HOT PINK
By
Lee E. Pifer
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Fine Arts
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, Florida
December 2005 Copyright by Lee E. Pifer 2005
11 HOT PINK
By
Lee E. Pifer
This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Professor Susan Mitchell, Department of English, and has been approved by the members of his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letter and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.
lll Abstract
Author: Lee Pifer
Title: Hot Pink
Institution: Florida Atlantic University
Thesis Advisor: Professor Susan Mitchell
Degree: Master of Fine Arts
Year: 2005
The poems of this thesis take the reader to primal places of the mind, body, and soul, often considered better left unspoken or unseen. These places are no doubt dark and full of strange dreams. Here, relationships have a lack of resolution and, of course, are engineered by pleasure and pain. Pain is fire, ice, or reflection. Pleasure is also pain. It is all an eternal dance. Pain gives pleasure meaning and vice versa, like violence and passion. I challenge social customs and emotional aversions with my imagery. I utilize rhyme and a lack of punctuation to disturb boundaries as dreams do, or other malleable states of living. I focus on the intangible trauma of self-destruction in the pursuit of creativity, intimacy, and expression. In simpler tenns, the poems of this thesis have been caught having a threesome with sex and death. Tempted to peek?
IV For My Beloved Lorrie Table of Contents
Tantric Circle ...... 1
Cloud Dreams ...... 2
Over the Gulf I ...... 3
Shelly ...... 4
Sexy Hell ...... 5
Necromance ...... 6
Hostile ...... 9
Taboo ...... 11
Double Feature ...... 13
Fool Me Twice ...... ·...... 15
Hot Pink ...... 16
Blue Period ...... 17
Over the Gulf II ...... 18
Massacara ...... 19
Androgyne ...... 21
Mainlined ...... 24
Sycophant ...... 25
v Manhandled 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26
Elsewhere 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 27
Wendy 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 028
Paper Cut 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 029
Rusty Razor 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 030
Over the Gulf III 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 031
Six Feet Under 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32
Sigil 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 033
VI Tantric Circle
I want you to be seized, revel in pleasurable styles of rhythm while you read under some dim or sultry lighting of your choice now let me whisper in your ear how I am mortified though I am the kind that dreams of romance and razor blades on the same line among other irrational denials cut to the bone by an electron conned into playing the role of paper and I write like I need to see everything white run red when I simply could have said I only wish to bleed all over my computer screen smear it with my fingertips screaming "this is my blood!" I pour over the page I have to stain your sensibilities with verbal throes of sex or unbalanced sorrows and so you don't have to see the spaces where I lost a bit of my soul I filled them in with superficiality when really I am reliving the point I glide over an empty stage without further blame bum it to the foundation I never said I was sound of mind but you are bound to mine so reach out, hesitate, touch this digital tree fallen here playing the role of mortified me Cloud Dreams
I wish I could fly high in the sky
To crash and to bum when it is my tum will be my fate even if I try to just get by but I don't care
I want to soar through the air gliding about where no one would dare
To sail and to dive feeling alive
to alight on a tree feathery free filled to the brim with the whim of the wind singing for me
To swoop and to swim above and beyond the rim of a cloud
would be why I left ifl were allowed
to fly
2 Over the Gulf
I.
Pressure squeezed the cabin in the climb to cruising height and groans of steel mimed the slow flap of wings over where iron, during the age of slavery and kings, kept the dead from wandering, out of the earth or the swamp or awaiting piles, up to living doors.
The city said it was due to the river or voodoo then threw up a final message: "Would you please deliver a different view for my electric light is merely a skewed account of old fires."
Then the bird banked out to sea away from the coastal pyre, and those yellow fevered souls, while ships far below in the black gulf burned bright with lantern light set on their sails and pirated rum.
To reply: "Goodbye crescent, from the sky above your Sheol is sealed tight by old sufferings behind the stone and the night."
3 Shelly
my creation she is most beautiful can't you see though I'm clearly mad with jealousy that she is not me but she will arise nevertheless mangled and misshapen I do confess in distress
I hastily I lift her to the darkened sky breathe life into her single eye formerly mine so she may see the stitched up line of the cut across my forehead reminding her I bled for her to be
4 Sexy Hell
Every day a good little boy stares at Dore's Dante, praying, should the poet fall under an assault of pitchforks and wings.
