my poem first appeared in sparkle + blink for Quiet Lightning
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fromAnatomize by Natasha dennerstein from Norfolk Press
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Ode to orange. Natasha Dennerstein
O orange, you perfect flaming sphere.
Amongst your pith and flesh you
contain the seeds of yourself.
You love a mediterranean climate
and it loves you and California does, too.
In Roman times an orange gown
was worn for weddings -
why not? - the passion and fecundity
Jupiter gifted to Juno.
The setting sun; the harvest moon;
the seeds contained within
the bride and groom.
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This poem appeared first in litmag #Landfall and then in my collection #AboutaGirl from #norfolkpress
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My chemical days. Natasha Dennerstein
I love to be heavily medicated
from my dextroamphetamine dawn
up until my barbiturate bedtime.
I like to start my caffeinated morning
with a Ritalin or Adderal kick,
continue till I need to take the edge off
with Ativan and donuts at ten or eleven, or
Lorezepam, Oxazepam or Clonazepam,
Serepax for my Halcion days or a Xanax, perhaps.
Just the right dose of Diazepam and
I feel the universe still has a plan.
I don’t need to experience any pain,
there’s a pharmaceutical for every feeling;
no need to ever feel uncomfortable;
- physically, mentally or emotionally -
just take Roxycodone or hydromorphone,
oxymorphone or oxycodone,
and if I feel a little down I just up my Wellbutrin,
my Mirtazepine, my Fluvoxemine,
Paroxetene, Duloxetine or even my
Reboxetine if you know what I mean.
And when it all gets a little too much
I can knock myself out with a subtle touch
of eszopiclone otherwise known as Lunesta,
or zaleplon sometimes known as Sonata
or zolpidem also known as Ambien or Stilnox.
These industrial strength pharmaceuticals
are in my hair and under my cuticles
and I can pee them out into the water supply
and not be worried that they end up in the Bay
out by San Bruno or up in Monterey,
medicating the dolphins: they get off on it.
As I drift off into my well-earned sleep
I repeat their names like a prescription psalm
or a medication mantra:
pentobarbital, phenobarbital, secobarbital;
cloroqualone, mebroqualone, methaqualone;
Lunesta, Stilnox, Sonata,
Lunesta, Stilnox, Sonata,
Lunesta, Stilnox, Sonata.
painting OxyContin Nation by Kaye Freeman
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Ophelia remix Natasha Dennerstein
I’m going out dancing tonight;
I’m getting married tomorrow
in the morning. I’ll clutch
my bridal bouquet of rue
and lavender, rosebuds and regret.
I’ve picked the spot,
down by the river-bank
where the weeping willow trails
and washes its leaves brand new.
Plant a pair of hyacinth bulbs
in my eye sockets, please,
let wisteria wander
up between my ribs.
Plant some gladioli behind my sternum,
jasmine between my tib and fib.
Make sure my metacarpals clutch
that bridal bouquet so pretty.
Drown me in my widow’s weeds,
I’m marrying the memory of you.
Till death us do part, honey,
I’ve kept you in my heart,
I wanna die your bride.
Ilium, ischium, pubis:
I’m gonna drown in my pelvic girdle.
from “Anatomize,” from Norfolk Press, 2015.
image by Jafet Blanch, “Amapola,” 2015.
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The Cartographer's Moll Natasha Dennerstein
If I could draw a map of my heart,
the raw regions exposed would be
where strips of you were not wrapped.
If I could draw a map of my brain
there would be tunnels and a labyrinth
with false leads ending in you – or not.
If I drew a map of my body, those
lumps would be bite marks left by
you, my contours swollen with you.
A map of my life would be cris-crossed
with traces of you and covered in references
to you and destinations we had been.
Co-ordinates would indicate where
you had been and wanted to go and
the places where I wouldn't let you in.
That map would cover vast areas of
me and magnetic South would point to
you and I would be facing true North.
You have lain your rail-lines across
my ranges and my terrain
has been forever changed.
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I’m ready for my close-up.
Norma Desmond, relic of a bygone era before
the pictures got small, survives in decaying grandeur,
deluded that a woman of - gasp, fifty - could still
be sexually attractive: a mature, decrepit ingenue.
Joe Gillis - the fly in the spider’s web -
sauntering, macho, screen-writer trouserman.
She practically devours him - that revolting cliche -
a woman-of-a-certain-age lusting for young, male flesh.
