-translucent woman-
we see her heart
-translucent woman-
and growing fainter
becomes like a cold dark spot in space
blackness blotting out the stars and
pulling in
pulling inward
She folds inward
and disappears into herself
collapsing in her own gravity
And stars streak across time like searing streams of burning light
and mark the face of the night sky
And suns burst with silent swells and beating lashes
And air is sucked from the deepest fabric
of the darkest reach
in the coldest cloud
of the most ancient dust.
And it is this dust that makes her solid,
once more.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Incandescent
I did my best, it wasn't much
couldn't feel so I tried to touch
...
And even though it all went wrong I stand before the Lord of song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah...
The days rolling over into heaps of sand
notes play music, sweet and biting and beads of blood
like rubies in my body a body of jewels and worth and jewels and worth
Don't touch me.
Kneel before the Lord of Love and grovel and beg and uncover yourself from shame and fear and pain and tears and kneel before the Lord of Love.
And when it's right there will be color and maybe butterflies and maybe we'll hear the flutter of angel wings like beautiful turtle doves and we'll all rise with the sun and bathe in white light and sing the sweetness in our souls and drink nectar from buttercups.
And then you can touch me, maybe, lightly, with your finger tips. And that will be all. And we'll watch the white roses wilt and die.
couldn't feel so I tried to touch
...
And even though it all went wrong I stand before the Lord of song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah...
The days rolling over into heaps of sand
notes play music, sweet and biting and beads of blood
like rubies in my body a body of jewels and worth and jewels and worth
Don't touch me.
Kneel before the Lord of Love and grovel and beg and uncover yourself from shame and fear and pain and tears and kneel before the Lord of Love.
And when it's right there will be color and maybe butterflies and maybe we'll hear the flutter of angel wings like beautiful turtle doves and we'll all rise with the sun and bathe in white light and sing the sweetness in our souls and drink nectar from buttercups.
And then you can touch me, maybe, lightly, with your finger tips. And that will be all. And we'll watch the white roses wilt and die.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Song of the Earth and the Body
The Earth
hard and molten
water, tears
rock and ice
warm and cold
and flesh and bone
stench and sweetness
from the sunken caves of
our bedrock morals
spilling red of new auroral
The veil of light in
sunrise – sunset
covers and clothes
bodies reposed in
darkness
rich and ample
soft as fleece or
rough like the gravel--
grovel on the road and bed of the refugee--
holding – running – hoping – weeping – searching – running
scarcely resting
pushing back the gun shots ringing
running from the bullets reeling
people falling reaching slipping
waves of bodies crashing – crushing
into beds of sand and stone that sucks its treasure out to sea
beneath the surface our
hearts are beating
every single human body pumping blood
our necks are warm with rhythmic life
our chests are full of swallowed air
our minds are pressed with lines of thought
our eyes are filled reflecting light
our flesh feels out with drifting sense our sins
of self
and what we know
and what we keep
the waving sins
Promethean fire
and pools reflecting
vanish to vapor as you draw nearer.
hard and molten
water, tears
rock and ice
warm and cold
and flesh and bone
stench and sweetness
from the sunken caves of
our bedrock morals
spilling red of new auroral
The veil of light in
sunrise – sunset
covers and clothes
bodies reposed in
darkness
rich and ample
soft as fleece or
rough like the gravel--
grovel on the road and bed of the refugee--
holding – running – hoping – weeping – searching – running
scarcely resting
pushing back the gun shots ringing
running from the bullets reeling
people falling reaching slipping
waves of bodies crashing – crushing
into beds of sand and stone that sucks its treasure out to sea
beneath the surface our
hearts are beating
every single human body pumping blood
our necks are warm with rhythmic life
our chests are full of swallowed air
our minds are pressed with lines of thought
our eyes are filled reflecting light
our flesh feels out with drifting sense our sins
of self
and what we know
and what we keep
the waving sins
Promethean fire
and pools reflecting
vanish to vapor as you draw nearer.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Run.
I'm going to take your hand
and deliver you from evil.
Run.
Don't stop--
Hold on and don't let go
Run.
sweaty hands
slipping
people slipping
--don't slip--
people falling
never rising
You know you're dead but you keep on going.