Oh, I see. It's really me that abandoned hope, one hand taught against the rope, the other groping for ripened strawberries as a hungry tiger in red weather below still will certainly see her food. To that end I remember one May when reality lost all color. I spent that night bent double rubbing salt in my wounds.
Had my mind not unfolded as a black and white movie would it could have stood up to porno. At least I know in my hell
I can tell the difference between the fire and the silhouettes yet
I can't abide the smoldering pile of childhood memories I bet against in beating me for control of all the sex I already tell the therapist I need. Take desire deep past my lips is the way to a good little girl's hips he also prays for but will never say.
5 Necromance
Rub off that powder mustache. Put out Mary and Jane's mellow fellow, then follow me for we go hand in hand to a musically enthralling end.
Curtsey to the quivering nether lips then enter. We are all creatures here
that feature living with the lights out, and turned on by the sticky and smoky breath of fevered skin pumping against bass tones woven over moans of melody. They beckon me into her brooding womb. On the floor we dance
as only the dead can, in prayer to songs of inevitable beauty in loss, change back from the cost of life. I can see my wife kick her baby dolls, let her hair fly, while swooning to a tune that is caressing but hard enough to charge
my chakra of growing groove. Penetrate the concept, as you flick your Bic to my stick, that some people need to be the shadows in society's day that grow away from the body like a tree reaches to the sky. Come, we must
6 feed from the bar again. I am in flames with passion, glassy-eyed for the bottled up spirits, dizzy, wild for a mild sedative to counter the craze of caramelized senses. Don't think it's just me that worships the night
and confides in the dark, lightheaded with bubbles of liquorish thoughts and fiery spices. But I am of the few minds that find it tantalizing to pucker black lipstick as I shower my chokered throat in the bartender's tapestry.
Lift that cup high. Higher! Here's to tainting senses, corroding sensations with hot shots, pasty throats, and prior poisons! Suck up the second hand pestilence that captures in its swirls slight hints of clove, flower, and
pheromone distinct to each girl or guy that swaggers by with liquid lined eyes. I am always pleased to reveal a new world London underground sex electric scene. Certainly a mouthful. Ponder this as we recede with
our candies up narrow steps filing past fuzzy forms fading into the walls like an impressionist painting a funeral of tight vinyl, studded leather, and lace corsets that tickle waists and expose a little nipple. Spikes accessorize the
7 decadence and the intimacy of chokers entice the imagination to bind and submit to creme thighs semi-concealing pierced flesh in barbs and rings that wind pleasure with pain. It is displayed on defiant faces, prodded noses, ears,
and eyebrows. Predatory winks twinkle below bangs dyed from far beyond midnight blue to bleach blond bordered by bloody hues. I cast fleeting glances at the in-betweens of fishnets over calves driven inside buckled boots.
Creep along close behind me into the heart-shaped gloom, the wooden tomb where we shall partake in the danse macabre of spastic symphonies and bittersweet chants set to an electronic beat. I will relieve the tension in time,
my limbs licking the thick air with serpentine strokes imitating the motions of kaleidoscope patterns winding and collapsing, for we are those few that see every day is a trick or treat in the creation of sin and salvation.
8 Hostile
I stand
bare feet on the concrete
coiling up
a great mess of hair
that 's not really there
off my neck
to set free my heat
from a late afternoon
and the whole wooded scene
is a pastel of green
and I
am the pastel ofblack
like that's real yet she steals my eyes
scratches my shorn calf
fully realized for thigh highs with blue polished nails
9 and a failure of unity
then she
she laughs
but its all the same
meaningless to me as I step onto a nameless lawn grounding my toes
a long ways into the earth searching all the days unseen
for my sanity cowenng in her vanity hole
no doubt
wondering sourly ifhe peeked
under my flowery dress
10 Taboo
so what if I LIKE to be violated let the minutes drag out painfully erotic sensations with each CRACK ofthe strap excites pleasure beads she MOANS and the masters SLAP harder tum around another arousal what artistry with a paddle such kinky perversity cute but evil I hear a skinny incarnation of a house cat say from a plush chair transformed into a table her noisy pink hair bent over the bar snow white skin razed in black all the way to her wrists attached with fuzzy handcuffs thrilled to have the nine-tails SMACK her where x marks the spots
11 of black tape on her nipples short skirts possess my hips to writhe and twist a flash a strobe lights the o-rings of my shackles the dance floor boils over girl on girl fingers curled around their curves guy to guy eye to eye and lips to whatever this drunken underworld not only teases it SEIZES me to a rack strapped down by black satin bound and gagged yet GROANING loudly sex exposed this time a guy spread WIDE open inner thighs blushing red surrounded by onlookers there to see me as a hedonistic dessert where every surface is either well oiled vinyl or creme taught while on display PLEASE Mistress may I have another
12 Double Feature
I have just seen my last movie for a while. A double feature of tragedies with the very end depicting a white porcelain sink saturated red from eyes that stare back instead at her gaping sockets. I know she had only herself to blame. It was destiny from the beginning. By not settling with stasis or dealing with physical changes business could never conclude.