Deluded, unhinged, she plots a comeback.
There are no templates for an aging glamorpuss.
She reverts to recreating her former glory:
vaseline on the lens smudging an illusion.
For believing he can gull a vibrant female fool,
Joe Gillis ends up shot, face-down in the swimming-pool.
(this poem appears in my collection “Triptych Caliform” from Norfolk press, SF.)
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Poseidon Vase by Rene Lalique, 1920s.
My new chapbook by Nomadic Press available from SPD at http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9780998134833/seahorse.aspx
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poem by Natasha Dennerstein and painting by Kaye Freeman in their collaborative series “Skeleton Dreaming.” Poem published in “Anatomize” from Norfolk Press.
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Image by Kaye Freeman. Poem by Natasha Dennerstein from “Anatomize” from norfolkpress.com
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Found Sonnet by Rita Dove, “The Wig,” from the reader to my course “Form and Contemporary Poetry,” via #nomadicpress.org
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#seahorse
#nomadicpress
Female Pronouns, Please. Natasha Dennerstein
You limp your way to womanhood,
trying on images and stereotypes like
garments—shedding blood-stained ribbon
gauze and sequins—earning the hard way
the right to call yourselves woman,
utilizing synthesized hormones
(pregnant mare’s urine)
to slough off your skins of acquired
masculinity to reveal the underlying
female, to shed, to shed to be the woman
within, to earn the title woman,
to be she, to be she, to be she.
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Female Pronouns, Please. Natasha Dennerstein
You limp your way to womanhood,
trying on images and stereotypes like
garments—shedding blood-stained ribbon
gauze and sequins—earning the hard way
the right to call yourselves woman,
utilizing synthesized hormones
(pregnant mare’s urine)
to slough off your skins of acquired
masculinity to reveal the underlying
female, to shed, to shed to be the woman
within, to earn the title woman,
to be she, to be she, to be she.
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Butterfield 8 Natasha Dennerstein
Elizabeth Taylor shines the spotlight of her 1000
watt sexuality onto various, hapless men, dripping her
ripe, peach juices from bar-room to motel to penthouse. No
Sale she lipsticks on the mirror. At least not for
two hundred and fifty dollars. He says he offers it
to replace the torn dress. The cash. She says she is
paid to wear a fashionable frock around and
about at swanky locales to attract interest. For
a designer. To flirt but not seduce. To incite the will
to buy. The dress. She is not a tramp, merely
flirtatious. She brushes her teeth with whiskey, not
water. Her promiscuity is worse than prostitution.
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Serial Aileen Natasha Dennerstein
Because you tied me face down on the red backseat of your Cadillac Seville in Volusia County and took away my power and made me float above myself and watch like some scuzzy bird - a pigeon - because no fucker would give me a job not even waiting tables so I had to turn tricks on the highway and because you had that 22 in the glove compartment waiting there just for me, I shot you.
Because the rubbing alcohol.
Because you had that cheesy, mustard polo shirt with the little guy on a horse with a golf club that said stuff to me about a world I would never understand because everyone said you don’t belong here. Because Edgewater, Florida. Because you can stick your golf club up your ass.
Because you said a hundred in Brevard County but you only gave me fifty and how am I supposed to pay the motel for me and my lady with fifty? And there was three hundred in your wallet, thanks for that.
Because in Daytona you smelt like Listermint like my grandfather and you had those ugly, tombstone choppers, probably dentures.
Because you didn’t rape me in Suwannee County but you were gonna, given half a chance. Because it was a defensive, pre-emptive strike, Your Honor, like the natural world: eat or be eaten.
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Floral life Natasha Dennerstein
The camera catches you with your orchid corsage,
blushing, full of hope like a daisy and the flash
snaps you then. Bloodsap flows in the black rain,
a lurching scarlet ranunculus, submerged.
You meet Karl at Club Fragrant, his tulip scatters the
pollen of your phalenopsis, crushes your petals. You
bloom and wilt together. Your love: a bouquet
unclustered, discarded, busted.
Your subtropical times, those strelitzia days, those
tuberose night-blooming years. You have a hidden
bloom and when the first one dies the second bud
flowers and shrivels too, as they do.
You waste your youth like apple-blossom chucked
on the Southerly. You stand proud - a calalily stem -
'til the bacteriae multiply in the stagnant water. Now
gnarled and bent, tortured willow, sapless, spent.
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