gospel played on harps.

"Pass me the bible please. The ancestors suffer inside a person in such a state. They must come out, one way or another." Father Amis says.

The crucifix lay in one hand and a tiny bottle of water in the other. Father Amis always holds this transgression to be very special. He keeps score against the devil.

"Open up!" He says raising his voice.

Through the open window he could only see, in the far away distance, trucks running in the morning mist. Like migratory birds, they came from the north and were never seen again.

"I belong to that wave," Esperanza whispers, "now let me go."

Esperanza grasps her hand into that of Father Amis. She does not feel safe beside him, but needs to touch his skin for a while. She can taste the ocean in her mouth. Her tongue is a salt flat left when the sun had taken away what she loves the most. She senses her hand in Father Amis’ hand, and it gives her and uneasy feeling of connectedness that she does not desire, and in his skin she can feel the evil no one else can see.

Esperanza tries to lift her delicate fingers from the center of his palm, but he grips her there and begins speaking his exorcism. The words quickly form in the air and then float down onto her chest and into her like tattoos. These words a comfort to her now like daily prayers, she could speak it from memory with him, but decides not to.

She lay there waiting for the spirits to be driven out, these devilish ghosts, but nothing happens. Esperanza feels the fever begin to rise and take her over again. She cannot keep her eyes open; cannot will away what Father Amis will do to her, so she settles into it like a bear in winter.

“Yes,” she thinks, “I will be a bear in winter.”

Aleathia Drehmer/Beto Palaio 2009

Published by Shoots & Vines, Print Anthology "I Can't Be Your Virgin and Your Mother"

Sparking the Fire

2009-07-15T23:41:00.002-05:00

I'm my least jaded in the morning
while sheets are still warm from sleep,
hair mussed with dreams, and skin
shiny having run from ghosts.

I wake with cat mewing at the door,
white paw beneath threshold, searching
for a magic latch to unhook,
that lets him curl into the crook of my knees.

The TV is on low, some far away sounds
of two dimensional, neon-colored faces,
my child speaking softly and innocently
to imaginary people on the couch,

then, for a moment, all is silent
save the scraping of the plow's blade
pushing night snow into jagged heaps.
Door clicks open and my progeny eases

in to deliver rapid-fire cartoon fantasies
about the time she was a cat trainer
living in the circus, and didn't I remember that?
Or, are you just too old to imagine it?

Aleathia Drehmer 2009

Published by Shoots & Vines, Print Anthology "I Can't Be Your Virgin and Your Mother"

West Coast Light (for David Smith)

2009-07-15T23:31:00.002-05:00

I dream in West coast light,

bathe in Pacific breezes

with sea foam pouring from my mouth.

Tiny white clouds, pieces of me

easily dissolved into tears

when the rains come to pull

down the canyon walls;

When they come too late
to put out the flames

of my summer fueled desires.

I awake to the sound of hard

northern winds, spiked with sharp

needles of icy rain, and there is no

sun for my head until I dream again.

Aleathia Drehmer 2007

Published by Hobo Camp Review Issue 1

The Night Comes Quiet

2009-07-15T23:28:00.003-05:00

We found a sunny day and lay in the grass
watching the earth breathe,
pushed out in some field
walled with grass and crickets and warm winds
making leaves rustle like bells;
humectants smell and green things curl
under our noses, a dreamed memory
not quite tangible yet.

I rest my head upon your stomach, listening to biorhythms.
I could do this for hours lost in the adventure
of your working body as fingers entwine
and we hold hands with skins together,
molecules hovering in between tiny spaces,
and I wonder how can I make you happy again.

We let the earth swallow us up in silence.
The light fades; night comes quiet,
and our bodies chill with violence.
You feel me shiver through my fingertips
pressed into the bones of your knuckles,
a vibration conducted that you squeeze to make stop;

the first stars come out while the sky
is that royal blue color that makes you want to drown yourself .
We wish things in our heads....

"Starlight, star bright
first star I see tonight,
wish I may, wish I might,
wish the wish I wish tonight."

And I think where did that come from?
Why is that the most beautiful
thing I have ever heard?

I break the silence.

I say, Bean?

and you say Yes?

I whisper, Are we dead?

and you say, Not yet.
Ok, I say, just checking.

