Hannah Mindl

poetry, prose, flash fiction

[hannahmindl]

Late night scribbling (mirror)

 soft petal lips and milk skin She combs her hair with wide teeth Both feet in red dirt, bare skinned under threaded colors on cotton   stomach full of pennies I am a rusted copy of calcium carbon made weary weak   she sweeps the floors with her breath And gathers the tiny white flowers In her pockets, rested with lyric   she hushes her heart. smoothes the fraying of a sullen soul With song against walls of rose   She rises through with lifted feet With weeds in her hair Words on her lips

[hannahmindl]

Sitting on the rain damp couch, I felt the morning chill rise up under my dress. It was biting my ankles, kissed my inner thigh and rested there, lingered north, harshly reminding me. It stung, numbed me fast and I realized I must have left my stockings at doctors. I sat staring at the newly born...

[everythiniseverythin-deactivate]

Who was in the band for the recording of the new record?

Myself, Pat O’Brien and John Muccino. Zach Jones (NauticalSabbatical, A Great Big World) played drums and Ike Guitirez (Cranston Dean) played bass. Guest vocalists were Brittain Ashford (Prairie Empire), Hannah Gittler and Madalean Gauze. A string quartet under the direction of Rachel Gawell performed a score written by John to accompany the entire record.

[dudeinpublishing-blog]

"I left Biology in my third year to study English Literature because I was horrible in laboratory assignments and I always wanted to be a writer. I’m not entirely sure what my plans are for the future because it’s an English Lit degree but I don’t want to be a teacher and I’m not good at much of...

[hannahmindl]

Diamonds

It rains diamonds on jupiter And I am zipping my hair into my skirt And fishing ash from my tangles   And we have turned the clocks back Like foolish farmers sewing seeds Of an earlier us  

And that hour gained by their Twitching dirty fingers Is an hour lost Sixty minutes under five shivering Blankets and three thousand six hundred Seconds of skin

I count them like marbles As I put them in my deepest pocket And almost forget  

The cobwebbed dream On jupiter in the rain we walked back to the car Huddled close like lovers The diamonds filled our ears And overflowered the gutters The pavement looked like royalty And soaking rich And full of jewels

[hannahmindl]

Pomegranate

My fingers are stained purple, an irish berry farmer who rolls tobacco among the rasberries blackberries that feel soft and hairy in her mouth in july, but mine are pomegranates, pomegranate kernels, kissing my fingertips as you watch me break it open into pieces, the kernels falling and swimming among my lap and palms and i think about your blood and how it is most probably the same color, or how i hope it is, and how i may not ever see it, and then i will never know if you are real and flesh and my flesh is real and is yours.  

  We two sit legs crossed at this wooden table for six, im hunched, my stegasaurus spine echoing under my pale grey shirt and it is silent, so silent, i hope i can hear your heart beat and so silent, i can hear the snapping of the pomegranate kernels losing their home and joining mine but I dont worry about you anymore as you sit to my right, because it is already dark outside and i dont want to say anything but feel you, and when we will go upstairs, my fingers bloodstained, i pray you'll say i love how your clothing comes off, and you wont, youll lay and smile because you know exactly how i slip my hands underneath my shirt to expose me and it is no surprise at all and it is not an adventure tonight, especially tonight, the saturday of the visit where you broke me in half (and not sultry), because you stayed an extra night with me, because you send thank-yous to the night sky that i did not leave you there cold and on the december grass far from home, thank-yous for me and my spine and how you know the way my hands will reach for your neck tonight, despite how my heart is completely boiled and luke warm, grey like rabbit meat under my second skin shirt i wore to calm my fever and to show you the skin you almost lost.

  The pomegranate is in pieces now kernels all over the table and me and i stand to get two bowls from the kitchen on my right, and you dont hesitate to stay seated and let me move and i bring the two bowls from the highest cabinet down and i almost cried while you sat there alone at the wooden table for six but we were almost passed that now, so i fill the bowls with rubies as i gently tap the backs of the pomegranate pieces and the kernels filling the bowl is the most beautiful thing ive ever seen and i want to tell you but it would give you too much relief to know i can see beautiful already again so i keep my lips pressed and i cry into the bowl as you watch me burp these pomegranate pieces like little fruit babies, and you see the tears and the kernels mix and you keep your lips pressed because for once you understood this wasnt me but you and it isn't my problem but yours but i didnt mind that you put your hand on my leg because i will always be a sucker for your hand on my leg.

