Schadenfraulines

white papers

2007-09-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

Comes this hush

lays me down

coiled breath

wets his eyes

lashes weighted low

unblinking crystals.

The crunch of his press

deceives.

No trace of heavy feet

can I find.

postpartum depression

2006-09-22T20:42:00.000-05:00

after

coit

she crawls inside
the well of his navel

nesting on soft lint
and graying hair
translucent in the absence of light

she sucks her thumb still
at twenty-six
a fixation he appreciates

just moments ago
her toes flooded with hard satisfaction
but now,

now

bony knees greet her chin
to pray their discontent

that happy-feel-good "thang" gone
lost in the cave of dark sheets

she mulls her rage like wine
kicks her heels hard
against the belly of sleep

a faint prick only
felt, his thin eyes blind
to her porcelain rot

not even knowing that
his tangled kiss
was her rescue

Two Elements

2006-09-04T16:02:00.000-05:00

The sweet-n-soured Prince said
before good night,

"Taint everything.
't ain't every thing.

Love evolves,
dissolves the cake in the rain.

The gold ring
slips off frailty,

chokes
fattened calves."

She's warned:
goldfingers rig the gun's trigger

a 9mm snout
locked-and-loaded

the measure of gold-plated love
equals the weight of empty chambers

amorous ammo makes stardust splatter
and somewhere,

Morgana criss-crossed alchemies
draining purity

a dirty distillate only
remains of the Dane.

simmer

2006-08-27T15:58:00.000-05:00

these poets' elixirs

undo my lips

ambered words

simmer slowly

in velvet arms

For Ô¿Ô, Ozymandiaz and C.S. Perez. Three poets from the three corners: East, West, and and what remains. Offering delectable ink for the wet anthology.

Don't be fooled though. These poets aren't confined to the planes of eros.

As Ozymandiaz demonstrates. His beautifully wrought lyric sounds off this week's Ringing of the Bards X. Weaving in the works of others to unravel the heart of a poet, he just may reveal your own weak seams.

repast (revised)

2006-08-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

they fed each other spoonfuls of mangoes
the morning after
carving crescents of yelloworange
with yawning hands

pushing the plate aside
licking the spoon's belly

she is still hungry for the hush in his eyes
that blankets the small bombs targeting her sun

she hordes her words and the silence swells
encroaching on a tabletop neatly set for two
stealing the soft cotton in her voice
that spun him roundround when they first met
(she hasn't spoken in days)

he watched the brown melt out of her eyes
and darken her skin

the fruit perspires between them
her spoon idle
despite wanting to gorge on the promise
of tomorrow

but that would make her fat

so she sits
envying the roomy hips
of the one remaining mango

Chateau Marmont Bungalowed

2006-08-16T16:02:00.000-05:00

When I away to Marmont went
L.A. L.A. L.A.
I flagged a stallioned chariot
to carry me there where Sunset sits.

Draw bridge down across I crossed
L.A. L.A. L.A.
Ushered in by phantom men where
stilettoed feet meet lowered hems.

Wood lobbied chairs in deep I sank
L.A. L.A. L.A.
And drank soft ice in leaded glass
tongue sifting slow the cut of class.

Into their Nile stars bungalowed
L.A. L.A. L.A.
Packed rainbows they as fortune's guests
room serviced sleep, though not rest.

cellar door

2006-08-12T13:02:00.000-05:00

                                                 behind the closed cellar door
                                                             time ferments
                                                          a discarded bowl
                                                          of hollowed fruit
                                                   poisons the bellies of flies

                                     the sidewalk outside sprouts yellow wings

Biting Tongues: A Sonnet for the First Amendment

2006-08-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

To speak of dark and wet and secret things,
gives rise to petered peckers and tapped phones.
Whether entwining limbs or skewering kings,
rough words must not be ground dull under stone.
Well-aimed barbs pierce the breast and bleed
crimson truths that pinch the loins and rend hearts.
The fool for love of country we dire need
not to whisper but to roar the hard parts.
To soak dry linen from an unstoppered flask,
let freedoms surface beneath still moist sheets.
Between the tickles, bites and who licks last
love and liberty reign when minds, not heads meet.
Salute the jester with middle finger extended,
and grasp the unknown as was first intended.

