Carlye Archibeque

 

 

(USA)

 

 

 

MEASURING GRIEF

 

The Buddhist measures

the cat with a measuring

tape as she lies in my lap,

a last embrace not curled up

like the metaphor in the

maiden’s lap by a fire but

cold in the dark in the

middle of the night in the

middle of my life, stiff

stretched out as if reaching

for God just before he came

to take her leaving only

this body, small and dark

and not my cat at all too big

for the hole that is too small

for her. The Buddhist

measures twice

digs once.

 

 

 

THINGS TO SAY AT A PARTY WHEN YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THERE

 

I love these little mushroom thingies.

 

I slept with the host after he was married.

 

I like long walks on the beach at night.

 

I’ve always found low IQ’s very attractive.

 

When I was five the baby sitter made me massage his penis.

 

I can only stay a minute.

 

White wine gives me a headache.

 

I’ve never killed a man.

 

Do you come here often?

 

I slept with the hostess before she was married.

 

I fully support our police department.

 

I wish foot binding would come back in style.

 

Have you heard the one about the dead poet?

 

I have herpes but it’s not that bad.

 

I have a headache but it’s not that bad.

 

I wish they’d bring out more of those little mushroom thingies.

 

I really have to be going.

 

 

 

THINGS TO DO AFTER I’M DEAD

 

Go to Paris

          as I should not longer be afraid to fly

Haunt ex-boyfriends who are still living,

          it’s not like I really forgave any of them

Sit in on classes at Smith College

          and never turn in the homework

Find Dorothy Parker

          and ask her why a bright poet like herself had dogs instead of cats

Find Yeats

          and have him explain his poetry to me once and for all

Find Plath

          and tell her that her death saved my life

Ditto Sexton

Move to the country

          maybe a nice farmhouse or bell tower

Stop worrying about

          …well, just stop worrying at all

Stop wearing a bra

Find a pretty white gown

          something gothic, but not too cliché

Take comfort in the fact

          that I will never reconcile with my mother

Accept that losing weight is now a moot point

Visit my grave once a year so I never forget who I am

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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BIO

 
Carlye Archibeque is the director of publicity and special events at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California, a poet, and a journalist. A Los Angeles native, she writes poetry in the confessional vein. She is currently working on a series of autobiographical prose poems for a new book due out on Punk Hostage Press scheduled in 2014. In her time on Earth she’s held many jobs that provided inspiration for a career in writing: weapons and tactics trainer for the Navy Seabees, Bob’s Big Boy waitress, fry cook, postal carrier and visual effects coordinator for Spider-Man 2, to name a few. Her poetry has been anthologized widely with work appearing in: Spillway, Beyond the Valley of the Contemporary Poets, So Luminous the Wildflowers, Social Anarchism, and News Clips and Ego Trips. Her interview with graphic artist Dan Clowes was reprinted in both the English and French volumes of Dan Clowes: Conversations.  She is the author of three chapbooks: Why I Shop (Nightgaunt Press); Dry Goods (Laguna Poets Series); and Live at the Cobalt (Cassowary Press). She is two units shy of a BA degree in Sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles and will get to it when she has time.