Poetry From my Yoots (Teresa McDougall)

Poetry written in my yoots

Uncollected
Teresa McDougall
1969 through 1986

1969 (4th grade)
Spring
At the sound of spring
the flowers grow.
White coral bells ring
and blooming buds show.
Roses in bloom
will open quite soon.

Birds flap their wings
flutter and fly.
They think they’re kings
in new spring sky.
They peck and they fight
(they’re not too bright).

Here are kite
flying days.
Many are light.
Flying is done in many ways
and when we are done
we’ve had our fun.

1981
Growing Up
Six shooter cap gun
holstered in my hand,
I aim at clouds
stub my toe
on the Safeway parking curb.
Daddy says I am too clumsy
to be his
and the store manager won’t like me
cause I carry a gun.
Back in the car
I show mommy
how I shot my toe off.
She asks Daddy
if he remembered to get beer.


Untitled for David

One long finger of moon sighs
across ripple and wave.
Yet, tenderness the moon could learn
from your hand.

From: In Distant Beds
Teresa Bachman
Self-published 1986
Dedicated to Warren Nall

Enough
Clouds and scattered stars
used to be enough
wind woven like ribbons
the only garment I pressed
Simplicity has been replaced
by sadness
Nothing quenches my thirst.

No God is strong enough
no answer sweet enough
to stop questions which pour in rage
and desperation.

At night—it is always night—
my husband reaches inside my thigh
and knows the hollow of my soul
“stop thinking” he mutters
in some sleepwalkers chant
“your search will never be resolved.”

I haven’t learned where to turn
All I have found is the places where Truth
does not exist.


Over Tea

They confessed over tea
sharing similar fantasy.
“Amazing” said one.
“Astounding” the other.

They lit cigarettes in unison.

They wanted a string of men
broken by their departure.
Each vapid soul they touched would know
he could never be filled this sweetly.
They also wanted a man
someday
with power to possess them.
Some messianic man to obliterate their female deification.

“Rapacious” said one.
“Repugnant” the other.
In unison they winked at the waiter.


From Case Studies
Teresa Bachman
Self-published 1988
Dedicated to Lauren, David & Janice
Little Red Riding Hood

In the mulch-filled forest
delicate ferns and fronds
green and sleepy;
such a place to meet a wolf-
shivers down my back,
fang of fang,
bold green eye,
thick red tongue.

I nuzzle in his fur
feign surprise when he slaps
me with those great claws.
He brings excitement and
a steady stream of chaos.

Not unlike father
who abandoned mother;
and mother in bed nursing whiskey,
innumerable hangovers.
Grandma, deep in the woods,
chain smoking, drinking vodka
from bottles labeled
“chicken soup”, “dandelion broth”.
She curses Mommas failure
at respectability.

Grandma says I am the good one,
the quiet, unspeaking one,
the one who can keep our family closet
locked, who can save us
from destruction.

I have seen the woodcutters
and the men claiming to be
woodcutters visit at all hours.
I have heard the stark, female pleas
for a sign of significance.
I crave it too.

I will give the wolf my basket
and my clock and anything
he requires
and he can chew my grandma
‘til she rots in hell
if only he can rip me
from my sterile,
responsible shell.

Make Him Work

This is a photo of a Russian woman
sweeping the streets in Moscow.
Her hips—some grotesque square,
her hair, probably brown, is hidden
beneath a beige scarf.
A news release states that
“due to cheap, abundant vodka,
coupled with rampant unemployment,
Russian men are now entropic.
Women, such as the one pictured here
must work full shifts, then continue
to labor at home,
scrubbing or waiting in endless lines
for household necessities.”
Her children will succumb
to this pattern.

My inner-mother screams “Make men work.”
I haven’t yet learned to manipulate
nor to motivate.
My inner-daughter surrenders.

Working twelve hour days until my hands
bleed through what soon should be
cal louses, I come home too tired
to sleep. So much remains to be done.
For months I’ve nagged my husband
who has apparently chosen unemployment.
Instead of moving him I find my own form
lumping, my hair graying so it soon
will look best hidden.
Once I was vivacious, now a shrew.

For weeks I sucked his cock, him screaming
“Oh baby, baby how beautiful.
Even this did not move him to work.
I am forced to choose between
sacrificing my cunt or sharpening my already
shrill tongue to battle a god
who’s forgotten to perform miracles.
Either way I slam against my own heart
turned to brick.

With my inner-voice screaming
and my inner-daughter sighing
there remains no quiet place to run from,
no quiet place to run too.

Lost
That gull wails
like the last lost girl.

Wings stretch fog,
the child parts branches.
None see too clearly.

I find a trail of crumbs
which the gull eats,
of small white pebbles,
which he scatters.

Daughter deep within me
take hope.
I will find you and give all the warmth I can.

Dream #19

I am all I have.
This is reason enough
to rejoice or despair.

That lover my dreams weave
in and out of bodies
has yet to satisfy my arms.

In the ancient dance
there are no partners.