Over and other poems by Donna Dallas
Damn girl.
Look at you.
Who made venom
so thick
course through your blood?
The cold flow
of winter
is in you.
Blue blood, blue eyes,
dead heart.
Too many footprints
over your grave—rough hands
on your body.
Bastard girl
with icy hands
and cold lips.
No one loves you.
Narcissist
What lips
my red lips have
I see these lips
I lick in the mirror
lick for red on my tongue
lick to practice being the slut
I could never be without red
painted lips they can all see
coming from blocks away
stigmatized with lips
on lips
they roll on words
with tongue in cheek
give blowjobs even to
straws for soda pop
luscious lips
kiss me back
as I kiss myself
in the mirror
Boogie Boy
I have a bag of marijuana in the fridge,
I have fake tits and your little black book in my purse.
It’s 3:00 A.M. and I’m waiting for this sleeping pill
to kick in and settle me down into a tunnel with
vapor blue lights and cryptic chants.
I won’t die tonight,
I will grow into an old, rotten corpse.
Right now I am beautiful
Venus-like.
Almost as beautiful as my 24th birthday,
the night we went out and snorted line after line
in Studio 54. The same night you told me you had aids
and in a split second I was sober, my life dropping
like Intra-venous into your blood.
Save you. No,
we’ve never slept together and
I knew you were gay since the day I knew you but
I have loved you with every fiber, every false eyelash and
every penny I have given to support your habits.
Now I’m feeling it. The faint calls of sleep, of dreamy boys
jumping over my bed. I count them sometimes, flick my
tongue at them like a desperate frog, search for your face
among their shirtless David bodies. If you pass through
my dreams tonight, send your love, send boogie chants
from your thirty years of boogie fever in every disco
in New York City with every beautiful man I could barely
imagine between my legs………..Lonely is the night
when all the boys are gone and all I have are your baby
photos, a red wig and a hypodermic needle wrapped in tin-foil.
Creation
Today
I’m a whore
as I stand before the mirror
examining this body
as erect as a penis.
My hand covers
the small patch of fur
like a veiny leaf straight from Eden.
Apple breasts for me—my gift
from God—as round as sin and
jetting out between marble shoulders.
I touch the hard thighs I have
wrapped around men’s torso’s
to lock them into this torn womb
that has withstood time,
the stretching and ripping of
little imps and the weight of men
I try to forget
but it seems they have
made me into
what I am—right out
of a rib and I
am elastic flesh and
a bit of bone.
Stop blaming me
for being the seductress!!
I wear the key to Eden
as a slave trinket
around my wrist.
The snake has sided
with me and coils
around my left thigh.
I spit on Adam.
He’s long gone under
mulch and earth.
I’m thin and ravenous
from running barefoot
through forests
and bedrooms.
Let Me Pull Out My Bag of Bones
I have lived a thousand years in this hull of a body
(waited to take you in)
to hold your cracked heart in my hand
mend it with putty and glue
Try to stick it back
(into the empty)
in your chest
fiddling with what goes where
(half-assed but meant with love)
Piece you together
(sort of…..)
then stumble around a muffled silence
weighing out if I can be good
(for once)
If I can hone in on a way
to show
strength
(for Christ’s sake)
Once as a child we brought a puppy home from the pound and it blundered
around haphazardly bumping into
and tripping over things
We realized later it was blind and would never survive
with the strong
(I am trying to survive)
That woman of strength
(I see her)
in a breath I take her into my lungs
force her to sit in my chest
(to woo you)
Later in the cold air of regret
I exhale her
(she’s gone)
and blindness sets in
Lethargic Angels
I run my feet up and down the wall
in pink bunny slippers
listening to the rain make music
against the roof. Lightning plasters
the sky like white veins. I watch a fly
beat wicked wings frantically
against the window. I’m waiting for the night
so I can roam freely about in wet clothes.
Boredom blubbers over like a slaughtered pig
and I feel heat slowly murdering the fan.
A gunshot fires somewhere close to my
window. I don’t even flinch.
I wonder about blood on the grass
and your red silk sheets.
Stranger days will come.
I promise you.
About the author:
I studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU. I meandered about prior to becoming a successful business woman, wife and mother of two beautiful children. Over the years I’ve been deeply moved and inspired by Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Allan Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Jayne Anne Phillips, Mary Karr, Denis Johnson to name a few. In their raw honesty and bare bones I completely connect and I have been inspired over and over again to continue to seek out my voice. Over the years I’ve documented lives growing up poor, witnessing drugs, prostitution, overdoses and death. I bundled stories of lives that fell apart in front of me or with me. I never thought I would be where I am today, not a chance in hell. But somehow, here I am. Perhaps I just want to give something back to the world that lovingly spared me. I’ve been published in Mud Fish, Nocturnal Lyric, The Café Review and The New York Quarterly and was lucky enough to study under William Packard back in the day. I took a slight hiatus and I am recently found in 34th Parallel.
Vending Machine Press 
honest
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