But why the eyes? They do nothing save read and reflect the mirror image. Understandably, the two faces did not wish to agree, one being a place and one imaginary. One for the body, one for the soul. But neither won control of what mind those eyes would stand behind. Her head, better suited for shaving legs, makeup, and polish could not cope with two. She tried anyway no matter that she knew the secret, knew the truth that quickly becomes a prison cell all too easily filled with desperation and pity.
13 Unless she simply stopped being it was her fate
to never escape the label of freak.
Rejections of gender, acceptance, and love because she
could not just be he in reality was hell.
Born with the touch ofheaven then denied for eternity.
No wonder it was filmed in black and white where there is no room for androgyny,
or girls, or friends, or family, when they have to fight their own stereotypes. And so the final blows were self-inflicted.
Fists fractured the looking glass that came crashing down around her, but it was he that picked up the piece and wrestled for release. To spite his face he had cut out her eyes, not so simple as dying, and after the curtain of credits fell I knew no one should force the hand of divinity, forsake he or she to rule by the pronouns bound in skin.
14 Fool me Twice
shame on me is not the why of clothes
it is necessity protection from the stings of creepers and wind or modem things, our need for sex is another one, but not shame - like all other creations on this earth the cotton fields own their name, as does expression, and though time may show off too many scars better to fall out of heaven looking good as a falling star would
15 Hot Pink
the day is a blight on her hot pink dress
lined in black with teardrops drying
and I ask "little girl why are you crying
over the silly notion of lacking breasts?"
but she does not see me then and
later when the mirror lays her hand
upon my chest heaving under sleep
I tell her to breathe in deep and she takes a bold step, lets her hair down, so alluring it jets me off towards a fantasy, like flying, when suddenly I wonder why am I crying because I cannot stop her from repeating
"I am trapped in a boy dreaming."
16 Blue Period
a soul preserved hypnotizes a biomechanic skull eyes rolled
lips pursed a cobalt blood whispering underneath her silicon skin
original sin is reptilian it tips over Bombay Sapphire into the fire
I see stars blue shift wish on one to loosen up a beryl piece of
St. Louis Cathedral through the hole outside nightfall rain
drifts as snow into a well I walk to between green and violet
phallus heads I speak of an ultramarine hell swallowed up by
a sea monster machine the kind in cerulean dreams I plunge
deeper asleep for lost a flood of smut appearing indigo brush
strokes finishing blistered bones mock me talk bitterly of girly guy pleasure those Janus faces in frozen azure traitors the lot shaded grey and black bite back do not let me pass into the sky royal temptations but fallen three stories among teal glass so why not create for me a portrait ofLi fashionably late
17 Over the Gulf
II.
Out the double-pane window at 40 thousand feet there was no retreat to reason, seeing as the night told nothing about which side of the fold was down. Luna hid her robe of stars that guides time along the line it fancied but the flight must have snagged a bit ofblack cotton on its wing unraveling that curtain and exposing backstage. An grand storm ofbattle revealed itself in muted rage. Zeus's bolts ruffled Thor's cloak and outlined layers of smoke in the dark. The clash swung close, the gods warred over America now. The faces of Ares and Shiva flared up behind a shroud of clouds. And there Apophis slithered. And there Amun shivered in lighting locking horns with a foe just out of sight. But as
Odin rode into the melee where Genjo had risen, the page crumbled under the thundering speaker raging from a liquid crystal display.
