When the sun was only a half I took her out Where the green rocks grow And the water is an impossible staircase She followed my lead I with a hook in my mouth Her nose stuck at the water's edge She watched the flow of broken iridescence I swooped her up and cast away The madcap line burnt creases in my fingers The pain grew as she grabbed for it A flash, a twist and a tail appeared Farther and farther I was drawn Till the whining figure beside Was but a cricket in my tackle box I refrained from hearing And sensed a strike She jumped and curled, Tugging at my strings Yielding is the only satisfaction (obligation) The fish and I were beat A proud and reluctant giver, Humbled to my state She and I left the bank, And crunched leaves All the way back to the highway |
When I was, I don't know, nine or something—it was in the eighties —they had those white fluffy electronic dogs, the ones with the pink bows. They had a remote-control leash that was pink, too, and pigtails right behind the ears. I thought they were the greatest things; in the ads, they showed some small girl in jeans walking the dog down the street and people would stop and comment on it and I thought that was really just the greatest thing ever. I begged and begged for a long time and nothing happened; my parents pulled the old smile, nod and ignore for a while. Then it was Chanukah and one of them was mine and I took it out to the street, smashed it into a tree, and ended our relationship right then and there. My parents felt for me, but that's about all they did. There was no replenishment of anything, and as that had been my biggest gift of the holiday, it pretty much sucked on the whole. I've always hated it when I find that a cliché is true. I mean, obviously they're true, otherwise they wouldn't exist, but when you realize they even apply to you, it kills me, makes me feel so awful and unoriginal I can't even tell you. I had this dream once that I was eating dinner with a few of my friends, and all of a sudden this fucking hand came out of my soup, and I was like, yeah, that would not be normal, and it scared the shit out of me, and I was aware that I was in a dream, like how you know sometimes, and I wondered why I would have this hand-out-of-the-soup thing, like why God would have picked me to send this bizarre fucking dream to, and then I look around and it's like all my friends have these arms coming out, and it was so frickin awful cause then I wasn't even special at all, like God had placed this totally weird and bizarre thing in my soup, but at least it made me different, and then everyone else had one too, it was... terrible... It's not like they didn't tell me I was original, or unique or something. I mean, don't all parents say that? At least that's what I've heard. They were by no means perfect, but honestly, is anyone? I think not. So far as these things go, I suppose I lucked out or something. The point is, it's not as though they deprived me of any of the self-confidence I had. As a matter of fact, my mother called me beautiful every now and then, and I was always a hard worker, if unintelligent, and my dad liked that. What I'm trying to say is that I wasn't shot down from the moment I left the house, like, they gave me a certain amount of durability to approach the world with; we all thought I was set. They never mentioned boys. In retrospect, I guess that's weird. Most girls' parents go nuts on the topic, like really fucking overboard, you know? They just never mentioned it. The subject never came up. I mean, I always knew about the birds and the bees, I just never got one of those, "No matter how much he breaks your heart, you'll always be the wonderful person you are and fuck him"s. I wish I had. I lost all confidence come the first serious boy. There was an immediate loss of identity involved that I didn't even know wasn't always the case for everyone until I went into therapy. But still, that was always the way it was. I gave so fucking much, and they took more and more and then they'd take it all and be left with nothing in front of them, and that would be it, cause they'd realize there was nothing left, only they would get to leave, while I had to stay there and deal with my nothingness and little by little try and rebuild myself, and when it came to the point where I was almost whole again, a new boy would come along, and there you go; no me yet again. It gets tiring, you know? A person can't keep that up for too long. I'll tell you, once was hard enough, but then it just kept happening, and after a while I just gave up on it, on them, on me, or the lack thereof, and I tried to end it all. My roommate found me though, and into the funny fuckin' farm I went. So began therapy. Bet you didn't know that you weren't in charge of your actions, did you? Bet you didn't know that it's all going on inside your head in a place that you can't access while you're awake, that you have no control over. Oh, it wasn't me that tried to kill myself, it