The night extinguishes everything except the moonlight
on your white t-shirt. I think you are a ghost
I would like to know better.

I curl up between your arm and heart,
feel it beating arbitrarily

....beat beat
....beat beat...

I wonder how such things can happen
in the dead of night, how we just keep going
and going
and going
until one day we don’t.

The coldest of summer breezes floats in over our heads
and we are numb from it. We don’t care.
We stay there tucked in the grass prisoners of ink,
silent prisoners of flesh.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Hobo Camp Review Issue 1

Napoleon

2009-03-30T12:49:00.001-05:00

For Jimmy R.J. LeBlond

In the end, his deep black coat touched white,
muzzle forlorn, peppered with old man eyebrows
that dipped and arched when you spoke to him;
they said volumes despite his blindness creeping
in around slow deaf ears. His right hip gave him
a slight limp, nails clattering against linoleum
in fits and starts. He lay at my Pop’s feet
chest rising with ease, his breath no less faithful
than his heart, moaning in canine dreams;
back leg twitching wild.

I wondered from across the room
if he was off somewhere in his youth
walking the Appalachian Trail with Pop after Viet Nam;
or taking the canoe’s helm down the mighty Mississippi
in the heart of summer; or drenched with rain,
tired from long treks on broken highways
standing guard while his best friend
lay in his bedroll in the dark night’s ditch.

Napoleon cried out harshly, legs wracked the air
as if in seizure. My Pop’s face sank deeply,
shoulders slumping almost imperceptibly, knowing
someday this old man would have to go down
by his hand, that suffering in this way was never an option
for the only man that understood him.
He reached down placing his hand on the dog’s chest,

“Face,” he said softly.

The dog’s shutter eased back to dreaming,
seizure exiting with a whimper and then still
into even breathing, in to what we had always known.
It was the first time I saw my father cry.

Aleathia Drehmer 2009

Winning poem in contest held by Organic Glass 3/09

The Plague of Frogs

2009-03-30T12:44:00.002-05:00

Dime size frogs construct
pyramids at my doorstep, hundreds
clamoring to be the triumphant piece,
the eye to the heavens.

This breathing swarm comes
to me in the shallow hours of the morning
after night rains soak the bog,
and drive them to dry.

They make me vigilant
about my giant steps, wary
of crushing their tiny bodies
into blotted stains, red and brown,
toothpick bones splayed out
in post-mortem viewing.

My daughter will hear the dirge
from the water, and crouch down
close to the earth,
inspecting death is her proclivity,
wrapping her mind around its permanence, her art.

The hollow of my heart
wants to alleviate the guilt
of creating a sadness
that will strike its mark
upon her face somewhere
between home and grandfather’s house,
producing tears of crocodile proportions,
viable stains I cannot undo.

Aleathia Drehmer 2007

Published by Full of Crow 2/09

Two sides of the coin

2009-03-30T12:40:00.001-05:00

Box elder bugs crawling on the armchair,
tiny black legs tap Morse code in response
to the tamper and grind at the front of the café,
while large-bodied women cackle around
the high pitched trill of the thin.

Two lovers study French across laptops;
she dressed as a pirate and he with her hat
akimbo across his well shaped head;
Old women revisit the darkness that lives
in their youth, finding some shelter in each other.

In the bathroom, noises slip through the walls
and ceiling, under the cracks in the door, up through
the toilet as a vibration, a tremble that drives me
until I am consumed completely as Hyde took Jekyll,
and only traces of the original remain.

The second side of me emerges.
The face that hides under manners,
gaiety and social ebulliences. I emerge transformed
into the universe just as it was before. No one
takes notice. I am invisible, imperceptible, intangible.

Forces beyond any of our control, catches the door wide.
I step into the wind and disappear.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Full of Crow 2/09

An Anchor Around Your Free Thoughts

2009-03-30T12:34:00.001-05:00

We walk hand in hand
on the forest trail,
I can feel your thoughts
pulsating through your bony fingers
interlaced between mine,
amassing joy at the touch
of something pure.

There are tortuous moments of silence
chiseling our bodies apart
as they navigate the uneven ground,
toes stepping over rising roots
that look like grandmother’s arms,
stones erupting, pushing away the layers
of lost life making homes
for tiny legged potato beetles.

