Untitled

don't fuck with me, freedom
-i called into the night
at the edge
it was howling all around
from two thousand indiscernible sources-
back off. i mean it.
-i was gripping a knife
without knowing how to use it-
i want a goddamn prairie life
you hear me?
with a puppy,
and an art studio,
and all my husbands dead.
i want you,
freedom
to leave me way the hell
alone.

i want new york city
to get lost.
i want the doctors to
all get sick
and the pest control men
to start climbing out of the woodwork
putting on scrubs
and laytex gloves
and to start going to the hospitals                                            
with their morning coffees in hand.
and i want the i-bankers
bound,
gagged,
and shoved into bank safes
while all the drunkards and crazies on the street
give away
their money.

i'm holding this knife to you,
freedom
cuz i want a little insight.
i wanna know why i feel
this way.
i wanna know
what happened to me
back there.
why do i keep getting sidetracked
by romance and cocks
and telephone bills?                                                           
give it up straight, bitch.
cuz you won't get me this time.

this time
i'll get my money saved
and i'll throw my solitude
in my bookbag
with my journal
and get on one of those
goddamn trains
heading for oklahoma,
and i'll sleep through all the stops
and wake up a teacher
with my hair in a bun
and blackboard chalk
under my fingernails,
and i'll go home at night
to paint pictures of teacups
and landscapes
as the sun sets                                                                
with the bodies laying quietly under the floorboards
and you'll be sorry,
freedom
you'll be sorry.






Accourding to Heather Starr:

From: hstarr@dept.english.upenn.edu (Heather Starr)
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 23:46:33 -0400 (EDT)

I dig this poem, Kirsten.  I like coming across it in my e-mail queue, and
reading through again.  it has a lovely shape.  there's some great, clear,
intense, movements: "why do I keep getting sidetracked / by romance and
cocks / and telephone bills?" same no. of syllables in the second two
lines there -- is that what makes the rhythm so tight?  and title? how
about "I want a goddamn prairie life," or maybe "under my fingernails."
and what's an i-banker?

hs              




Accourding to Mike Magee:

From: mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu (Michael Magee)
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 09:31:13 -0400 (EDT)

Kirsten (am I the only one who *still* doesn't call you Kirby?), alot of
great stuff in this poem!  "i want a goddamn prairie life / you hear me?"
- that tone is right on, frantic, funny, appropriating this Amurikan motif
with a kind of suspicious half-seriousness.  I also like the forthright
exasperation of "why do i keep getting sidetracked / by romance and cocks
/ and telephone bills?" and the line "give it up straight, bitch" is a
ballsy line to put it in the poem, if I may use that terminology.  I
thought the line "drunkards and crazies" might be better as "drunks and
crazies" since "drunkards" is sort of an archaism and "drunks" works
better rhythmically, for me anyway.  In the penultimate stanza, I thought
"i wanna know why i feel / this way" were unnecessary b/c already              
understood; and the ending, "and you'll be sorry, / freedom / you'll be
sorry ' - a little pat?  Why not end "with the bodies laying quietly under
the floorboards"?  That just about says it all, doesn't it?   -m.