was my friggin id, or some shit; I really think it's a total crock. The point is that they, even now, are trying to tell me that this, even something as strong as this, is part of the normal growing process. I don't even get this as my own. That shithead Freud had to come in and customize everything, make it all generic. Oh yeah, everyone's tried to kill themselves, it's only natural. Not even that is mine. I get my hands on the one thing I feel will fix me, make me feel whole or right, and it turns on me, plays with my emotions and sends me fucking crashing. My parents aren't to blame, Freud, I really don't know who is. But I'll tell you one thing, the whole be yourself thing will get you nowhere if you don't have anywhere to start from. |
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pomegranate |
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1 On a plain counter top a promethean pomegranate sits, its surface colored only by a dull red. 2 A pomegranate tree is sporadically placed in an orchard. The delicacy hangs nimbly from the branches. 3 A man breaks from his work and carefully peels away the skin to the ripe red pomegranate seeds within. 4 It was not an apple Eve ate, but, rather, a pomegranate. No wonder she was so enticed. 5 A poor man loves a poor woman and offers her a pomegranate for her affection. 6 My hands are stained vermilion with pomegranate as I eagerly swallow the seeds and their succulent juice. 7 A pomegranate rolls off a table and is bruised by the floor. Its scarlet insides are corrupted by sickly brown. |
8 A peasant was once mistaken for a king; a pomegranate seed was once mistaken for a ruby. 9 The sticky white hearts of the sanguine seeds cling to my teeth as I devour the pomegranate. 10 A pomegranate lies in the rain with small beads gathering on its skin. They stream down the surface and gather in a puddle, mimicking the fruit's cardinal color. 11 Forgive me, father, for I have sinned; it's been five days since my last pomegranate. 12 Fragments of red sit on the knife, which has just slain the pomegranate. 13 A little girl scatters seeds of a pomegranate in fresh white snow. Their intense hue radiates around. |
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The ferryman takes you first through a narrow place.
In time you will pay him another fare, but that is yet far off, and for now this light seems quite enough to blind, and entertain. Max Bean |
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My older sister and I giggled as we pulled various articles of outrageous or old-fashioned clothing from a newly acquired trunk full of dress-up costumes.
In New York City in 1925, at the height of Prohibition, some Irish women in a factory assembled it: one laid out the lacy fabric, one cut it, some sewed it, some sewed the layer of fabric that once went under it, one sewed on the trimmings. They shipped it to "Macy's" where it was purchased by the petite woman named Mrs. Kite. Mrs. Kite's husband, Mr. Kite, had just been promoted, and Mrs. Kite felt that a party dress was lacking in her life. "I had it first!" I yelped, tugging at one end of a blue hat, my sister tugging at the other. "No!" my sister squealed as she wrenched it from my hands. I made sure to jump on the next hat I found, a peach straw hat with flowers. In 1966 Mr. Kite died, and Mrs. Kite, now wealthy, bought a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. When she first moved there, she befriended a young woman called Miss Brandtley, who helped her unpack. As a token of her appreciation, Mrs. Kite offered Miss Brandtley an item of Miss Brandtley's choice from her now extensive wardrobe. Miss Brandtley chose the same dress Mrs. Kite had bought forty-one years earlier upon hearing of her husband's promotion. "Look!" I called to my sister, in awe of a white satin camisole in my hand. She wasn't interested; she already owned something made of white satin. Miss Brandtley only wore the dress a few times, but she kept it for twelve years, until she cleaned out her closet and sent all her old clothes to her cousin in Brooklyn, Ms. Carol Connor. Carol sorted through the clothes, picked out two or three items that she wanted, and gave the rest to her five-year-old daughter Mary, to use as dress-up clothes; among them was the lacy dress, without its under dress. "Ooh! I'm wearing this!" my sister said, pulling at a white lace dress. Ten years later, in 1988, the Connors, while packing to move, decided to get rid of the old trunk of dress-up clothes, since Mary was now fifteen. They left it in the hall with the intention of dragging it down to the street, when they thought of giving it to their downstairs neighbors, two sisters, one three and one six. "Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Carol," my sister said, as we re-entered the living room in full apparel. I echoed her. "You look lovely," Mary answered, as my mother entered carrying a camera. She proceeded to point the camera at my sister. "Wait!" my sister cried. She fixed her dress, placed her arms carefully against the walls and looked piercingly into the camera. "Okay, go." |
