How The Object Stands

do not fall for the flat canvas, i think, as i stare at the few words on the screen
at your closed lips / silence i fill with myself / those thoughts, words, notions already known
do not project onto that flat screen, i think, but then
you turn
do not buy the profile, i say, and remind myself of course it is
the deepest part, contains the most information, but it does not describe the front/back/bottom/top/perspectives
or more importantly

it does not indicate the feet
and there is a need

i tell myself

to know how the object
stands

LITTLE BIRDS

peck
peck
peck
little bird beaks
little tapping
the glass
my head
my eyes
peck
peck
peck
if we were ever lovers
i would tell you now
how my love had left
if we were ever friends
nothing is left

it is not
replaced
what i lost in trusting you
it is forgotten
with each
tap

little birds
little birds

ERIN LANG--You're Better Off

times three.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwmhPuq0JQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwmhPuq0JQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGwmhPuq0JQ

NORTH

when i stand on my head
north is down
another
crime of isolation
i say

sitting on the train
back going north
i only know because
the train is called
metro north

but when i return
the next day
i sit backwards
facing the place
i am going away from
it feels again
like i am going
north

i stand on my head
and pen a letter
to santa
who lives
according to my sense
of what is right
down

in my letter i ask
for camera
with an internal gps
so every time i snap a shot
it will record where i physically
am

because what i see
and where i am

are never
the same.


SUZY D.

THE RISK

never defeated
i know the story
don't let your guard down
don't let them see you sweat
don't show your hand
good fucking Lord
has no one introduced you to
an idea called
innocence?
truth?
kindness?
vulnerability?
love?
good luck to you and your hand
your guard
your sweat
and your story is going to
haunt you
as you die.

WONDERFUL YEAR

a wonderful wonderful year
take the shit and stick it
under the peat
stomp the divots
with your feet
stomp the divots
with your feet

it's been a long long time
waiting for such a wonderful
wonderful year

falling backwards only takes you
back
roll me forward into the future and tell me
it's full of vistas and petunias
you said a lot of things would be
in my future
and that it would be a
wonderful wonderful year.

The Discarded

Thrown aside

It is the discarded
Who call for the apathetic master to return

Camroc Press Review Published This

http://www.camrocpressreview.com/2011/12/suzy-devere.html

cut and paste old school style
to go there.

DON'T ANSWER "GOD"

watching for a sign
fire from circles on the water
birds flying upside down
paper turning in circles then
blowing
away

those signs do not arrive

those signs are movie props

they stand in for the depth of feeling
and emotion one is
expected
to have during times of great revelation

sometimes they are used as forewarning
of what is to come

but I am just a
lone
person without a movie crew
no sound man
gaffer definitely absent

where is my sign?
what am i looking for?

shhhhhhh...
stop

don't answer "GOD"

without that response
now what do you
say?


--SUZY D.

YOU THINK YOU CANNOT BE

You think you cannot
be the one to die
in dirty underware

the house a mess
half-drunk mugs of
moldy coffee sitting
still on nearby bookshelves
brought hot then forgotten
in the haste that was your
hurried struggle of a life

You think you cannot
be the one to live
without a lover
for years on end

alone at Christmas
Thanksgiving
Easter
Seder
Secretary's Day and everything
in between

You think you cannot
be the old lady
whose life
all
took place
before "the" invention
that everyone
born now
cannot
imagine life without

but you can
and you might
just
be.


Suzy Devere

GODIVA ON A HORSE

beauty is different
than godiva on a horse
or midcentury modern
it exists in a liminal place
that is paradoxical
you may not even know you are there
when you are
like you never know you're young
when you're young

The Other Iceberg

He said he'd never heard a story
of love like that
mixed with
break up sex
and longing
and need
deep into the days and years and wilderness of lonliness that
follow
divorce

He said he'd never even imagined
that lovers who could be so vile
to what once was
defacing every last monument to their love
could come together with fired breath and
consider themselves "home"
after everything they'd done
after what they were
or are
still engaged in doing
to each other

the ruin they are wishing
on each other

He said he'd never heard a story
like that.

He didn't believe that it was true.