18 Massacara
Selene behind a marble sky lines her lips in malfoy rouge muses over cake and crucifixions powdered white before her mission she entrusts in Midori's sour empathy in a girlfriend, and zealous apathy about vengeance written by such a vicious flower-
"insanity bewitches me, tugs at my seams till I bleed dreams of a blue holocaust at first light I want to break her open over Athena's armor-"
"try this potion and come sit by the fire"
Celtic beauty, see her shackle easy John's secret with a chemical crunch branding spells on her tongue bitter poison becomes cherries while the dark of the north laughs as she fells soil between her toes, spits spite, hips thrusting from verbal throes as the goddess calls forth-
"she'll be the first to die at our hands"
"catch her in her bower, call her Whore, Mistress Horror, Sullied Tulips, Slutty Mouth, we name her Horny Incarnate the Lecherous Wench, I wish to strangle her with thorns-"
19 "a rose by any other shotgun wound"
"talk dirty murder to me, blood and lust be one-" power becomes passionate delirium they both enflame their embers littering loudly livid images to assassinate John, maniacal Johnny,jello mold offilth caught cold and stiff in mid-defile the scene filling with decrepit glory, slack jawed, in a gory pool of Ganymede green sedatives and a smoking piece
"kissed by a poet fingered by Melody-"
"come here and toke the neon solace from my mouth where the ground and zero meet for we sleep deep in Misanthrope's backyard and mock epiphany"
Selene smashes memories and pictures as the two glitter veined wraiths allure the forest with their flirtatious shadows looming about crying out doom doom to the borderline Johnny, it is only a matter of time till they soil the earth with his perfume
20 Androgyne
I.
Oh you may say that I am a most Wicked one a barbell tongue desiring blood and fire up the streetlights of their night shift sister lives, slender Betty Page wives, but I
II.
I cannot fight my wonder which guy painted in Cleopatra eyes, would sway my way with fire engine obsession I leaned in to say hey lovely wander this way, stay, maybe bum a fag for me to drag
21 III.
To twirl about the chiseled marble statues garbed in clothes colored in the nothing that hollows out souls in capsules I roll up my irises bathe in tantric sound waves of post-contemporary industry
IV.
Let my mind free adrenaline beats until finally entrance the Rapture as Transylvanian concubines whisper to butterflies in fishnets
22 V.
Do not presume I am Queer at least until it resounds with Beers and Steers
I sip a sappy mix of sticky liquor a Captain Ginger tickling, lingering, tingling my nether mazes
VI.
Reach absolution while strapped down, in a haze now I'm bound to identity psychosis
. . a necrosis neurosis right when it all seems to submit ecstatically to my juicy wholeness the music slows
23 Mainlined
unholy three-headed beast smiles till distended syllables file out of her barb she sticks in wake up larger than life arms wide provide another side to spellbind time dare say I am ignorant rant and rave then craving luke warm Lethe never forget that it cost more than memory loss by ruin tossed in her cauldron troubles bubble up sutures pornographic future fortune crystalline missed a line loony and proud of it hung around the lid let it stew till it smells of a mood like two sticks make fire twitch a bit to music written as litany now think it with me what do I have to say a tall tale of lacing voodoo doll violations desecrating childhood clothes what will become of him he spoons her into a syringe black tar words caught in digital wood meant to see the dark through the dark, Daisy, I must rebuild her life from the grave up ready let the rhythm set the stage and go
24 Sycophant
Blood is ever the timeless beauty.
I want it to overflow my empty soul, hungrier than a sailor back from sea.
I skip the spoon and tip the bowl to my lips such is the crimson fire, like a sweet merlot or cherry pop,
I warm my heart with this desire.
And when I fever for a scarlet drop to the point I must bite my tongue
I want even more to have marble skin.
To taste a world without mortal sin, lost in having been eternally young, is to drink from the cup of life, in many ways spilled and left unsung.
25 Manhandled
he is only a memory she found in the beat
of streetlamps fingers linger groping the backseat of the cab long after they've gone, insolent interlopers, beads forsaken by the post-mortem storm each take in like so many scrutinizing eyes her thigh tattoo hiding but peeking high winter clouds crowd her brain, frozen on the horizon it's so cold, but she smothers her face into her furry black collar to counter his contractions between her buckled boots not to mention what he is wearing under her skirt outside the concrete norms for living form a night of artificial life where he dares to hide somewhere in a tide ofwindow light memories she bound in honey
26 Elsewhere
90 percent of my life I live with my eyes closed.
