Lisa Zaran Poems

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 It is later than late, 
the simmered down darkness 
of the jukebox hour. 

The hour of drunkenness 
and cigarettes. 
The fools hour. 

In my dreams, 
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette. 
It's okay, I'm dreaming. 
In dreams, smoking can't kill me. 

It's warm outside. 
I have every window open. 
There's no such thing as danger, 
only the dangerous face...Read more of this...

 She said she collects pieces of sky, 
cuts holes out of it with silver scissors, 
bits of heaven she calls them. 
Every day a bevy of birds flies rings 
around her fingers, my chorus of wives, 
she calls them. Every day she reads poetry 
from dusty books she borrows from the library, 
sitting in the park, she smiles at...Read more of this...

 Born woman. Go on. 
It's farther than it seems, 
but okay. 

Credit card's been stolen. 
Go on. 

Above all, remember, 
whenever you cry, 
husbands roll their eyes, 

and children worry. 

Go on. 

The father that was yours 
gets killed by a lung disease. 

He loved you, at least you think so. 
Go on. 

Drink, smoke, do drugs. 

Go on....Read more of this...

 Pale scrapings of people 
with lipstick ringed glasses 
and cigarettes burning, 
and laughter trickling up and down 
their knotty throats. 
What is this, 
a gathering of henhouse critics? 

My father's voice in the back of my head, 
saying, forget that I'm dead and if you 
can not do that than pretend. 

I am standing 
just outside the gallery 
beneath...Read more of this...

 I went looking for God 
but I found you instead. 
Bad luck or destiny, 
you decide. 

Buried in the muck, 
the soot of the city, 
sorrow for an appetite, 
devil on your left shoulder, 
angel on your right. 

You, with your thorny rhythms 
and tragic, midnight melodies. 

My heart never tried 
to commit suicide before. 

Originally published in Literati...Read more of this...

 after, when you are driving 
75 miles one way just to get to her 
and her wind-touched hair, 
bleached white by the September 
sun, the gray sky coughing up clouds, 
that is when the doubts surface, 
hard as stones. 

it is late afternoon by the time you arrive, 
the storm has already been through here. 
you are not in...Read more of this...

 love is believable 
in every moment of exhaustion 
in every heartbroken home 
in every dark spirit, 
the meaning unfolds... 

...in every night that sings 
of tomorrow. in every suicide 
i carry deep inside my head. 
in every lonely smile 
that plays across my lips. 
love is believable i tell you, 
in every scrap of history, 
in every sheen of...Read more of this...

 You could die for it-- 
love, 
or refuse it altogether 
and know nothing 
except the urgency 
of youth. Men 

have been 
solitary 
for ages 
carrying the 
stoniest of hearts 
in their broad chests 
while we women 

begin too early 
brush the brown leaves 
from our shoulders, go 
from bloom to fade 
as soon as 
we see the sunrise 

We...Read more of this...

 Death is not the final word. 
Without ears, my father still listens, 
still shrugs his shoulders 
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer. 

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the knob, 
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him 
what does he think about the war in Iraq 
and how does he...Read more of this...

 All around me, the sky with its deep shade of dark. 
The stars. 

The moon with its shrunken soul. 
Can I become what I want to become? 

Neither wife or mother. 
I am noone and nobody is my lover. 

I am afraid 
that when I go mad, 
my father will bow his downy head 
into his silver wings and...Read more of this...

 ~for Jackson C. Frank
It seems almost too far fetched really, 
too difficult to believe. 
This unassuming moon shining like a copper plate. 
These milkcrate blues. 
This soft trellis of sound 
wobbling through the wind 
as if pouring out from the window 
of some lonely house on the hill. 
How beautiful it is, 
the ghost of your voice, 
haunting this...Read more of this...

 At one end of the couch
you sit, mute as a pillow
tossed onto the upholstery.

I watch you sometimes
when you don't know I'm watching
and I see you. Who you are.

You are a self made man.
Hard suffering. You are grey
stone and damp earth.
A long scar on a pale sky.

The television is tuned to CNN.
The world's tragedies flicker
across your face like some
foreign film.

You...Read more of this...