PUSH STICK

it cuts into me
in the shape that you've designed
the pattern of my disappointment

trimmed down expectations
big chunks
and
little losses that ache
small shavings

you've orchestrated all from afar
digital blades
built of silences
and texts

i'm being handled by a
3G pushstick

whatever happened to
people i could count on?
analog kindness?
real hands, dewy with sweat, grabbing mine?

sentiment should soon be
with the waste
and i can't wait
to be rid of it

The Replacement

It is subtle and very soft
like ultrasuede in dirty brown
it hides everything
ugly motives
jealousy
anger
even good things on occasion

it is funny queer funny and funny ha ha funny
like a puzzle with pieces made entirely of circles
there's no telling how it really fits in
or which place
which person
it preferences most

it is the replacement
and it waits for you to leave
after very quietly but repeatedly
whispering
"your time is up"

RIVER

Drink from a clear river
and you don't know
its depth

Tomorrow it will be dry
you will skip a flat rock and it will crackle
in the dusty hardness of an empty
bed

In the smallness of a moment
the swollen mouth that once kissed you
will close

no longer welcome

the river will run for someone else
return to fluid and sparkle
caress wet stones deep and shining
reflect the sun onto the face
of its true love
or lover of the day
it will move and change course

like you

and

like rivers do.

The Violence Of Memory

Roll over to the side of your bed
Take a breath that sounds like a sigh
Close my eyes and mark the moment
A mental sticky note in Reflex Blue

You say don't go

Later I go back to that spot
Write you a long letter with invisible ink
Tell you that my impatience is epic
Send you telepathic love

It's a game of opposites

Bite my tongue
Chop my fingers off
Rip the ringer off my phone
Take the sticky note and violate it

Mental scissors
sharp and pointed
turn guesswork
into firm decisions

i decide you never loved me (though you never had a chance)
i decide you never liked me either (but that's probably a lie)
i decide you never thought about me again (how would I know?)
after the first time we kissed

I use these decisions to cut you out
before i go to sleep
and every night instead of praying for patience
i pray to wake up with dry eyes

The violence of memory.

Divining Rod

i walk with a stick that has no idea
where the water
is
but it leads me to trouble
every time.

--SD

I CALL BULLSHIT

I Call Bullshit (originally posted 2008)

Bullshit when you don't have access to put it in there
Give me your blood and ripped out hair and then we'll have something
to talk about.
Give me your story of hunger so strong you thought you might kill
him for his popcorn.
Forget your brain for a minute and write about what happened when he
smoked your last cigarette, dropped you off on a cold, wet night
in front of a dive bar so he could park the car
and you waited for that son of a bitch and he
never fucking came back.

Talk to me about
the time you thought you'd met your husband for life
and instead you found out you'd met your child's father for life
but never your love

And where are all the James Dean explorers I once knew?
They're dead or making bad decisions somewhere shady
sitting cross legged in a late night spot
talkin' a big game to the beautiful girls
and saving the shit talk for the dogs in the group
but none of them notice the explorer anyway
because now he's old and sees his mistakes
and age doesn't let him tell his lies anymore like he once did
cuz the girls all want to have reality shows now
and know right away he can't produce...

Jesus, what in the world do I really know about making anything?
---let alone a masterpiece good enough to make you feel loved and
wanted and connected to me
---------like you should.

can't hear myself and
can't speak----not a sound--
you all think you hear me
but you each
hear only one wave
My son, like a dog, hears it all.

the highest frequency
comes at his little ears and we collide in an embrace any mother will
tell you evaporates the soul
into what feels like the vapors of existence
that turn pale blue with the memory of the bitter ice stuck on the
lips of your most treasured
last kiss
its a feeling like you never want to be that cold again
and you’re warm because he loves you so much now
\and you know it
and you feel your tears take your breath and twist it
weathering all those walls built by empty loves

so I say if a love can't hold your tears
and your cold and your heat and your memories of that last loved kiss
and your son's loving embrace
all at the same time
well
if a love can’t do that
I call bullshit.

cast out

i cast the ghosts out into the grey
but beneath the throw
i've got tape

come back to me

come back to me

ROUGE

married in a red dress
you will be by my side

do not think too hard
about the colour
do not think too hard
about death

we will be married in rain
sun will come later on
even with my red dress
with my red dress on

do not think too hard
about the colour
do not think too hard
about death

we will be married in rain
sun will come later on
even with my red dress
with my red dress on.

pick me up some ice
for the drink i'll be making
buy ourselves a lemon tree
and a shaker

don't worry, Love
it's only a marriage
the truth of the day is in the photos

as their corners turn in the fire
there's our yellow sun
even with my red dress
with my red dress gone

--Suzy Devere

Patch

it's an ugly dress
that clothes you
now

torn in parts
the breeze on your
backside

it pulls at your waist
it has a patch where lace
once gathered

to see your flesh
like triangles on a highway
danger ahead

we call the poor
poor
but what do we call you?

you have lost the lights
the space in your mind that was sane
this reality

and your dress is worn.