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The Gladiator's Sword

2006-08-03T05:13:00.000-05:00

the petals melt in her mouth
the faint taste of thin suede on her tongue
diffusing a soft lesson

gladiolus: n. sing., latin root "glad" meaning sword

all flowers are not fragrant
or color fulled
or firmly rooted

their limbs tear easily
(the sword lily can be split with pinky fingers)

and frequently
they are abused as guilt offerings
bruising even under rude glances

but still they bloom
in glorious defiance
on the coliseum floor

The Last Lullaby (for Lebanon)

2006-07-31T10:25:00.000-05:00

Pleiades' heart breaks.
All her stars have fallen out of the sky,
a fiery trail of quasar tears.

Her burning hush settles
on the canopy of still skins.
She quiets crying tongues
with soup spoons of dust and dying embers.
Rockabyes babies with diaphanous songs.
Their small hands open for the promise of candy
as she

smothers them in their milk-fed sleep

this tender mercenary weeps moon drops for the dead,
swaddles them in frankincense robes,
lays them down
on pillows of jasmine moss
where they will rise by a jasper river
and cross over.

In memory of the Qana Massacre on July 30, 2006

The following images are accompanied by the haunting arabic song "Yamma" ("Oh Mother"), a tragic lullaby that in some transcendant way makes the suffering bearable--even as your eyes burn while watching.

These are the lyrics:

"Yamma"

Oh mother, my from the winds!
Oh mother, my...
The stab of daggers but not
The rule of the unjust.

I walked under the rain
And the rain quenched me,
And the summer when it came
Set my fire aflame.

The age of the youth remains
A vow for freedom.

Oh night, the horizon has swayed
Witnessing my wounds;
Forget the enemy's army
From all around.

The night has seen evil
Learning by me.

The rifle of the mountain
Is higher than the heights;
Open the road of hope
And hope is in the towers.

My people, no, my heroes
I'd venge you with my eyes.

Oh mother, my from the winds!
Oh mother, my...
The stab of daggers but not
The rule of the unjust.

--thank you to Ashraf Osman for the translation

Anfal ("to take everything")

2006-07-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

you flourished

while thirsting in the blue-black shadow of Babylon
where the sun creeps too close and glares
thrusting shifty prisms upon a young girl
who does not shield her large eyes
or shrinks from the heat

reds and oranges and yellows sought you out
hottened your skin
and you opened your arms wide
overcome with childish hope that you really could
catch them all with cool hands
and swallow them whole
swelling inside with so much beauty

there was no way to hide you

splintered blisses escaped your fingertips
still sticky from picking dates that stained deep-creased hands
the only sign that you would grow old over night
your sway like the cyrillic bend in the Euphrates
stilled tip-toeing antelope
enchanted even crusty poplar trees rooted in salty earth
who fashioned you a parasol of fingered branches
to crown their japheh-draped fawn
and tried to trick the sun

knowing that the sun covets what it creates
knowing that they will not hear you scream
knowing that they will not smell you burn
knowing that the rain will not come

they drop white leaves covering your light foot prints

In memory of Abeer Qassim Hamza, the 14-year-old girl who was raped and murdered along with her father Qassim Hamza, her mother Fikhriya Taha, and her 5-year-old sister Hadeel Qassim Hamza on March 12, 2006 in Mahmudiya, Iraq, allegedly by U.S. forces.

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ecclesiastes (for her mother)

2006-07-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

she stirs.
the lady stirs
beneath the crushing weight of
noble aspirations.
and vain imitations.
her breath cut short
as she is stuck between dusty book ends and
touched in the head
by the plague of envy.
her pillow soiled with disappointments.
Solomon says, no cord of three is she
alone.
wise words from a man who tarried too long
beneath the skirts,
and the gods
of his concubines.

she stoops.
to conquer
these demons of doubt
small as cotton bollweevils
but plentiful.
the patella was not
constructed
for duelling battles
on bended knees.
and she topples over
into soft beds of resignation
lined with nothing less than
300-thread-count Egyptian cotton.
time drops out of her left-handed glove,
as she grieves over
losses deemed trivial by her mother's mothers
and her comfortable surrender, cowardly.

countless hours of Pilates have not prepared her for this!

she staggers.
she tells them, respectfully,
she pleads
that it is all too much for modest shoulders
that do not want to carry anymore,
and selfishly seek
only to be caressed and cared for.
"for with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief."
after her confession,
she wades knee-deep through
the solemn frowns of their corn-rowed gardens.
the rich soil soothes her as she kneels
and buries her head.

she stands.
the Rowe of whispers and prayer cycles sung
(by Alanis Morrisette no less)
resuscitate
and too
the blurred words of her God
that she reads without her glasses.
and slowly
she shrugs off the shifting weight
of the demons who take many small bites
as if she were a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet.
they do not chew their meat when they gorge.
they can't even spell her name correctly.
and they swallow their vowels when they speak.
but, under the shelter of her sun
they blister
and evaporate
and her back grows straight
and strong again,
tipping gently
every now and then.