  The bowls are filled and i am no longer filled with tears so i say how lovely it would be to eat these kernels on the porch under blankets, and i catch myself hating myself for being so naturally romantic when all i should really have wanted to do with you is hurt you, but the words escape and your smile is so big, like you think it might be over so i go along and you gather the blankets and i gather the bowls and two soup spoons and you sit in the farthest chair to the right and me to the left, and as i place the bowl in your lap when you are good and comfortable you speak the excitement of a true feast of pomegranates and i havent once thought about the taste, and im still not thinking as i sit and spread the blanket over my lap and the bowl between my legs, how comforting i wanted to think, that anything but you was between my legs but i didnt think it, and i filled the soup spoon with rubies and when they hit my teeth and i broke them and their juice hit my tongue it gave me a heartache and i wanted to kiss you hard and right but the relief it would bring you was too big of a role for me to play, and you want to kiss me hard and right but you don't and that is too big a thing for me to carry so i sit there silent with my mouth full.

       I take my last spoonful with a deep breath and my eyes are wide but i dont let you see them because i do not feel truly whole yet.  

  Your body leaves but i dont let you go because i believe you and i root for you still and as i sit like stone on a couch in a house i dont own and you are miles away, truly i own nothing, and when you put your fingers to a new purpose and to the numbers to hear my voice, your breath is sweet through the phone and stained with sorrys and i dont hate you so with your breath in my ear i stand to make an x with shaky hands on the wall to mark when you are here again and it doesnt lie when it says we are equal in love.  

  And now, sitting to your right on a new homes couch, a whole lifetime has passed and even though we dont share a bed, i dont think of her always and you are talking about our life and you are comfortable with these golden words and when you say you love the name Annetta im sure i cant talk because it is only september and the pomegranates in the barrel are small and deformed, half rotten inside like i was all those nights, but still with our bellys empty of rubies you are speaking in tongues, curved on the couch like a strong crescent moon and you look at me waiting and when i try to speak, the words are awkward like a new born deer with wobbling legs but when i steady my breath and i say something true, you smile and i think about that night on the porch with those bowls and the soup spoons and my spine hot and melting with fever, and how i may be lying to say it was worth it and how i am not lying to say the fever has gone, and i smile at you because i see you are truly here again and your arms are big and i must have stars in my eyes like an old cartoon and i wait for fingers stained with pomegranate juice because we are whole again and we are lucky.

[hannahmindl]

The wild joy of a writhing little tramp

1. 

it is a king-sized bed and we moved how we want to

but it rains down here all the time, see

please please

tear those bloody blinds down

it can hardly see my hands

2.

that little moon is a tramp

that little thing walked all through those trees

and that dust

and like a woman in heat

wriggling and twisting

and it found us

3.

and it striped us hallelujah

the backs of our bodies

like zebra skin

nude through the blinds

and it burned us blind

[hannahmindl]

Lull

morning

i sat in the murmuring shade

of the farthest bench to the left

and the labor of the grass

the sweat of its cut

feverish and

wild

it fills me

swollen and bursting

bleeds through my ears

bleed the stones

and clasps to my bare ankles

goose-flesh

and unsteady for the spring

and i call out for you

cross my legs

uncross them

  afternoon

  the mountains reflect between my sides

my self at their peaks

but isn't it only a page

flat and lifeless

bleed the page

your legs uncrossed

exposed

you sang in pink lips

i called

this isn't your music

this isn't even yours

bit my nails

bleed the skin

  evening

  buried a noose

fit for my inner child,

in the back seat

where I slept

under halogen lights

in a parking lot

of mid july

the rusted frame

burned down and broken

noose under neck

covered in a baby blanket

[hannahmindl]

Winning SideCar Poem! (noun - janitor) (adjective - smelly) (verb - deliver)

The wanting strikes in waves

big blubbering crashing cooing waves

harsh pinks and seventy yellows 

through the empty rooms

with my windows open

  he commands its retreat

trails of green and unholy foam

merrily delivers the want to its rightful place,

spread even over linoleum 

and i am again whole and good

  the janitor doesn't come by anymore

the glorious fever and his calloused hands

the wanting clogs

the smelly kitchen sink 

[hannahmindl]

Part 1-The Rememberer

She stood before the cutting board, on which she laid two red bell peppers whole and washed. The air tumbled in through the window and tangled in her hair, fondled her neck, lingered its fingers along her collarbone, and hid beneath the blue lace bralette she wore today. Distracted by the tender wind, she closed her eyes, accidently cutting her finger with the long knife she held. It was only a small nip but as she grabbed the kitchen towel and held it to her forefinger, she noticed her blood was gone, mixed seamlessly with the juice of the pepper. 