--Suzy Devere

FOX HOLES

i'm about to cut you with a something like a
bobby pin
but i mean to cut you

listen to the fan as it rumbles
thinking of your fingers as they fumble
i don't give a shit what others say
it's just that i don't believe
i don't believe

there's a dog in the distance chasing foxes
their holes are long and deep
run till they're caught
it's a trial and a
TRAGEDY....
tragedy

run till their caught
tragedy

why be obtuse about the future
why give excuses
pull the bullshit off the table
put the accents away
get your ducks out of the storage
set them up for
inspection

this is life not a poster
this is life not a theatre
this is life and those foxes run till they're
fucking
dead

TRAGEDY
run till they're caught
it's a trial and a
TRAGEDY....
tragedy


--Suzy Devere

WE ARE ALL AFRAID OF WHAT WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH

It is not that someone is "too good to be true"
but rather
that there is no truth.

it is not that we are afraid of concepts
but that
a conceptual interpretation means nothing

Take my pride and you've landed a dragon.
It has been dead for longer than you've been alive.

Take my confidence and you've imagined yourself omnipotent
if so, you can see--and i know-- i survive past you.

Take my heart...
that's where i stop
and tiptoe
past the cliffs and fresh wind
that beg me to come into a future
because beneath it all
without truth
without clothing
without money
anger
joy
or God
I think my heart could have
it was
yours.
Take my heart
and you've now seen
how
a
Lady
cries.


--Suzy Devere

LET ME

rub your fingers together
slowly
like there is a grain of sand between
and i will pretend i am there
in the middle
your loving touch on both sides

when you wrap around me
there's no more here or there
we are still separate
but i am engulfed

i've never been in love
with a man like you
and you've never held your love back
from a woman like me

we hit the floor
i slide away
sometime soon i'll slide away from this kind of love
but for today
please just

let me be young
find fire that is hot with possibility
between your fingers
and put your fingers
between
my legs.

Tulips and Tourniquets

And you are before me with a twitching eye and something else that tells me you aren't comfortable...haven't been comfortable for a hundred years. Since the dogs stopped fucking next door and bit the ear off the little girl who was picking the tulip in the yard while your mother was boiling water for tea. Since the stars were constellations you wanted to know the names of, you haven't been comfortable with me. Because you know I ache. It starts when I open my eyes and realize we are still together, and that the day will bring minutes that we'll spend together. Our lives will be about taking my medicine on time and getting the insurance forms filled out right so the adjustments don't come back to us over and over again, like Australian boomerangs. You want me to feel loved. I want you to go away because my body aches from ills too numerous to list and my heart aches from falling out of love with you. Our long night--another in a string of many that will last until you become too tired to care for me, or I die--will start after Charlie's Angels re-runs and Dairy Queen, because a shake is all I can get down. We will never again be lovers, and I want to be small so you cannot see me in this bed of white bleached sheets and spit towels. I ache. And I don't want you to watch it.

I APOLOGIZE

today is mother's day. and i am supposed to be filled with love. but i don't feel it.
here's what i remember most.

my mother waking me up at 2 am screaming "WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES!??!!!"
my response "I'm sorry" "i'm sorry" "i'm sorry"

even before I could talk, i feel i knew how to apologize,
even when i didn't know what i'd done wrong.

to this day when someone wakes me up when i'm sleeping, i get frightened and cover my face.
and apologize.

on mars

you are about to fade away


like the superamerica sign in my rear view mirror
far away
mars far

disinterest not to make you hot
disinterest because i don't
sit at home alone like this

you
pull the ropes
love
sex
conversation

remind me mine is
a life i haven't shared
in years

it is not safe for me here
waiting

i say nothing of it

encourage you
to do your thing

you act like you're going to
yet
you keep
glancing over to see
if i will break

haven't bothered to tell you
i will be on mars

i am already
almost
there.

chag sameach

somewhere
a family is waiting
for me
like they wait tonight
for
elijah

there is a chair
empty
a plate
a husband
a child whose heart
is weighted and wrapped with algae
sinking
imagining his mother gone

somewhere in another universe
i tell myself
i am missed
i am loved

WAIT TILL YOU SEE WHAT I MAKE

wait till you see what i make. like a good surprise.
like finding a sand dollar with the face of jefferson.