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a sea of hair & elbows, eyes & toes
a drink, a laugh, a glance, a smile it's all about the smile face, smile, feet, knees... smile a sea of permed hair & lotioned elbows, lined eyes & polished toes Marilyn Monroe lips & overexposed legs Just like Betty Boop— boop boop a doo well, whoop dee doo for them & their flipping hair & back-stabbing elbows, batting eyes & tapping toes back & forth and in & out and open & closed, up & down with their tapping toes set the pace, speed dial, drum beat, buzzing bees... in the meanwhile with their see-gar, see bar monkey-see, monkey-do see no, hear no, speak no... attitude they change temperature, respond to surroundings like fickle foam chameleons of sorts smelling fear like dogs, retreating back into the comfort of hard, labyrinthine shells like snails, warm embrace, cold white tile, summer heat, seven seas... empty like outer space they radiate like glow-in-the-dark stars —warning: may leave residue on some surfaces handle with care— |
“Rise and shine, my brothers, it's 8:00. This is hot 97, blazin' hip hop and R&B all day long.” Aw, fuck, not again. Not only am I gonna miss English, but I’ve got the illest boner you can imagine. I swear, girls have it easy. They don't wake up from a good dream with their stick shifts at 90 degrees. Shit, I've gotta take a shower and finish this thing off. That's better. A good cleaning of your pipes is always a great way to start the day. What can I rock today, Nautica or Tommy? Which lucky shirt gets to wear me? I've gotta look good if I'm planning on getting with that fly chick Dez. Shit, who’m I playin’, I always look good. Tommy it is. I just wore it yesterday, but hell, who's countin’ ? Just in time for the end of English—and to get a lookover of the hot new sub. If I’d known she was gonna be the teacher, I would’ve shown up hours ago. Check out that ass. There isn't a guy in here who wouldn't want a piece of that. How am I supposed to concentrate when this Pamela Anderson look-a-like is trying to teach us about King Lear and that chick Gonneria? Give us some credit, girls, we can't help that 95% of the time we’re thinking with our joysticks. Two busted girls are talkin’ about how hot Pacey is on Dawson’s Creek. I've gotta admit, he is a pretty gook-lookin' guy—but I'm not gay or nothin’. Joey, now there's someone I'd like to devirginize. Aw yeah. Which reminds me —where’s Dez? I better work my magic on her soon, or else I’m wagging my dog on my own tonight. Fuckin’ A, man, Megan just asked me to chill with her Saturday. Why do girls have to get so damn attached to me? I know I’m good-lookin’ and all, but a hook-up’s a hook-up. There was no feeling behind it. When a guy’s in the mood, he’ll settle for anyone. It’s worth the regret he’ll feel in the morning. Shit—Dez, walking towards me. Act cool. Stay calm. I’m hard as a rock. “So, Dez baby, I was thinking maybe we could catch a movie tonight.” So unsmooth. “Well, I was thinking more like, my place, 10:00... there's no one home till morning.” Ah, her sexy voice, the smell of her hair—I’m the luckiest shit I know! This must be love. |
I am surrounded by heather, pink like a blush yet the color heather is most often interpreted as a light purple. My heather is a pink blush. The hills are embarrassed by my presence. Unnatural, I stand. A column on the summit of an ageless mountain, I am built. The blushing fields have always been there. I feel so natural standing on a mountain, though obviously I am not accepted, hence the blush and the silence. I have heard that if you sit for long enough the birds will sing and the animals will go about like you aren't there. I have never experienced this and I think the animals are smarter than that. If I were a squirrel, I would do my squirrel duty in a field with no columns. I would run. I am left with heather; (no animals) blushing because it can't run away. |
Clank Ca-lank, Pank Pa-tank Cl-utta lutta lutta lutta lutta lut-tut-tut-tutta Gripping my wand, my mallet (my twig), I stroke the iron fence stakes, A block-long xylophone, ringing. Bars to cage the college campus Students, stepping, lugging, watch me Toe tapping sandal tapping sidewalk Faster dashing down the scale. Sounds like a spoon striking soda bottle glass Or the silver chirps of an African hammered drum. I am the blurred musician, gliding over the asphalt. Chh-sh-sh-ch-ch-sh-sh-Shh-ch-ch My stick grinds a brownstone stoop, Hissing, rasping, sputter A sandpaper rhythm. Whispering percussion Friction to the beat . . . Clong-Tong-Ping! Two raps to the parking meter's waist And one to the scalp. Grinning back, Mouthful of quarters, It chimes like a cymbal, a coin . . . But the light winks green to red And the sewer belches "Encore!" Twick! I snap my tune-maker, my baton (my twig), In grand Finale.