Something Wondrous This Way Comes

2006-06-25T14:25:00.000-05:00

Now that summer has finally sprung
and while fancies bloom and fade under midday sun
let's join in verbal merriment and glossing gaiety for

BILLY'S RINGING OF THE BARDS

has at long last begun!

Pirates of the Caribbean or When New Shoes Won't Do: An Ode to Colonizing Liberals in the Dominican Republic

2006-06-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

Oh, the likes of them,
the likes of them.
Both
southern-bred and
Ivy-fed.
That they'd wed
is no suprise.
And what better gift for the newly-jewelly weds
than their very own
Louisiana Purchase--
due East of Key West.

Their intentions are not
completely "avaricious."
So Moby says
(but he also sunk--perhaps too soon,
and too easily--one million dollars
into this venture).
Oh say can you survey?
What does a white liberal call the colonizing
and subversive nation-building
of a third-world country?
Why, an "artists colony," of course.
Complete with beach-front bungalows
(only 250 available though;
and absolutely not
to be Meired in white
according to Celerie).

Going, going, gone!
For the low low price of $50,000.
That is, if you are of keen intellect,
and socially conscious
and selectively, if not prolifically,
published
and and and
"cash poor."
But, as Boykin says, you must be
most importantly
"clubbable."

Be advised to do as Boykin does
which is:
Do not drink the water,
Do not speak the language (Spanish is a devilish tongue and pidgin isn't even
a "real" language, so why bother?),
Do not empower the native peoples as partners,
but keep them subservient
as ornaments,
and drunk
on the free-flowing kettle drum rum
and the vapors of aspiration.

And when the parent scolds the child for littering,
as parents tend to do
Let the children respond with a hearty, if drunken,
"fuck you."

Oh Missus Celerie Ma'am,
why bother to "slit the throat"
of this terra firma mistress
When you've already cut out
her heart?

--gosh, I still like this one; wrote it months ago after reading about Boykin Curry & Celerie Kemble's development of THOUSANDS of acres in the Dominican Republic for an "artist colony" as reported in the March 20 New Yorker article by Ben McGrath

seeing red

2006-06-20T15:24:00.000-05:00

Every day dulled.
Never looking up.
Stuck fast in his rut.
Forgetting the sky's surprises.

But Today
when he risks it all
to lift his head high
he is politely offered
the first color of the rainbow.

--written in response to this drawing posted at somethingkaty.blogspot.com; the result of a brief writing exercise she invited the public to share (you just gotta love her); am I misappropriating Katy? i just liked the drawing so very much (more ecraphasis)...it stayed with me throughout the day...and I do need to be reminded at times--especially with all this studying--not to forget to look up...thank you thank you katy and sam brown (the artist) of ExplodingDog.com

Girl with the Pearl Skin

2006-06-16T08:44:00.000-05:00

The girl with the pearl skin
finds refuge sitting in
the crushed velvet flesh of a sagging couch
tucked in the corner of a window lit room
that would inspire the master, Vermeer,
and move his wide-eyed girl
with moist lips forever parted
to blink.

Leaning left
on the arm of furniture well-worn
offers little support
when you're falling to pieces
inside faded dungarees
and comfy tees.
How to hold yourself together
so you won't seep through
the strong fibers of
American-spun cotton?

The hard press of pale lips
will not seal the small cracks.
Everything rests
on the inseams of her right palm
that calms her quiet earthquakes
and keeps her from slipping
outside the frame.

--inspired by the photo pictured; an original painting by
the artist presently known as "C"; and originally exhibited
by Justin at http://conceptofirony.blogspot.com

yellowgreen

2006-06-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Oh how passions flare at sporting fares!

the flush of love, the seethe of hate

from the fist of defiance

or triumph

unfurled

blooms five delicate fingers

dipped in a yellowgreen helix

tip-tapping zabumba beats

sweetly scenting the world.