[hannahmindl]

Lunar Lover

       Another sun rose and set while Clara sat on the dirty floor. Beside her, the ashtray overflowed onto the carpet and books about the moon laid round her like a cosmic circle of holy protection. Clara caressed each photograph, moving page to page in every book, shifting her body like an orbit, until the slight touch to a crater had built so much love inside her she shut her eyes tight, not to lose a single one, and in her blindness she sought to find the only key to her night table drawer, where she kept the little glass jar half-full of the moon tears she’d collected for many years now, ever since her first look into her birthday telescope, when her mother told her to hide her moon tears because not everyone would understand. “Darling, my darling,” she whispered to the pictures in her books. Everyday was the same; she’d wake up with stars in her eyes and search for her moon in the daylight sky. Fraternizing with the other girls in her building was never something of interest to Clara; they couldn’t begin to comprehend a love as deep as hers. 

       Generally, by this time, Clara would be out on her front porch, bathing in her favorite kind of light, alone. Her recently acquired longing for human connection was why she left her room today. It was about 8:30 p.m, Tuesday, when she decided to leave those books behind and walk under her beloved along the path in the community garden downtown. Jumbling all she thought she needed in her small blue bag, she left her apartment, letting the door slam behind her. Knowing this was the time of year when he would be there (moon flowers were also his favorite, blooming only in the moonlight), Clara wore her red dress and tied the waist belt extra tight. Looking up at the sky, she walked, arching her neck, searching for the full lover she's been waiting 29.53 days to see. Moved by her memory of the last full moon, when she saw him in the garden, kneeling in the dirt with those flowers and how he looked up at her and smiled, she imagined the full moon was her cupid. Never before had she felt this way for another person, save for her mother and close family, but still, he was different. Overwhelming sensual sensations overtook her body as she stood still staring, finally, at the full moon.

       Prying at it with wide, bright eyes, this man, the one she'd been thinking about, admired her moonlit silhouette. Quietly walking towards her, as not to frighten her out of her gaze,  the one he held in his memory for almost a month now, he watched for twigs lining the pathway. Rushing to her silently.

       “Sorry, but, do you have the time?”

     “Ti---time’s all I have,” she said. 

       Until this moment, he had never looked into her eyes. Void of all nerves, he traced her face with his eyes, first her chin, small and sweet, her lips like spring peaches, her nose, strong and slim, and then her eyes, these orbital eyes. What he saw now was wild and cosmic, something that held his heart in his chest tight and warm. Xenolithic, cratered, sparkling, silver moons had replaced Clara's sensitive pupils. 

       "You don't have to be scared, it only happens once a month," Clara said.

     "Zenith, look up!"

     And directly above them was their cupid, holding firmly to the sky.

[hannahmindl]

Morph

You were breathless and exposed

a life size dream defined

You drew my sleep into your lungs

and I lay falling

  and then you truly and so softly

carved the phases of the moon

inside me as a lover does

a string of colored elephants

took to be my spine

  orchids for eyes

[hannahmindl]

Bell, Book, and Candle

The bed is warm and my knee aches. This is the way I know it’s going to rain. In the late summer heat, cars passing the open window sound like bumblebees whipping the air and the sun fell early that night and the bees, moving into the distance now, are a buzzing memory and afterward the room is quiet except for the ceiling fan. Staring up at the ceiling, I lost count of the blue and green tiles I started counting what now must be hours ago. I lay awake waiting for sleep and the neighbors’ cat has got a new bell. She scurries past my room and through the slit between the door and the wall the moonlight through my window makes that bell shine. She doesn’t like to be touched. The bed is cold where he used to lay.

  “It would have been a boy,” he said. His hand on mine made me go all to pieces, but in the dull yellow light and we were both so tired, it made me quite sick and I never saw him smile again. I thought about that night as I looked at the ceiling. I thought about the echo the door made when he shut it behind him. I thought how that was the last night I was touched, his hand on mine. I don’t care anymore for touching.

  I thought a book might help me to sleep.  I felt for a book underneath my bed. The blind search brought out the one I had bought yesterday at The Strand. The story of two siblings interested me and I sat up straight to level the paper with my eyes, which were very dry and starting to bother me. I felt vaguely like the girl, Franny, but didn’t want to. She was having some sort of awakening with God. The words passed over me left to right and left to right and I didn’t stop reading until the room began to pass over me left to right and left to right and I felt sick and shut the book fast. I let it fall onto the floor and although expecting it, I was startled by the noise it made.