<3

THEY WANT TO KNOW YOU. LESS.

too many agendas for this
small space...

won't show up
so don't ask

will show up
so don't ask

don't know
so don't ask

only the people
who are always there
show

and instead of asking more
they
want to know
less.

SD

Watching

Magic Carpet
by Daniel Wurtzel.

DOGS WITH KNOTS

sink my teeth in
you sink yours
we twist
and spin
get close
rope in jaws
knots in teeth
it's not sex
we say
it's not love
we mean
but we don't know
we don't know
the only thing that's sure
is that
we're two dogs
with knots
and sometimes
we pull
so tight
we stare straight
at each other
while we pull
hard as we can
and go no where

dogs with knots

THE SAME

you're looking for the steely reserve and hell bent ways of an old maid
a catch on my shoe to sound out like a night watchman that i'm coming to ruin your fun
someone to focus your angry glance on in public situations and a wound at the ready to pitch salt in

well here i am

i'm different than you expected but i've let you find a way

--maybe helped you
find the ways--

to make me feel
and look
the
same

you know it's true.

being heartfelt hurts.

the end.


--SD

NOT YOUR FACE

the television light reflects off your arms
and the rest of the room seems greenish grey
there's promise somehow but it feels like it's
stuffed under the cushion we're laying on

i've got my eyes wide open and yet i know there
are so many things i don't know enough to
recognize as you run your hands through my hair
and breathe into my neck

so many ways that are unclear to me now and
signs that sit right in front of me but that i can't
decipher yet, like the way you put your cellphone
upside down on the table and how you drive the long way

blindness is not always a choice
sometimes it is a lack of education

we kiss and you sleep
i leave
and
remember the cushion
the light from the t.v.
the upside down phone
but not your
face

SD

ALIENS

I'm not exactly what you want
and you sigh
inside
wondering if i'm really the
right
girl for you
wondering if you should
settle

meanwhile
what you've done has made me
scream
WHAT THE FUCK?
but i'm still smiling
and it's flat and fake
couldn't freeze
any faker
like that disease people get
where they can't move their
muscles in their face
or smell anything

but you don't register
because you're looking at me
like you look at your
car
or a pair of expensive
italian shoes
or
god forbid
one of those
shitty horse paintings
you bought at keeneland
that make me
sad i'm a painter

i'm a thing
to you
and it doesn't cross your consciousness
that i have feelings and not just needs

and then you say
how great a 2 carat
would look on my
beautiful finger

stunned
i want to remind you that it's our first date
and more than that
that it's our last date and was all a big mistake
and more than that
are you really status dropping a 2 carat on me?
shouldn't you be aiming higher?
i mean, hypothetically, if you're going to
pull a ring size out of your ass to impress me
don't i look like i could do bigger than that?
and it's all so funny
because it's all so stupid

because all it would take
is love

i get a little pang inside as i think of the
rich boyfriend i actually did love
who bought me the world when all i wanted
was his time
which he was short on
and some manly
protection
which wasn't his way

and that's when
i know there's nothing further i can do
to make it through this
date
i am so terribly
suffering you
so
i say

i'm feeling quite ill
must go home
i do apologize

on the way home
you ask if i mind
if we stop
at the car wash

when they've finished drying you
get out and inspect the
wheels.



--SD

HOMAGE

i have a disease
i can't name


...a vague memory of doing the same thing
before
but no idea how

i relearn the same tasks
over and over

people say i laugh more

lines like chicken scratch
on score cards
made of flesh
when i smile
convince me
it's true

i need a lot of help
but forget how much i ask of you
daily

so it's not as bad as it seems
because
at least there is no more embarrassment
no more shame
no more expectation based on past effort

i'm like a plain piece of metal
tabula rasa
flat
you see your reflection in it
in me
and admire your good deed
while allowing me to feel accomplished just by standing

this is a love letter
to all you
who know who you are
but won't remember

I LIMP

anonymity
i loved it
but it's gone

i say fuck
and it goes global

i cry and my tears
fall in London

is there anything
i can do?

someone has more power
because of my love of
curse words and other phrases
not meant for pussies

i miss you

ironically

my relationship with you via anonymity
was my opportunity to be
known

and now?

i limp.

endless mediocrity awaits

as i contemplate what it means

to take the heels off

and get back on the bus.