You keep going.
You keep going.
Days and weeks
sleeping with eyes open
We do it again--
take my hand, little brother
and cross over
into safety
I'm going to take your hand
and deliver you from evil.
Run.
Don't stop--
Hold on and don't let go
Run.
sweaty hands
slipping
people slipping
--don't slip--
people falling
never rising
You know you're dead but you keep on going.
You keep going.
You keep going.
Days and weeks
sleeping with eyes open
We do it again--
take my hand, little brother
and cross over
into safety
Monday, November 8, 2010
If I had the head of a hawk and the body of Cher...
You'd better watch out, Cleopatra.
I'm going to steal your kingdom. I'll rid Egypt of your tyrannical grin and set myself, instead, upon your throne, draped in scented fabrics and ornamented with gold and jewels. I'll trifle not with make-up. Rather I'll bare my naked face before all of Africa and before all of Rome and before all of Caesars. Eat your heart out, for my flesh is as pure and beautiful as the forbidden fruit of the garden.
In luxury, I'll suck the sweetness of the Cyprus plant and lie a while on top of the flooding Nile, spreading its glossy likeness of the sky across fertile fields. I'll bring the harvest from my bath, my breathing body a sacrifice to the gods of the pyramids--for they please so easily. Drink up, Horus, the hours of my legendary leisure. This isn't Isis, nor Ra, or Osiris. Eternity only lasts so long.
I'm going to steal your kingdom. I'll rid Egypt of your tyrannical grin and set myself, instead, upon your throne, draped in scented fabrics and ornamented with gold and jewels. I'll trifle not with make-up. Rather I'll bare my naked face before all of Africa and before all of Rome and before all of Caesars. Eat your heart out, for my flesh is as pure and beautiful as the forbidden fruit of the garden.
In luxury, I'll suck the sweetness of the Cyprus plant and lie a while on top of the flooding Nile, spreading its glossy likeness of the sky across fertile fields. I'll bring the harvest from my bath, my breathing body a sacrifice to the gods of the pyramids--for they please so easily. Drink up, Horus, the hours of my legendary leisure. This isn't Isis, nor Ra, or Osiris. Eternity only lasts so long.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Song of the Undergrad
Come closer to me,
things in my rented home
shabby and beautiful like the days of my college years
Yield closer and closer and envelop me in the stimuli of the hour;
floorboards creaking like the moan of my growing pains
insulation lacking like the barrenness of my bank account
cold feet
cold hands
cold panes of glass
cold roommates writhing in the throes of monthly hostility
cold bills monthly magneted to a cold and empty fridge
Yield all of these things to the matter of my flesh and rejoice in the tacky and sensual years of budding adulthood
Were all my tuition dollars practically spent on the ruckus of Theatre, what would it amount to?
Were all my grades admirably scored, what would it amount to?
Were all my future plans articulated and tabbed with colorful post-its, what would it amount to?
The 4.0 and the studious and the dedicated and the motivated and the hungry and the lusty and the usual terms. A student like me, and always the usual terms.
I say to you that the piles of lint and hair accumulating on my bathroom floor and on my hallway floor and on my kitchen floor and on my basement floor are more relics of youth than recorded history. I say that I wear my youth and womanhood in the hairs on my legs and under my arms. Damn the razor and its patriarchal conventionality. Damn the infantility of smoothness. I am a woman in my hair and a woman in my sweat.
Neither a pageant queen nor Cosmopolitan daughter am I.
I take no sooner a shower than when I desire, and no less a shower than what I desire...the natural scent of my glorious body is no less magical than the splendor of roses. Than explosions of fire in the sky. Than the first and last sunset upon the planet earth.
When I arise in the morning, sunshine beams from the crinkles of my groggy grimace and birds sing in the heavens. The sight of my white naked body in the bathroom mirror is no less wonderful than the silver sliver of the crescent moon in the early evenings. It is more priceless than any piece of antiquated art cracking with the distortion of age and preservative techniques; encased behind glass. My body is fresh and young. Ripe with youthful vigor. Nourished with the nectar of canned foods and dried noodles.
