Charlotte Mandel
To Save Lulu
Watching Louise Brooks as Lulu in Pandora's Box, 1929
All I need is a sharp-spined umbrella
to shelter her helmet of short black hair,
her tottering grace on little girl pumps
out from the crowded pub reeking of spilled
porter, damp wool, weeks-old sweat, the hoarse rasp
of cockney: "Take Me To the Garden, Maude"
slurred bass "Shut it you gobs" slammed fists Swung door
into night's grainy fog gaslights glow of decay
I shiver in my thin hoodie and Nikes
hands bare useless
Man-shape of sooty mold
follows the wavering dance of the girl's form
graceful even as she trips on wet cobbles
Two shadows blend into darkness—her door
opens clangs shut this is how she's earning
her living she will be bloodied by Jack
killer stabbings and
if only I'd got
to him in the street
if only I could
pierce the screen with a sharp-spined umbrella
Watching The Fall of the House of Usher
In tattered bridal shroud, Poe's raven-tressed
vision pounds on the massive door
of the family crypt.
Alchemies of alcohol, tomb, incest,
convert with howl, chuckle and roar
to deathless manuscript.
Necrophilic mind, we say, to translate
Beauty—see: young Lenore—to ghoul—
see: Annabelle Lee, lost, lorn,
and zoomed on screen, lush-lipped. Pupils dilate
in hot dark. We gaze, Sony-ruled,
sniffing blood, popping corn.
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The most recent addition to The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline is Etel Adnan by Joyce Wilson.
Save the date: A Celebration of the Timeline reaching 75 essays. Lincoln Center, Fordham University (Sponsored by Fordham's Curran Center) Friday, October 20th, 7 p.m.
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