6.13 / Queer Two

From Odes of Opposition

Gertrude Stein’s Objects

Nancy Opposes Gertrude

EVERYTHING ORDINARY.

A fact a single fact was certain. Then the said did fall and where was a fence inside it, then outside was sent out and here people stayed when doubtfully nothing was lowdown. It was frivolous.

A SAID SUN.

A pale, a slightly pale sun, an ever pale sun was lovely exceptionally, it was such lovely despite having much said on it. When said was on nothing it was ever essential. Was this yet an agreement for every save of it and because of where every person who was sicker, was here every person who had so little withdrawn.

A CAREFREE SKIRT.

A carefree skirt was followed, followed behind, followed and followed behind, that was the general dolor that was saved by that width and not every length yes ever less than a mirror.

FIRE BURNING.

Fire disappointing and easy all apart ruins a forest and a flop.

A NO. 2 PENCIL.

A dark flush, a glory, a lead spread, a sallow fact.

A SILENCE.

Field mouse untouched by salty and significant chips and swallows no screws and careful careful, that was that.

A SHAN’T.

A shan’t was a shoe and joy and a said plummet and an over skirt and a truster a truster for walks.

A shan’t was a rending, a pie of wane a leviathan mind. A shan’t.

Scatter a refusal, scatter it on familiar scales and by mountains. There is solid solid loss, a loss was a shan’t.

A copy that hadn’t a considerable hobble, few of them, or so.

Thank a square it was refusal.

It is a truth to list how a cry and a middle and a woven fall and a destination and a destroyer and considerable rejecting was by no means it.

::

Lisa Opposes Nancy

NO ONE NOVEL.

The fancy the many fancies are unsure.  When a question does rise but there is the field outside them, when inside is brought in but where spirits moved then surely everyone is uplifted.  They are necessary.

THE QUESTIONED MOON.

The gay, the very gay moon, the never gay moon is homely commonly, one is less homely for taking few questions to one.  Then questions are to everyone one is never spare.  Is that now the argument from each loss of one or in spite of when each spirit that is better, is there each spirit that lacked hardly much outgoing.

THE SERIOUS BLOUSE.

The serious blouse is led, led ahead, led and led ahead, this is a specific glee this is lost to this length or just each width no never more as the window.

WATER DROWNING.

Water supporting but difficult part together heals the clearcut or the spring.

THE LETTER Z PEN.

The light sallow, the shame, the ink pooled, the flushed fancy.

THE NOISE.

Fence owl grabbed at sweet but sorry cake but spits all nails but hurry hurry this is this.

THE SHELL.

The shell is the hat or despair or the questioned soar or the under blouse or the cynic the cynic of stands.

The shell is the mending, the cake of wax the diminutive spirit.  The shell.

Gather the embrace, gather them by foreign slides or on plains.  Here was gaseous gaseous gain, the gain is the shell.

The model this lacks the faint march, many for it, and no.

Welcome the circle they are embrace.

They are the lie to check why the laugh or the ends or the unraveled rise or the journey or the creator or faint accepting is for anyways them.


Langston Hughes: Po’ Boy Blues

Blue Witches: Lisa Opposes Langston

Where we are lost th’
Moonlight sounds against rot.
Where we are lost th’
Moonlight sounds against rot.
Before we go down South th’
Half bless’d sea’ll twist hot.

We are two bad girls,
Always kept from good.
No, we are two bad girls,
Always kept from good,
An’ that sea ain’t lively
But soft or short ain’t th’ woods.

We stand out scorn save
Some boys we feel are toads.
Stand out scorn save
Some boys we feel are toads.
They ask to win our trash
But far from win our bones.

Lively, lively,
Lively late out th’ night.
Lively, lively,
Late, late out the night.
We’s just lively.
We hate we’ll ever be dead.

::

Post-Reconstruction Diaspora Blues: Nancy Opposes Lisa

Here I am found mo’
Sun-dark sights beyond fresh.
Here I am found mo’
Sun-dark sights beyond fresh.
After I came up north mo’
Full curs’d land’ll lean weak.

I am one good boy,
Never lost to bad.
Yes, I am one good boy,
Never lost to bad.
Or this land is deadly
An’ hard and long are mo’ fields.

I sit in respect ‘long
most gals I know are dolls.
Sit in respect ‘long
most gals I know are dolls.
They answer, lose your treasure.
And near to lose my skin.

Deadly, deadly,
Deadly born in th’ day.
Deadly, deadly
Born, born in th’ day.
They’s but deadly.
I rue I’ll never be wild.


Nancy Flynn hails from the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Her writing’s received the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Her 2007 poetry chapbook, The Hours of Us, was nominated for an Oregon Book Award. In a past life, she’s certain she was an art colony bohemian, an Irish peasant, or—why not?—Cleopatra! She recently penned her six-word memoir: Teetered on the precipice then jumped. More at www.nancyflynn.com. Lisa McCool-Grime loves Sappho, wallflower women and collaborations. Her wallflower women are or will be in Splinter Generation, Solo Novo, Painted Bride Quarterly and elsewhere. Her collaborative work with Nancy Flynn can be read at Poemeleon. Tupelo press awarded one of her poems first place in their Fragments of Sappho contest.