--ah, me! Yes I am caught up in the Cup. Moreso because of the stew of socio-political issues that feed this event. And though I champion the underdog, Team Brasil is still my favorite. If for raison seulemente: the symbolism. I love feasting upon the mix of colors in the flesh when I watch Brasil. I see all nations in their faces; working in harmony, smartly canvassing the field to achieve their "GOAL!!!"
They are what I wish the world was.

To Cup The World

2006-06-07T02:01:00.000-05:00

fan addicts make
sport of kicking colored men
rather than the ball

goal?

to cup the wet world
in marigold hands of love,
unfold fists of hate

--saddened, but not defeated, by reading about the the taunts
and the jeers and the blows dealt the black players at soccer
games in Italy, Germany and Spain on the eve of the World Cup.
This is for all my Zor(r)os and debuting nations at the World Cup
(Ghana, Trinidad & Tobago, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Iran, etc...)

Pretty Mouth and Brown Her Thighs: In Memory of Josephine Baker

2006-05-30T15:10:00.000-05:00

"Pretty mouth and brown her thighs,"
he wrote on the napkin, just before dozing.
"I get it J.D.," he thought,
for he was knowing
that he borrowed heavily
from the wry author's imagery.

But these were
the memories of her
that stayed with him at
32,000 feet in flight.
Seeing her clearly in
sleep's dark.
Less so in the light.

Mamet got it so right.
When his selling men speak
of screwing their women.
The memory is not of the cock or the cunt
so engaged,
but of other things not so easily erased.
And on the now wet napkin he saw
the swell of her thighs,
the pink-chocolate of her creviced walls,
Hershey-kissed peaks his fingers traced,
while licking the salty bay under her arms,
tugging the pout of her mouth,
smiling upon the moon in her face.

Up here,
caught in the thickness of the clouds,
he still could not escape
traces of her pungent scent
earthy and green like baby eucalyptus leaves
still lingering
on his manicured finger tips.

But as the plane descended
gently by degrees
rousing him from this twilight tease,
he quietly forgot how he refused her sleep,
and preferred kissing
with brown eyes peeking.
He forgot the lullaby in her voice,
the bubble-gum taste on her tongue,
and other candy-sweet memories
for every thousand feet.

Then the stewardess
swept up his mess,
the wet napkin now gone.

And by the time he landed,
his feet firmly planted
once departing the plane,
the well-read man
couldn't even remember her name.

--my experiment with the hybrid of prose, lyric, what I call
"disruptive" couplets, and gender perspective; more importantly,
I think this is a fitting tribute to Josephine Baker on her 100th birthday
(b. June 3, 1906)

Lay Weighed

2006-05-28T19:06:00.000-05:00

Today Kenneth Lay lost his moxy.
He thought he could beat Sarbanes-Oxley.
On six counts they found him guilty,
and nineteen for co-conspirator Skilling.
Oh to see the looks on their faces!
Defense thought they'd played all their aces.
But they'll keep appealing
Ken's fraudulent dealings
While Jeff's only trading in places.

--my limerick inspired by the announcement on May 25, 2006
of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling's
joint convictions

Better Besos: A Post-Modern Lullaby

2006-05-23T12:03:00.000-05:00

Better kisses than punches.
Better kisses than slurs.
Better kisses than guns.
Better kisses than words.
Better kisses than flowers
because all colors fade.
Better kisses than chocolate,
better than anything made.
Better kisses than perfume
because the scent doesn't linger.
Better kisses than toys
broken and lost
by little fingers.
Better kisses than love songs
sung after dark.
Better kisses than all of the
sun, moon and stars.
Better kisses for baby
stirring
and gurgling
asleep in my arms.

The only thing better than kisses
it seems
are tickles and hugs
and cradles of dreams.

--my lullaby for Galileo and Shenandoah (my pretty figments;
and Betty Jean and Joseph, their very real would be grandparents);
and for Alex's son Alex __ IV; Anton's baby just to be; and Amber's
wonder girl Elsa; I love and miss you all

The Little Red Book

2006-05-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Starbucks Beijing
marks the end of

that little
red book

cheaply bound in
stained leather grain

now better worn with
a little black dress

than read
in earnest.

