Geocities

All poetry by Jewel Kilcher

indicates poem is in A Night Without Armor.

FAITH POEM (a poem about faith)
I don't know how to do anything
I am trying to move mountains with words
But I am an ant
I scribble
I drool
I move like a worm
whose world
(words)
encompassed a mile
How do I rise above?
Where will this worm
find wings?
I look in the mirror
and I see filth
Who is that?
Where did The Angel go?
Why is there dirt
staring back at me?
Why is the soil of
incompetence beneath my nails?
Why does doubt paint
blue rings
beneath my eyes
and stain my skin?
Why does my spine assume failure
Why do my lips
flirt with the sky;
why do I try to lasso
Beauty with such a
pitiful rope?
Where is the hair of Rapunzel
or Samson?
Where is my sling
Where is my stone,
My gun?
Where is the weapon with which
I may fight this apathy
that feels like sleep
in my limbs
that loosens my brother's smile
that kills my neighbor's daughter
This pen is scrawny and hardly
seems able to ink out
or erase this plague that
infests my
Generation
This Giant, This Ogre
This Beast, This Death
that assumes a million faces,
that borrows my own.

LEAVING LAS VEGAS
Bill, Butch and Bart
Swapping penis size
in the front seat
which Thelma, Theisel and
Lou Lou up there
bouffant hairdos
and secretly go
where Blue eyeshadow
has never gone before

CRITICISM
The savages are upon me
and I feel my flesh
Burn
beneath the teeth
of their indifference

(untitled)
I saw a woman
whose teeth were
straight like
White picket fences
Until she looked
at her husband--
Then they looked like
Shattered windows

UPON MOVING INTO MY VAN
Joy. Pure Joy. I am
What I always wanted
to grow up and be
Things are becoming
more of a dream with
each waking day--
The heavy brows of Daily Life
are becoming encrusted
with glitter and the shaking finger
of consequence is
beginning to giggle
Grumpy old men
have wings
Bums sport halos
and everyday dullness
has begun to breathe
as I remember the
incredible lightness
of living

(untitled)
There is a pretty girl
on the
Face
of the magazine
And
all I see
is my dirty
hands
turning the page

(untitled)
Little breasts attached to
skinny ribs and hungry bellies
determined legs; persuasive sing
careful hands
she stands
a greater threat to herself
than the cigarette
she consumes

LAS VEGAS
Women who suck
their cigarettes
as though they were
giving their
hatred head

THE BONY RIBS OF ADAM
I left the bony ribs of Adam
for the fruit
or my own
personal desire

It's scent still heavy
upon my flesh

my absence still
thorn
to his side

But now how my belly
hollows and aches