Juliet Cook

Hippomancy

            My sloppy cocoons, my soft-looking cardigans

            in muted hues like hollow seashells like

            bright fizz dulled by narcotics. Luminosity

            taken to the matte. Neighing flatly at the naysayers.

            Dolled by narcotics, two blue pills to

            match my eyeshadow. Pretty coordination

            or lack thereof.  I’m dolled down like

            a slow sip, a time release capsule dissolving

            under lavender-veined tongue, a lovelorn capulet

            more lackadaisical than Juliet.  Swooning,

            languishing, licking pastels, my toenails look like

            violet pastilles like jimmied non pareils like shellacked petals like

            little bruises preserved between waxy daybook pages.

            Languaging like sloppy hollow dull doll pastel.

            I’ve aquarelles instead of tattoos.

            I’ve a vintage syringe tucked in

            to my cashmere left knee sock

            the dreamy hue of baby camels of

            frosted caramels of white ruffles of slow rippling muscles.

            These clouds look like sacred white horses, neighing lovelorn

            at soft-looking capsules. The mare with the braided tale tells me

            a secret. A swooning sip of waxy vein.

            A dream of little wax soda bottles

            half-filled with blue narcotics.  Half-empty.

            Sometimes lack thereof is prettier.  Nude lips.

            Numb wrists.  Slippage…

            Lolling back, licking wisps of

            vintage cashmere, caramel dolls.

            Time release ruffles ripple from my

            knee socks.  I’m dolled up like

            a luminous daybook page, a dreamy soothsayer

            with my sacred white eyeshadow.

            That one is a powdered wig.

            That one is a rocking horse not a dead pig.

            A dream of bright fizz

            frothing out frosted bottles, horses’ mouths,

            Juliet’s wrists. Tucked in to numb cocoon,

a scream of bright fizz explodes.

A lavender cardigan unravels from the secret bruise.

Deer Head Variations

instead of severed, stuffed deer heads and their velvety racks,

this study is mounted with pelvic girdles with jewels

embedded in the pubis and iliac crest

the kind of jewels that might inhabit treacherous fairy tale

hair combs of the decorative and lethal bent

the kind of jewels that might adorn feminine crossbows—

hot metal & rubies & chokecherries

artificed porcelain cups contain

inexplicably wobbling eggs  

although tongueless in their shells

they hum glossal murmurations

*

instead of pipe smoke plumes against a backdrop

of hunter green, stinking up the taxidermy pheasants,

this study is perfumed with a slow seep

vapors from violet veins, sugar channels, baby pears

in heavy syrup and others in formaldehyde

glass jars of plucked feathers, bleach, honey, googly eyes,

silver-tapped wisdom teeth

these birdies are cuckoo clock quails

with crooked feet, battered beaks, askew springs

leaking out half-shattered necks

metallic warblings cut with turpentine    

*

as pomegranates crack open and bleed out

their pulpy seeds, she molds a small bird of marzipan

to serve as candied companion piece

or does she mean to pit the misfit birds against each other

like a scaled-down yet sinister version of a cock fight

does she secrete snuff films into furtive vaults   

as the eggs soak up pernicious vibrations, begin to convulse

the bitter chokecherries could be ittty bitty ball gags

if the eggs had mouths   if the eggs had hands

the porcelain pocills could be tiny pillories

her poison-dipped nib quivers with anticipation

*

to blow out their guts, truss them to a tree,

behold with perfidious glee another batch

of these ornately stained carapaces

*

instead of a strapping sporting scene,

albumen slithering down the walls

Slightly More Feminine Swamp Creature

The latest glittery module is implanted in your chest.
Even if nobody else can see it,
you know it’s there.

Releasing poems based on prefab biorhythms,
cake mix wavelengths, a hostess mentality.
Flea bags, fun sacs, pink trigonometry.
Sine, co-sine, the co-signer bailed
and now you’re paying off your own student loan
for that fashion design degree.  You’re fashioning
clothes out of dead silkworm debris,
gelatinous Spam cans, bent pipettes
from an outdated chemistry set.

If by clothes you mean poems.
If by outdated you mean subjective.

Subject to revival, arousal, carousal,
the way you slip into & out of book jackets
with such strange frequency.

Juliet Cook is a poet and the editor of Blood Pudding Press, which specializes in ‘artsy little misfit offerings’. The latest offerings are available via BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com.  Juliet’s recent publication credits include ‘Wicked Alice’, ‘Sein Und Werden’, ‘WOMB’, ‘Otoliths’, ‘Death Metal Poetry’, ‘DIAGRAM’, and ‘Prick of the Spindle’, which recently nominated her for a Best of the Net 2007 Award and a Pushcart Prize.  Her blog is called CandyDishDoom.