--my "end of history" tribute to W.C.W. and Fukuyama
(remember Fukuyama's premise that history ended
with the demise of communism? yeah, that guy; and I
just dig his name)

The Sum of It

2006-04-28T13:34:00.000-05:00

The malicious ambition
of genocide
is ever a study in numbers;
not nature.
The orchestrated decimation
of millions--
with a calculated efficiency
that would impress Ford,
father of the punctuated assembly process--
makes history.
Not the sodomizing
and near-fatal brutalizing
of a boy
who dared to kiss a girl
with sun-blistered skin
still lighter than his own.

And his story of one,
mindlessly repeated
day after day after day after day after day
adds up
to more than
7,000 Kurds killed in Halabja,
more than
150,000 Sudanese massacred by the Janjaweed,
more than
300,000 Bengalis dismembered in Bangladesh,
more than
500,000 Armenians dispatched by the Ottoman army,
more than
1,000,000 macheteed Tutsis,
more than
6,000,000 eastern-European Jews snuffed out by their neighbors,
more than
10,000,000 Native Americans succumbing to germ
and
socio-economic warfare.
And one lost boy
ad infinitum.

Since before the days of Dinah,
whose brothers destroyed a
tribe to avenge her disgrace,
still have we not learned
while the numbers multiply,
that both the muse
and the monster
in us all
thrive
off one another.

And
like prime numbers
they are not divisible.

--upon hearing of the near-homicidal assault on a Latino teenager by 2 white teenagers for kissing a white girl;
and overshadowed by news of Clooney's appearance on OPRAH highlighting the Darfur genocide (which Colin
Powell, technically, declared in September 2004)

Divining the Comedy

2006-04-24T08:13:00.001-05:00

He stands cool behind the lectern,
deconstructing Dante,
at least, as far as this second language allows him.
But behind the scholar's lips,
lips as sheer as the thin rim
of silk-like stockings,
something burns.

And unlike Beatrice,
as I watch from below,
I witness
this fire
and secretly
wish to be consumed.

His hello was as soft
and breathless as
every "si" that came
with every stroke.
And as he drapes the curve of my back
with the breadth of his hairless torso
and narrow hips,
for a moment
he feels like shelter.

After
we lie
entwined.
"Serpentiata."
Instead of a guide,
she has
found a Fellow who
acquiesces to her kisses,
who thoughtlessly
strums his fingers along her spine
--when he doesn't spank--
and whose silence
shields the lies.

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostral vita."
Time does stop,
of this I am sure,
while our tongues
slither along
still smooth flesh
and she savors the tastes
of tea
and eucalyptus
and the sweetness of fading tobacco
in the wet cave of his mouth.

She aspires to be
"Puro e disposto a salive alle stelle"
but she cannot beat her breast.
Not now.
No,
not while it is snared
in his caresses.

And as I dissolve
moist in his hands,
I realize
I cannot escape
this inferno.

Oh Beatrice,
does God weep
while he watches us?
Does he weep salty tears
that mingle with my own
after he leaves;
after they've left,
and she remains
refraining
Why
"L'amour che muove il sole e l'altre stelle"
has resisted her touch.

So
she
is stuck
between the Rock
and the hard place.
And all she can do
is laugh.

--ciao, mi professore. my lover, though not my love. and with no regrets.

First World - Third World = The Difference

2006-04-24T07:28:00.002-05:00

Who's on first?
Where the bases are loaded
with Prozac
and Captain Crunch,
because a spoonful of sugar
helps the medicine go down.

And when you're down
and refuse
to move
from your bed,
let your melancholy head
think of
little fingers
calloused by the age of five
picking coffee beans in Bolivia;
Or daydream of women too weary
to get teary-eyed
in Malaysia
huddled and hunched and stitching
at breakneck speed
to finish your smartly-priced turtleneck
in deliciously,
edibly-named colors.
Or picture the dark child,
diving for diamonds
down deep like a seal,
armless like a seal,
to capture a treasure
once buried
now broadcast on
your manicured hand.

Or if you find travelling that far
too tiresome,
just lie there
in your bed
or in the sun
(where the notion of "laying out" is practiced only by patriots
whose nationality is never restricted by residence,
and oftentimes extended
as a foreign curtesy
for foreign currency).
And consider this:
What do simple folk do
when they also get blue
and Pfizer refuses to
come to the rescue?

They rise sleepyhead.
They rise.

--my non-proprietary antidote for first world blues