Your fingers unravel from mine,
your arm twisting taut behind you,
shoulder blade cutting through your flesh
as you move forward three steps
ahead, my shyness an anchor
around your free thoughts,
and as your hand breaks from mine
I am showered with the vision
of skin stranding into silk ribbons
hung on the hooks of your desire.

You find a sharp stick,
hold it to your eyes for inspection,
lips moving silently, your mind circumnavigating
a world I cannot see. You begin
writing our poem into the moist earth,
with its hidden fears, its death, its seed of life,
its fragility, with sweeping arcs
and dominating angles, standing
at first and then falling close
to the words you cannot
take with you.

Aleathia Drehmer 2007

Published by Full of Crow 2/09

Stewart Street

2009-03-30T12:31:00.002-05:00

We sit on the front porch
of your three-story apartment building,
the wooden planks unkempt with edges splintering
and nails driven up through rotted holes
leaving empty spaces.

You smoke your non-filtered cigarette,
though not the same brand I remember
from childhood, the smell less aromatic.
It is somehow stale and crumbling like the moments
passing slowly between our shoulders.

Both of us watch my child, with her sun lightened,
blonde streaks curling around her face. She is cherubic
and fresh sitting in the grass digging for treasure
in the dark earth with an old stick,
looking up at us with untamed innocence.

I think about all the things I want to say
that I won’t ever have the courage to,
or be able to find words good enough
to bear the weight of their meanings. So
we talk about poems and seasonable weather

and lean only close enough to hear each other.
You turn your head to tell me something important
and I am lost in the sunset reflected off your glasses,
heart beating faster than it should,
unsure of where we go from here.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by 13 Miles from Cleveland 2/09

Standing amongst the recycling

2009-03-30T12:24:00.001-05:00

In tendrils of cigarette smoke, listening to night sounds--
crickets and moon birds, we hear the rustling leaves moved by winds
in far off storms, the candle flickering as you leave it.

Sweet, delicate memories wan in the youth you somehow
try to dispel under the guise of advancing age
and a fortitude we cannot be sure we really have.

You talk about love that never takes its grace, how the waiting over
a decade for its return to soften heartbreak’s edges doesn’t come.
You understand he can never be the man to make us whole.

And in this silence, we face each other briefly,
drunk and with the knowledge that the tragedies witnessed
in our collective lives could have never been, that we might not

have had to spend them dreaming or wanting or waiting
for an easiness to find its way to the lines on our faces,
into the creases of our quiet, longing moments.

The pans clank in the kitchen with familiar sounds,
you mumbling to yourself like the old days, trying to busy notions
from your mind; to strike out those sad remembrances you know

need putting back in the cabinet. I stand here small and alone,
watch the light dance off the Windex bottle, wishing I could
wipe away the past without leaving evident streaks of knowing.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Rusty Truck Zine 1/09

Instead of Fireworks

2009-03-30T12:20:00.002-05:00

She twirls on the grass with arms out,
a human helicopter waiting to take flight
in a dress the color of latent spring,
feet bare and lost in the long blades.

Her toothless grin pulls open the clouded sky
as she tumbles to the ground, dizzy and laughing
like a child should, despite burdens
too big for her narrow shoulders.

She lies there in misted, summer rain
with apple cheeks and unfiltered giggles
rising up to where the rockets would be,
if the night would only show her face.

We get caught smiling at one another
watching her coil the long, plastic snake
into the antiquated birdbath standing
crooked beneath your living room window.

Her fingers run over the edges of its Italian design,
crevices inhabited with algae and rainwater,
trying to grasp the tail without making ripples,
trying to catch one of us off guard.

I gasp when she snaps the snake, sprays us with water.
Her smile is a devilish infection as she looks for your approval
and you laugh like you didn’t remember joy existed—
head back, eyes closed
laughing.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Rusty Truck Zine 1/09

Casaubon and Amparo

2009-03-30T12:15:00.001-05:00

One day, she plants a great tree
in the image of man, culled
tiny brown seeds taken from cored bounties
leftover, pies baked and eaten warm.

She moves fingers through rich soil,
spayed earth moist and gathering
under nails; places each polished hope, gingerly.