--SD

THE COUCH

you pull me down and grab me in places on my body i cannot reach myself
these spots have not been touched in months
since the physical therapist gave me my last eval and
that one-night stand i don't remember so can't regret

i try to move your hands because i'm not ready for what you want to happen
next

it's not that we aren't naturally moving forward but i know your motives and
you don't care about mine which sort of suits the situation but does not serve it

your breath is in my throat and your stubble rubs my eyelid all in the time it takes to
close my car door or seal a ziplock bag of cut apples
we are in love
without ourselves
for the moment we are not even people
because as people we don't know each other enough to say a polite hello in Starbucks
we are together and so close we can act as one

one that unnaturally never second guesses itself

A GIFT WORTH UNWRAPPING

i will not be missed
and it is doubtful there will be many
real tears
for what i do here in this house
this city

for what i do for this country is very
small and
self-centered

but my memories
those beautiful grasses and webs of gold
my rage
its teeth shining white
eyes
those scenes i see that take place prompted by lightwaves
sourced from connections mine alone

this i worry
about leaving to no one
though no one
could inherit them

i know i've told you
about Him
how he left me things he would not take with him
his walk
his anger
his signature
his crooked teeth
his chicken neck
his broken love of home

you see? not all were gifts

he left me
burdens

and i am a compilation of these things
so denied
his incomplete parts
and they comprise
me
and i say

let death be a gift
---like a memory---
worth
unwrapping


--SD

THE ROUTINE

he steps out of the shower
flakes of age
not snow
fall from his skin

each piece a relic

to be old has a smell about it
he thinks.

age accumulating inside
dense and thick
while
outside
parts are falling off

he wonders what it means to be a worn body in this world

he comes to decide it
depends a lot on who you love in your life
and who you have let
love you.

with that he sets his towel back on the hook
parts his hair in the same spot as the day before
and heads out.

I LIKE IT THIS WAY

Journal-free, diary-free living. That's what I'm talking about. People want to share it all. But all of it is not worth anything, and some things should barely be thought, let alone written.

So I'll never be the one to give you the exact dates on a calendar when an event happened, I will be the one who remembers what I was wearing the moment I heard you were taking up with that woman I had a bad feeling about. Or how warm the sun was in Israel the day I walked to the beach in Tel Aviv for the first time and looked across the sand past the ocean, to the horizon line and realized how very far away you were. I wrote and asked for money and you sent none. But someone else wired me enough so I could get home. I remember that letter as a day. Your response (a non-response) as a lifetime. And the money I actually did receive as a minute.

Who needs a calendar?

MY COUNTRY SONG

REFRAIN:
cuz If I loved you anymore
I'd have to love me less



--SD

you my unknown love

longing is / tired eyes desperate to fall on something beautiful /late night under those /fluorescent lights / I want/ a candle / lit by a match / a match held in the hand of you / you my long gone / you my unknown love.


--SD

VELVET LOVE

theirs won't be the complaining kind
soft lips big teeth velvet love
velvet love

push the basket back merry peddler
berry peddler
push the basket back and be on your way
leave the velvet love
for me

they take me up i go skipping merrily
merrily
room filled with lilacs and matelasse
white eyes with green insides
naievete says
marry me
marry me

home again home again
balinese wedding couple staring down at me
mocking
merrily
merrily

push the basket back merry peddler
berry peddler
leave the velvet love
for me

THROW MY PLANKS DOWN

And for you

i will watch

as your demons

dig ditches

and

fast

fast

i will

throw my planks down.



SD

KEY

Dear dulled key

that opens no lock

how heavy you sit in my hand

how falsely you shine in the sun

you are futility and purposelessness

fate without luck or skill

you are bleakness that does not bleed or cry

your mass, no matter how small, a burden

your form a mask that speaks a lie

you bring no benefit

but i never throw you away.




SD

look like

i will push it and bite it
rip through the edges
roll the muscle under my tongue
and remind myself to
wipe my face because

i am not supposed to look like

an animal.


SD

ART, HUNGER, or ANGER?

so i eat a bite and wrap it back up, stuff it back into the cold section, and walk out. whoever buys that sandwich will have a story.

PIN

i will let go of the balloon you gave me
because you are now following me
with a pin.


---SD