Poems for Carrie

Thanks so much to all the people who sent me their poems for Carrie.  I've sent the story to some poet friends as well.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll have a book's worth.

Here are some of the poems I've received by email.  Again, thanks for sending them.  -Amber

Poem For Carrie by Sarah Riegel

the poison that seeped through lost lovers lips

saturated your everything with the oiliness of all possible tomorrows

slipping through your fingers

running towards the exit with a stroller in neon

not stopping to wave goodbye at your broken pieces

an ocean of hurt washes upon your shores

and when you put seashells to your ears

nothing but static comes through

garbled memories bouncing back on

frequencies of distrust

your ears sting into the past

but what you may not know

is that you are not unread

you can never be unwritten

and you are inside the everything that

refuses to stop beating inside the heart of love

you are inside the pulses of lovers

pounding their bodies into one rhythm

you are the letters inside bottles thrown to sea

screaming in sand

“I don’t care who reads this

just read me”

-------------

Untitled by Cara

There isn't even a memory left of you here.
Pulled up stakes and sprinted so fast into your future,
no one even remembered your name when the clock
struck twelve. Your glass slipper, shattered somewhere
in a cubicle. Crushed it yourself just so no one could find you.
That poison got set in motion and you had to go.
Had to outrun it before it could touch you too, turn your
everything to black, make you have to dig it out.
Getting on that train was easier. A piece of slipper in your pocket, the
sharpest edge you could find, just in case.

---------------

Untitled by Bill Doze

Carrie,
your marked deck ritual of naming
is bait for a rage goddess.
Tribute in a commuter crevice,
salvaged uncharred,
it passed to me.
Today I felt the rage of kinship obligation
and other flavors, parental and vehicular.
In the basement our newly homeless uncle
frantic child man
spilled out the contents of his luggage checking
and rechecking for the weed he stashed when he heard his niece approach
Helpless in the laundry circle,
pilled cotton remainder of his autonomy,
he declared "It's just gone" with twilight zone credulity.
"It isn't" I said.
Upstairs I berate my daughter for the carpet of pencil shavings
around her bed,
tuck her in with the assurance that she has no excuse.
It's your shakti Carrie, stirring my nerves.
The house was suddenly too small.
Fast food sounded good.
At McD's an obtuse sedan blocked my way
entering through the exit,
and I fired calumny at the driver.
I wanted to poison meaning in her life.
I found a gap between fender and hedge
fled to my driveway
and I'm sitting in my back yard,
puzzling over the cause of causes,
what am I channeling
who am I entitled to hurt.
I look at the night sky.
and kneeling above me is a cloud,
a goddamned Precious Moments® angel,
wings, gown, the works,
the rage goddess laughing at me.

-------------------