I am the epoch of 21 years gestation
I am the splendor of my parent's DNA
I am the exemplification of the “glory days”
Every pore excites and mystifies the boys
Every pore excites and mystifies the girls
Where I to behold you, I would praise you with equal exultation, for the freckles on your face and the dirt beneath your nails are remnants of days spent in the sun and hands working to move soil. I say to you, if you choose a life of harvesting carrots over law school, you as wise as Gandhi. I say to you, if you choose to study law and leave the carrots to the recluses of rural and undereducated populations, than you are also as wise as Gandhi.
Have you ever pondered mortality while bushing your teeth? Have you ever scrubbed a stove and uncovered an epiphany of yourself? Have you ever awaken in the middle of the night to find a stranger spooning you in bed? I say to you: these are they days of your most creative and physically attractive years. The presence of your quirks will attract and repulse possible mates; neither hide nor feign anything.
Naturalize your cosmetic face and lounge with me in sweatpants and t-shirts...or if you are male, cast away your razor and nurture a stubble beard and count with me the tiles on the linoleum floor,
the stars in the sky,
the bills on my fridge,
the scars on our bodies,
the socks scattered about the living room,
the cushions on the sofa,
the hairs in the shower.
Convulse with laughter and join me in jovial frippery,
in the brewing of bulk coffee,
in emptying boxes of toilet paper,
in the draining and the rinsing cycle,
in the thawing of cheese pizzas
in the reading of egregious priced text books,
in eating of frozen dinners and the discarding of bags of trash,
in carelessly tossing about magazines and tenderly preserving raunchy cut-out ads of Calvin-Klein models
in the mounting of posters of mountains
in the sorting of second hand clothing
in the steeping of thrift-shop tea pots
in the indulgence of flannel and lace and denim and the indulgence of silky things
and 100-calorie packets
and absurd amounts of ice cream
and secret notes stashed away in dusty drawers
and secret trysts on back yard porches
and picture frames and cork board pins
and laundry bags...soap...and masses of dryer lint
and in clogged sinks and sticky sponges and dirty dishes and broken strainers and dismembered utensils and melted spatulas and ruined muffin pans and the sweet, sweet conundrum of the lowest priority competition...
Happiness is not found in the accomplishment of arduous tasks, but in the naughty, self-serving sensation of procrastination and time well spent.
things in my rented home
shabby and beautiful like the days of my college years
Yield closer and closer and envelop me in the stimuli of the hour;
floorboards creaking like the moan of my growing pains
insulation lacking like the barrenness of my bank account
cold feet
cold hands
cold panes of glass
cold roommates writhing in the throes of monthly hostility
cold bills monthly magneted to a cold and empty fridge
Yield all of these things to the matter of my flesh and rejoice in the tacky and sensual years of budding adulthood
Were all my tuition dollars practically spent on the ruckus of Theatre, what would it amount to?
Were all my grades admirably scored, what would it amount to?
Were all my future plans articulated and tabbed with colorful post-its, what would it amount to?
The 4.0 and the studious and the dedicated and the motivated and the hungry and the lusty and the usual terms. A student like me, and always the usual terms.
I say to you that the piles of lint and hair accumulating on my bathroom floor and on my hallway floor and on my kitchen floor and on my basement floor are more relics of youth than recorded history. I say that I wear my youth and womanhood in the hairs on my legs and under my arms. Damn the razor and its patriarchal conventionality. Damn the infantility of smoothness. I am a woman in my hair and a woman in my sweat.
Neither a pageant queen nor Cosmopolitan daughter am I.
I take no sooner a shower than when I desire, and no less a shower than what I desire...the natural scent of my glorious body is no less magical than the splendor of roses. Than explosions of fire in the sky. Than the first and last sunset upon the planet earth.
When I arise in the morning, sunshine beams from the crinkles of my groggy grimace and birds sing in the heavens. The sight of my white naked body in the bathroom mirror is no less wonderful than the silver sliver of the crescent moon in the early evenings. It is more priceless than any piece of antiquated art cracking with the distortion of age and preservative techniques; encased behind glass. My body is fresh and young. Ripe with youthful vigor. Nourished with the nectar of canned foods and dried noodles.