  I turned over. Facing the candle burning slowly, the wax made a hard puddle on the night table. I fetched a cigarette, the last one, out of the drawer filled with crumpled old papers and letters. With my hand on the pillow, I felt the photographs of him I had slipped in the pillowcase so long ago, to keep them close to me as I slept. What rot, I thought, but still I left them there, warm in that pillowcase. I leaned over and lit my cigarette by the flame of the candle. I was too eager and the candle was snuffed. It wobbled clumsily and fell to the floor and the smoke drifted towards the ceiling and the room was dark. I picked myself out of bed, I couldn’t find his ashtray, the one I bought for him, the one with the red hearts that reads so pretty, ‘Je ’taime.’ I let the ash from my cigarette fall onto the carpet. Better I don’t find that ashtray, I thought. Don’t want to be reminded two times in one night. What an awful thing, when a memory that burns visits you twice in the night. Better I don’t find that astray then. I was happy the candle was snuffed. Better not to see the damp gray walls and how I never wash them except that the dark brings the mice out of their homes and without light you can’t tell if they have joined you in bed. Everything needed a wash.

  I was terrifically tired. I thought sleep might be good if it would ever come. The cigarette was burning too fast and I might like another one after this ones finished. I thought I remembered putting one; didn’t I put one in my coat pocket? I stretched my arm as far as it could go, tearing my coat from the back of the only chair and the chair tipped over and there was no cigarette. Half on the floor with all my blood in my head I saw the candle. It sat there on its side like a helpless thing, flameless and still. I thought I’d probably never light that candle again.

[hannahmindl]

Still Life

Sitting on the rain damp couch, I felt the morning chill rise up under my dress. It was biting my ankles, kissed my inner thigh and rested there, lingered north, harshly reminding me. It stung, numbed me fast and I realized I must have left my stockings at doctors. I sat staring at the newly born sun and I felt like honey filled my every cell. Slow and heavy, but not sweet. I haven’t felt much like being sweet lately anyway.

I turned back to face him. The yellowing collar of the shirt I gave him was wet with fresh tears. “You in the passengers seat with the sun in our eyes,” I whispered.

I closed my eyes and imagined what a life we would lead. The pictures swam lazily, all warmed up by hot red, my blood. “A bottle of wine laying at your feet and our hands out the wide-open windows.” He was sobbing now, louder and louder and the pictures grew stronger, fractured by the light on the porch I forgot to turn off. I thought of the wasted money and my palms started to itch. I kept going, “pockets heavy with cigarettes and coins, minds melting with joy, joy, joy” He bit me hard on the shoulder. I could feel the bruise growing under the thin denim jacket I took from my mother. He’s finally weeping. The pictures in my head began to burn like old paper, flames licking wildly at their corners, swiftly, before I could save them. He laid his head heavy on my lap and in each breath our stomachs rose together. Mimicry, I thought. He pushed into my stomach and I held my cries in, biting my tongue and tasting blood. I opened my eyes to try and fight the fire that was eating away at the life I always needed. He asked me if my skin was always this hot.

  “We’ll sleep in a cheap motel but end up all over the floor.”

  This little hint of sex made him smile and I had to hide the way my body cringed. I knew he wanted my hand on his chest. All of a sudden his head felt lighter and his swollen eyes slowly shut. He sat up, mumbled  “swim in the Atlantic.” His voice sounded so true. I looked down at my lap and saw the blood begin to stain my dress. Seeping, dancing through the linen threads with ease. The scarlet ballet.  The familiar knot in my throat became ugly and unwanted,  “skin to skin.” 

[hannahmindl]

Last night (like every other night)

Last night was wonderful, when you came to my steps, your hair dirty and your shoes clean, to see me and only me, and as you walked towards me I felt my skin begin to sweat, a drink in my right hand, your favorite that I had mixed for you (leaving out the ice) hours before you arrived, just to know that you would be thankful for me, and that reminded me of the night you drew me full of dots and lines and arrows, fully nude and made my body look like an ancient map of a mountainside somewhere, somewhere that you probably have dreamed of living, and after you gave it to me, I cried drunk tears and you didn’t understand why, but as you laid in my bed last night, in the night light that poured from my open window, you said the moonlight made you sober and I poured you another drink because only gin makes you touch me.