Letter of Non-Award

I send them catnip
but they are dogs
passively sucking on dry bones
--not to say the other applicants are unworthy
they are not--
only that my succulent art is worthier
any felicitous wordsmith would recognize the wisdom, sentience,
lucidity,
nuanced tastiness of my work
how cleverly I have grown a potent herb
within the confines of cultural diversity and political
correctitude
but not they or them
"We are sorry" they say
"Don't be sorry" I say
"Just give me the geld"
it is not my art that has failed
but their judging and now my tantrum spent
I await my colleagues' bad news as well
should one of them have won the prize
I will share their joy
then while they sleep
poke out their eyes



Linda Gives a Party

Now we are persons breaking open.
The real is not enough to pleasure us.
-- Lisa Robertson, The Weather --

Three sisters stand on the balcony
of an East Side Seventies
apartment block
Linda lights
fifty George Washingtons
one by one
with her sterling silver
lighter from Tiffany's
they gave her last year
to mark this day
tosses them over the railing
ash meets ground
36 floors below

She hates this birthday gift
Fifty dollars for fifty years on earth
They could have given more
ten bucks for every year
"I would not have set
Alexander Hamilton on fire"

When her son arrives
she gives him a French kiss
because he's a francophile

I miss the party
I am on call
at Crisis Services



No Smoking Here

So they're breaking up
He's dumping her for her roommate
and she's crying 1950s-style
If it were today
she'd take the cigarette
from his hand
and mash it into his bare groin
to teach him
not to smoke
or fuck her friend
openly

More About Martha Deed:

Martha Deed's recent poetry publications include Milk, Verse on Vellum, Gypsy, Shampoo, nthposition, Moria, Stirrings, Artvoice and The Awakenings Review. Her multimedia poetry can be found on www.arteonline.arq.br (Museum of the Essential and All That), and www.landofbrokenpromises.co.uk (Margaret's Garden). She recently won first prize in the Buffalo Niagara Ice Boom Poetry Contest, and she has a collaboration with Millie Niss forthcoming on Iowa Review on the Web. When not writing poetry, she is investigating a murder and installing a web narrative about the murder on the web.

She maintains a web site at www.sporkworld.org/Deed.

You can email Martha at mldeed1@juno.com.