#jenny factor

[poem-today]

A poem by Jenny Factor

Sonnet

There were lies. You knew, but then forgot the child peeking around the corner, hiding from you. Wind sifts through the beechnut arbor. Peripheral, the real story goes trailing moonlike, behind the car window, just beyond view. And how bad is it to have believed the best of your story, or a lover’s; to have rested in that sweetness that is sweetest when forgot: a dog’s head on your lap, fuchsia blooming in a pot, whether tended to or not. Now the child in the closet wonders (frightened, cold) if the darkness will lift before dinner. Hold out your hands, Mother, he thinks hoping. The door swings open. The face is wild.

Jenny Factor

[emphatico]

Custody or Visitation, by Jenny Factor

I am still the woman you love. You are still the man whom I married. But the house is gaping with ghosts, and our son is ready to leave now. Now I'm still the woman with ghosts, mother you loved, child whom you married. And the house gave birth to a son. And the son gave birth to the woman. I am still the man with the coat. You are still the ape with the apron. I am not the ghost in your house. I am the body your body’s afraid of. Bodies crave consistency’s succor. Bodies seek a simpler moral. If I'm not the mind you love now, then I’m not the limb you’ll brush up to. Then I’m surely the arm you brush up to but the strain in the eyes, in the pullback. And our son is ready to leave. Now I’m not consistency’s succor. Will you mother the mother you married. I am not the son of a mother. You are still the ghost in my house. Not loved. Not still. Still yet. And an other.

[peaseblossym]

Song Beside A Sippy Cup

Song Beside A Sippy Cup

Sharing a poem I just read yesterday and totally LOVE. Read it out loud. Seriously. Read it out loud. I love the sounds and how it’s put together.

  Song Beside  A Sippy Cup by Jenny Factor*

  In the never truly ever

truly dark dark night, ever

blinds-zipped, slat-cut,

dark-parked light,

you (late) touch my toes

with your broad flat own

horny-nailed cold toes.

Clock-tock, wake-shock.

  In the…

View On WordPress

[bibliopod]

How I loved each bare floor, each naked wall, the shadows on newly empty halls. By day, my head humming to itself of dreams, I cleaned and scrubbed to make life new; dislodging from the corner, the old moths and cicadas pinned to the screen, the carcasses of grasshoppers dangling from beams, and each windowsill’s clutter of dried beetles and dead bees. But, through each opening, each closing door, the old life returns on six legs, or spins a musty web as it roosts over a poison pot, or descends from above to drink blood in. This is how it happens: the settling in—the press of wilderness returns to carved-out space, to skin

"Settling In," Jenny Factor

[punch-in-the-face-poetry]

"Sonnet," Jenny Factor

There were lies. You knew, but then forgot the child peeking around the corner, hiding from you. Wind sifts through the beechnut arbor. Peripheral, the real story goes trailing moonlike, behind the car window, just beyond view. And how bad is it to have believed the best of your story, or a lover's; to have rested in that sweetness that is sweetest when forgot: a dog's head on your lap, fuchsia blooming in a pot, whether tended to or not. Now the child in the closet wonders (frightened, cold) if the darkness will lift before dinner. Hold out your hands, Mother, he thinks hoping. The door swings open. The face is wild.

[poetrysociety]

Visit our OLD SCHOOL feature to read Matthew Rohrer on Shelley, Edward Hirsch on Keats, Jenny Factor on anonymous, Alfred Corn on Herbert, and Tina Chang on Yu Xuanji.

[hypnotistcollectors]

Pride Diary

1

   Who knew it’s quite all right that I downed three

gin-and-tonics (can’t fit male inside

female part on fanny pack) at four

o’clock the Dyke March day of NY Pride?

Who knew Manhattan streets would liquefy

and lurch with dames sans bras, sans hair, sans shirt

in step with beer-can band led by a skirt-

ed trans in green brassiere, led by the cops

whose sentries are staid as posts with glasses on,

lined up beside the march like S/M tops?

(They seem to think Gay Pride’s this weekend’s yawn.)

(Pit stop at McD’s, can’t clip pack back on.)

Who knew she’d march beside me hand-in-hand

and who’d expect me to remember names

when Liz’s girlfriend saw us and waved “Hi.

It’s . . . Anna”? (CNN shot feed, then frames.)

Booze-stymied by the glare of girls and sky,

how could I choose? Should I grip hand, or pray

wondering: Is today today the day

she’ll let me turn the key, lead her inside?

    2

   Okay, I’m sober now. Today is just

the kind of day she talks but feels no lust.

   3

   Beside her isn’t bad. Fan-stirred, the air

is humid and the theater is packed.

An ear-cuffed thespian tries to fix the cold,

our leading ladies sweat it out in back.

A prim man to my right begins to sneeze.

My nose is in agreement. The perfume

from Queen Mother there could clear the room.

This shadow play across her face is fine.

Her arm’s near mine, which means exactly nothing.

Hope’s hope hums on through separate listening.

That skull, opaque to me as Midland’s vault,

her silky crop, its pepper dabbed with salt —

I chuckle at an apt sardonic line.

Her suede complexion, lifts up, checks the time.

    4. Les Nouvceaux from La Nouvelle Justine

   I don’t love her. She doesn’t love me. Neither

does this waiter who may think it strange

when young girls dine with staid dames twice their age

on salade de Bastille and pain de Sade.

I don’t like sitting by her like wet cloth.

I don’t like restaurants whose queers pawn sex

to the bachelor bunch who want a thrill.

I don’t like dining with my, well, not-ex,

both measuring the humid air for signs

of sparks I see by parts will not ignite.

I’d rather have a knock-down, drag-out fight

that cleared the joint than watch another guy

get spanked by Corset Kris, who’d like to grab

a tit, not spend hip humping hairy thighs.

I’d rather I were twice her age and wise.

I’d spin cruel stories of past day of bliss

then give my own hands covert exercise

and send her home to bed without a kiss.

    5. L’Addition 

       30 for the play and 10 for gins,

10 for two cabs and 40 for the eats,

at least the metro home was freezer-cold,

at least the Broadway Local still had seats

at 96th, the local went express.

I blistered home ten sockless humid blocks

back to my solo digs for solo sex.

I got this poem for my 90 bucks.

      (-Jenny Factor)

[poemfull]

Genderline

(for Nancy)

Love, the diaper’s changed, my son is sleeping. Our knees are touching, jeaned thigh to jeaned thigh. Snow’s through the picture window, and your eyes glint in candlelight, grow wide with listening. The heater knocks. Your alto voice droops downward: then wool’s in fingers, warm cheek’s on smooth neck. A naughty hint’s left of your cigarette, as kisses tumble into me like words. I’ve heard "Love poems are too hard to write: The tale’s all told." Perhaps. But if that’s right, and there is nothing new to us (except for me) first feeling breasts against my breasts, your small, dry hands, your laugh, our jive: there’s my mind whirring, my skin singing my blood beating: alive, alive.

Jenny Factor