I am the epoch of 21 years gestation
I am the splendor of my parent's DNA
I am the exemplification of the “glory days”
Every pore excites and mystifies the boys
Every pore excites and mystifies the girls
Where I to behold you, I would praise you with equal exultation, for the freckles on your face and the dirt beneath your nails are remnants of days spent in the sun and hands working to move soil. I say to you, if you choose a life of harvesting carrots over law school, you as wise as Gandhi. I say to you, if you choose to study law and leave the carrots to the recluses of rural and undereducated populations, than you are also as wise as Gandhi.
Have you ever pondered mortality while bushing your teeth? Have you ever scrubbed a stove and uncovered an epiphany of yourself? Have you ever awaken in the middle of the night to find a stranger spooning you in bed? I say to you: these are they days of your most creative and physically attractive years. The presence of your quirks will attract and repulse possible mates; neither hide nor feign anything.
Naturalize your cosmetic face and lounge with me in sweatpants and t-shirts...or if you are male, cast away your razor and nurture a stubble beard and count with me the tiles on the linoleum floor,
the stars in the sky,
the bills on my fridge,
the scars on our bodies,
the socks scattered about the living room,
the cushions on the sofa,
the hairs in the shower.
Convulse with laughter and join me in jovial frippery,
in the brewing of bulk coffee,
in emptying boxes of toilet paper,
in the draining and the rinsing cycle,
in the thawing of cheese pizzas
in the reading of egregious priced text books,
in eating of frozen dinners and the discarding of bags of trash,
in carelessly tossing about magazines and tenderly preserving raunchy cut-out ads of Calvin-Klein models
in the mounting of posters of mountains
in the sorting of second hand clothing
in the steeping of thrift-shop tea pots
in the indulgence of flannel and lace and denim and the indulgence of silky things
and 100-calorie packets
and absurd amounts of ice cream
and secret notes stashed away in dusty drawers
and secret trysts on back yard porches
and picture frames and cork board pins
and laundry bags...soap...and masses of dryer lint
and in clogged sinks and sticky sponges and dirty dishes and broken strainers and dismembered utensils and melted spatulas and ruined muffin pans and the sweet, sweet conundrum of the lowest priority competition...
Happiness is not found in the accomplishment of arduous tasks, but in the naughty, self-serving sensation of procrastination and time well spent.
Epiphany of Lameness
I spent the last two hours washing dishes and scrubbing my stove, and I had the opportunity to be introspective. And I had tiny epiphanies about myself.
1. I haven't watched TV regularly since middle school. The sound of sitcom laugh tracks and intro music--sounds that have become merely background noises-- annoy me.
2. I read required texts for fun.
3. I can't think of a worse way to waste time than by watching cartoons.
4. I like being alone.
5. I hate card games.
6. I procrastinate by cleaning.
7. I can get distracted by something and end up spending hours micromanaging something that doesn't matter.
8. I get turned on by marginal notes.
9. I found myself birthday shopping for a friend on Amazon.com. I was about to buy him a grant writing book. In only stopped because I was inspired to write this blog.
And most importantly...
10. I'm really boring.
This is my public confession. I'm what kids now-a-days might call a "lame-ass." Putting profanity aside, I am bent on making this a positive observation. Maybe there are self-help books for boring people like myself. Maybe I can join a group of middle aged parents or retirees and learn how to play bingo or shuffleboard. It might put some spice in my life. I think I'll pencil that in.
1. I haven't watched TV regularly since middle school. The sound of sitcom laugh tracks and intro music--sounds that have become merely background noises-- annoy me.
2. I read required texts for fun.
3. I can't think of a worse way to waste time than by watching cartoons.
4. I like being alone.
5. I hate card games.
6. I procrastinate by cleaning.
7. I can get distracted by something and end up spending hours micromanaging something that doesn't matter.
8. I get turned on by marginal notes.
9. I found myself birthday shopping for a friend on Amazon.com. I was about to buy him a grant writing book. In only stopped because I was inspired to write this blog.
And most importantly...
10. I'm really boring.
This is my public confession. I'm what kids now-a-days might call a "lame-ass." Putting profanity aside, I am bent on making this a positive observation. Maybe there are self-help books for boring people like myself. Maybe I can join a group of middle aged parents or retirees and learn how to play bingo or shuffleboard. It might put some spice in my life. I think I'll pencil that in.
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