Nestled in the corner, guarded by old
weathered legs, crossed keepers of the rains
and snows and sun-dappled summers.
Starling's golden tritons between blacktop brambles
all gorging till beaks come away
berry-stained and full.

She waters his roots with her purple can,
speaks to him in kind
while trimming long blades with shears,
laughing at herself, to him,
and blushes cheeks into apples.

She drips ruby nectar down his throat
stolen from the hummer's bell feeder
when his branches begin, buds curling out,
and iridescent bodies swirl around her,
new northern lights.

When he comes to her strong and constant,
she lies beneath him, rusty fingers reach
to touch her face, gold tears floating
in the brush of reality.

And she reads him volumes of Poe and Pound,
questions the universe and space, knowing
he won't ever answer her the truth,
but attempt every time.

He is there when seasons turn,
their heart growing, in him and he never
pushes her back or away,
and she will smile,
one day.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Shoots and Vines 12/08

The Silenced Fan

2009-03-30T12:12:00.001-05:00

It is the crest of 5am
when rough-throated garbles
of the rooster’s crow weakly
filter up through a minted dawn
on the day of the Lord.

Sparrows call the light no one else can see,
tell relatives on the crisp pointed maples
and heady oaks about the slithering bounty,
silver trails lead from a nocturnal feeding
on the tender folded flowers in the bean patch.

House finches and mourning doves heed the tale,
twitter then coo in swirled feathers, the dawn
lighting iridescent wings that hover over
fat, homeless snails inching their getaway
by the nights last true moments.

Across the yard where new highway construction has halted,
shadowed machines on the banks
lumber as ancient beasts, iron dinosaurs
with heads rising above red-tipped leaves
chilled by the solemn beginning of autumn’s breath.

The rooster calls again and brings notice
to the shimmer through the blinds, a burning white disc
whose beams trick the old cock
into dreams laced with coming dawn
and cracked corn spread around the dirt.

My fingers split the dusty slats to see the moon smile,
hear her whisper your name like a mantra
until it finds its way between the fan blades
gently turning as if lifted by wind. It coaxes me
to the shelter of quilted covers
where warm child limbs
ease me back to sleep.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by The Poetry Warrior, Issue 3, 2/09

Balance

2009-03-30T12:09:00.003-05:00

There is a hole in her bathing suit,
a small window of skin, a great oval
of downy hairs and nerves perfectly encased
in tropical wanderings
as she reclines over a red and pink striped towel
as if it were a plump tongue
rolled out to taste the essence of summer.

It is evening and the sun has taken its leave
towards the West, setting on great men
left behind in the wake of changing tides,
while I lie here soaked in my favorite potion of azure skies
with clouds shearing each other,
above and below the belt, in real time.

The sound of her breath is even and sweet
against the early night, filled with bird chatter
and airplanes writing their sorrows into the blue
like scars, keeps me in a state of flux. The soft
lapping of pool water against the tiles
and the last of the day’s sun moving across the white fence,
seal me into a haunting peacefulness.

This moment is viable. I watch the world
do what it always does regardless of my existence,
despite my flesh laid out on the ground as an offering
to false gods of abundance and grace. I could suffer
in this sliver of time gladly, as it is somehow
more perfect than all the rest.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by The Poetry Warrior, Issue 3, 2/09

I am not one

2009-03-30T11:54:00.003-05:00

I become painfully aware

of this solitary existence

as the crust of three-day old snow

crunches underfoot, the sound

in decibels, almost deafening.

Boots invade the criss-cross markings

pledged by rabbits, bits of fur and excrement

strewn on a trail not meant for humans.

Today, I am not one, but brethren

of the hare, seekers of green.

Fallen Sumac berries burst up

under light snow, red confetti

for eating in lean, gray months,

pawed and nuzzled with ears pricked

and pink eyes frightened wide.

