PUBLISHED POETRY
all poetry (c) Carlye Archibeque. All rights reserved.
No work may be reprinted without permission.

 

Bio

A Los Angeles native, Carlye Archibeque has been writing, hosting and publishing poetry since her early 20s. In her time on Earth she's held many jobs that provided inspiration for a career in poetry: weapons and tactics ...(more)

 

MY COLUMBINE

I understand the shooters,
looking for a little payback. A lot of people
understand, but won’t say the words, because
speaking would show them the darkness.

Not the dark of night that breaks
at dawn, but the tumor of darkness
living at your brain’s core which cannot ever
be removed, without the loss of your own life.
And you’re not quite ready to go there.

I don’t like sports, or murder, but I
remember the feeling as I watched. Must be
like your favorite underdog team winning.
Just once.

I remember high school: being knocked to the hot tarmac,
fifteen year-old face holding the impression of the rough
asphalt for hours, and the blank stares of the adults
I cried to, as if they had never heard of such a thing.

The same blank stares today on TV, live,
just outside the high school where those boys
tried to cut through the darkness with semi-
Automatics and a mercenary sense of fashion.

Teacher, football player, girl, boy, mother, father…
They had so many names for darkness,
and so few bullets.

 

Published in Social Anarchy #37, The Emma Goldman issue,
and Pearl Magazine, the Summer 2006 issue.

(C) 2006

 

THINGS TO SAY AT A PARTY WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO BE THERE

I love these little mushroom thingies.
I slept with the host after he was married.
I like long walks on the beach at night.
I’ve always found low IQ’s very attractive.
When I was five the baby sitter made me massage his penis.
I can only stay a minute.
White wine gives me a headache.
I’ve never killed a man.
Do you come here often?
I slept with the hostess before she was married.
I fully support our police department.
I wish foot binding would come back in style.
Have you heard the one about the dead poet?
I have herpes but it’s not that bad.
I have a headache but it’s not that bad.
I wish they’d bring out more of those little mushroom thingies.
I really have to be going.

Published in So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach) in 2004.

(C) 2003

 

THE POETS STANDARDIZED TEST

"Suicide is, of course, the opposite of a poem."
--Anne Sexton

Answer the following questions.
Answer even if you don't know the answer.
Points will be subtracted for unanswered questions.

1. Quantitative Ability

There are 60 questions in this section.
Everyone knows that poets are not good at math.
If you are a poet, 60 points will be subtracted from your final score.

2. Verbal Ability

Look for contrast and opposition.
Use the process of elimination.
Read the sentences.
Mentally fill in your own words.

Example:

Mother is to love
As
God is to Sand
Blade is to Wrist
Cat is to Kitten

Be sure your choice is stylistically correct.

3. Tell us about yourself

This section has no rules.
It is the most important section of the test.

Ready.
Begin.

 

Published in Spillway Eleven (Tebot Bach, 2003)

(C) 2002

 

WHY I SHOP

I shop to fill the hole
I shop because
Nancy Regan can
and the homeless cannot
because Kerouac drank
and Burroghs was a lousy shot

I shop because
for that sixty seconds
while I'm deciding
between black and white
South Africa does not exist
Plath dances
and King lives

I shop because
Cash is King
and maybe if I spend enough
I'll be tall and thin and blonde
and dumb enough to believe that's perfect
and the contras are freedon fighters
and Dan Quayle wouldn've fought
and $15 a month to Greenpeace
is enough to save the world

I shop because
if I stop shopping, I'll start thinking
about
six-year -old girls molested by their teachers
and five-year-old boys set on fire by their fathers
and my brothers and sisters tortured daily
for not being white

I shop because
I don't drink or drug myself into forgetting

and now I have
a dress dyed red in Biko's blood
a hat the same gray as Kennedy's brains
on the Dallas street
a scarf the pink of babies' skin laying in trash cans

I shop

I shop and have bought
the sins of my fathers
and wear them around like chains

 

Published in the LA Zine Caffeine and later in the anthology Scream While You Burn: A Caffeine Anthology (Manic D Press) and Social Anarchism #19

(C) 1985