If I am anywhere I am there, just off to the side of the looking glass. The 10 percent left long ago leaving one cushy black chair way back in the comer where she sits with her eyes closed, toes tucked under her thighs.
How could she be standing amidst the hard, hot water, happy, instead of glaring up from under the tub? From above I stare down her dark and bizarre yet beautiful universe created behind bulging doors about to burst with what I don't know until I-
I cannot stand anymore yet I cannot let go, cannot fall with my eyes closed. But to let her leave the drain, equals the last 10 steps to insane.
27 Wendy
Darling, this is a machine. Past my chest plate
a tin can pump, rusty and caustic, clunked when I kicked around a cogwheel of memory washed out in the glare ofthe sun, unlike how aware I am so far from the second star to the right. After little more than that activity
I sat in a chair to see off the day and welcome the night. That was, until now, when I came to know how the heart of me is my shadow.
Only then did I run as fast as steaming pistons can dream till I found you in a window fixing the seam of a dress. Please, I beg you to unfasten me from this mechanical monstrosity so I may lift off of the balcony, free to think happy.
28 Paper Cut
Deep inside me, where I don't know, one speaker confides
he wants to drink all the inexpressible ink with alchemy
and transmute my hand till she can write down her poetic
dream. But no matter how many reams I see, the sex on my
neck won't go away when my self therapy is tested against
how I perceive the whole. I feel the fear rise like a tide of bile.
Don't look back. Forget. Then she reminds him blood and
emotion did not meet by chance. They have always danced the
tango just as the hopeless romantics kiss and tell and sell off
their furniture when the world ends. Power without control
is why my ink flows into a gravity well. To go further is to be crushed like the rush a vampire needs, though is not enough to dress in black clothes the whole summer. I squeal back at them I know this, yet I hear only an echo.
29 Rusty Razor
Good evening. Please, come in. May I offer you some coffee?
I am glad to see you again. Have a seat. Well then, lets get
to the point. I was getting tired of wondering whether
this was a phase, a crush to get over. But as you know
our romance became an obsession long ago. I thought sleep
might help. Yet, no. I lie awake thinking of your touch,
and what else was there to live for? Don't you dare.
I'm not through with you. My fixation runs too deep. To be yours feels like the tingle of dejavu, other lives where my blood runs hot and free, you splitting me open again and again in a love me hurt me affair. Remember when we toppled your iron maiden, well- I needed to see you briefly. I already hear the sirens. You deserve to have it all one more time to know you will always be mine in my hopeless heart. Now, take me.
30 Over the Gulf
III.
The slow moment elapsed. Time sped double, no, triple fast to catch
up with the flight in final approach. But the cars still looked as roaches
would, streaks between old bones retiring to death upon a grid
on synthetic fire in homes that overflowed into the mires. And the
glow rose up to swallow the sky. It is no wonder why people do
not bother to reach for more than a remote, the oblivious coat pulled over their heads. Somewhere in the back their memories passed away leaving naught but the fear that the now and the here were close. From on high they could be seen, one lidless black eye and a flaming smile down the only west coast in the east. Yet no beast saw the house of flies drawn with fake daylight across the beach, being too itchy to get onto their cell and off into their digital hell.
31 Six Feet Under
Here is where
I am resolved to keep on dreaming even after I am gone for in dreams
I live on though I may be no more real than a fictional being the meaning in infinite possibility will grant me the grace and humility to keep on believing
32 Sigil
I still struggle with how to use music to compose my beliefs, or my life, living so close to those that walk in the night and those that are the night.
We forever dance, all at once vaporous shadows, energy, and bone but under the mud of the earth in a crowd, yet all alone as are souls in repose.
I see without sight the blue violets decay as they slip from my grasp and each petal drifts away.
The grace and stomp of dark melody are worth far more after the restless, bleeding heart slows, but when every silver chord of faith is cut I fight to keep my ideas here where there is no rest, beyond breath, and my words are never so weary to speak for those that know how to call me.
33