The mind succumbs to darkness,

its thick shroud pulled close to mouth,

covering steam created by inner workings.
Fires dampen easily

if not for chilled bone friction

that keeps legs moving.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Gloom Cupboard 2/09 Issue 77

Flowers for Everyone

2009-02-09T13:18:00.000-05:00

the bartender
feeds her manhattans,
only chargers her
for every other one
making it easier on them all.

the more lubricated she gets
the farther her shirt slides
off her shoulder,
drunken body leaning
in a drunken boat
and it reveals
a tattooed ring of daisies
around her left breast.

she can't see much more
than the faint, blurred smiles
wolves licking their sharp teeth.

they want to open her up
like a flower, their mouths
stinging her like bees
touching her secrets, roughly.
they want to fill her
with the seeds of their fathers
and watch her wilt

with the poison.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published By Opium Poetry 1/09

Marcy

2009-02-09T13:13:00.001-05:00

i walked into my secret lover's
room without knocking,
found marcy there shooting up
junk between her toes, toenails
dark purple like bruises,
bags under her eyes
and forehead glistening with sweat.

a single drop rolled down her chest
until it hit the wire of her black bra
and absorbed.

i think to myself
god, she has great tits for a junkie.

and i am jealous
over those breasts
over her dainty heroin fix
over the fact

that she still has him in public.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published By Opium Poetry 1/09

Chew

2009-02-09T13:08:00.001-05:00

Like buskers, we linger on the streets
telling false fortunes and charming snakes
of their cigarettes. We are filthy
on the inside with regrets
that get no forbearance.

In hand, we crack stolen pop-shit music into shards;
pieces of Warrant and Madonna and Hootie
become deadly Chinese stars in our grip.

Passersby unaware we are building
a shed of blood, stringing victims
from its shoddy framework in the back alley,
draining them like gutted pigs.

I plan on drowning you, by request,
in the contents of their discontent,
plan on hearing you scream for an end
as I keep releasing your head
above the bloodline of society.

But first, let us chew
the theory of relativity
between our teeth and bitch
about how bitter it tastes.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published By Apoetelephone 2/09 (Audio poem)

I once dreamed of Bob Dylan

2008-12-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

In a treehouse, one walled
and built from looking glass,
the old man spoke to me; leaves
colored like immanent death

drifted and swirled, their reflection
a knowing torture, and he said blankly,
“You must walk the highway
to get to the by-way.”

I blinked twice, flashing sea stones
at his face (like cracked, dried mud in noon sun)
as he pointed to the lines on mine
that had not been written yet.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Lit Up Magazine 11/08

Vulpes

2008-12-09T22:42:00.000-05:00

You must be open to everything, he tells me
as I walk out onto the porch to count stars
and burn lungs with the sweet south.

There is a great silence in noise
watching blue screened television through blinds,
and absorbing the hum of garage door lights
making a mirage on wet pavement. Rain trickles,
as if slow moving rivers, into the grate.

Water dripping from the wood beneath my feet
vibrates like the inner sanctum of a clokkemaker,
the gears in my head constructing time stealers.

I hear 18 wheels on the wet curves, air in brakes
signaling the solemn fact that these small towns
go ghost on Sunday’s at six. All that is left
are the strangers gliding over tangles of highway,
silver-backed foxes low slung in hunt.

With nimble fingers, even in the damp coming winter,
I tell him sadly, but with conviction,
There are no stars tonight, no stars.

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by LitteraTour 12/08 (Translated into Portuguese)

Black Seas

2008-12-09T22:36:00.000-05:00

Regression happens with age,
bodies morph into sharp, geometric
renditions of flesh with insipid harsh angles.

Her face engulfed by the caverns her sockets make,
muddied pools empty and still
with no flickering fire cast about the walls.

The skin stretched over her face looks waxy
and I beckon the notion to call Madame Tussaud,
but this woman lacks singular importance in the world,
one old leaf ready to be blown about
and put back to the earth. No accolades for her bravery.

I sit here in the dark watching her breath hover,
the vapor shaped in the image of Gabriel,
and I let the room escape me.

Her collarbone creates a valley
that could hold the Black Sea, her mind lost
somewhere between youth and release,
and I want to touch the sweat collecting there.
Her salted life seeping up from her center
as if a spring of ground water.

My fingers reach out silently
as she opens her eyes in one, small moment
of lucidity to ask me,

“Am I still alive?”

Her face alight in that second
showing me the heartbreak of lovers, meals cooked,
children swaddled, and presents given with knowing.

“Yes,” I tell her, “yes.”

Aleathia Drehmer 2008

Published by Heroin Love Songs 11/08