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1. Rachel Even when the sun blared in her eyes, she couldn't help dazing off a little, away from her fiancé, halfway buried in this sand, not even hers yet; someone else's for a while. And people that mattered were leaving; people that would soon matter were coming. And her hair was long then, longer than people remember, she was still thin, thinner than people remember. That red bathing suit sticking to that body, like some terrible sunburn, long before anyone else put their arms around her, long before lips touched more than Coke, long before friends were not definite and always around the corner. Long before having some reason to get there meant anything. Long before anyone ever looked back at this picture. Smile. 2. Liz The end of the beginning as they always say, and she can just about force herself to shut out the questions buzzing around, to herself, that unsatisfied desire, secret phone calls. Passion that lives in people and those who are chosen to share it. Where exactly is that girl, whom I always chose? Where will she be? Rather, how can she find herself? And this girl stripes her bathing suit, the way she thinks he likes it, the way we always think he likes it. And pain isn't blind, the bitch has got eyes, you can always see it coming from miles away, but who knows if it'll stop at that yellow light, who knows if tomorrow she won't be begging to go back to the beginning again, go back to where everything was always so simple? Who knows if she'll look at this picture four years from now and consider dialing four digits first? The fear that the line will always be busy, fear that no one will pick up. Fear that she won't be able to smile afterwards, hang it up and go back to writing up history homework. For now though, for this sake. Smile. Even though I haven't told her yet, she knows, she'll still light the candle on my cake, she'll still call for a while, I'll still come over for a while. She might even plead to come back; is it always what's best? Notice how that never applies both ways, I can memorize every feature of her face, but that won't bring her back, and I know where they curl her hair and where she rents her Friday nights. She was meant to be my friend then; she's made to be somebody else's now. |
From the farthest point in time Memories have been stored deep within the cave. Occasionally they wander out Take a deep breath, sigh and stand still Motionless. The sun rises from night And the immaculate forms begin to melt Dripping down into the cracks and crevices Preparing their descent into the nourishing streams The abundant soil siphons them down Filtering Them Through immense boulders. Those that are left have been cherished moments
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it is warm in here and I am curled up loosely like a yellow ball of string curled and softly forming from my first inhuman ring sucking on the darkness as I do most every day for it is very warm in here you see, I am quite marvelous and foreign a fleshly, tailed snail an immovable guppie a fearsome dragon with miniscule arms. I am curled like an autumn leaf drowned in a pool and resting neatly on the pool's soft floor it is wet in here and I cannot think of the act of breathing I cannot conceive of wheezing, heaving my lungs are a cavern such as mermaids play in for it is very wet in here my head is bent to my stomach as if in shame or perhaps for the seeing of something beautiful lurking there perhaps for the glimpse of my cells dividing dividing and cutting splitting and denying accepting and shaping forming and defining gathering like an eager army of spherical, gelatin, prolific things. Oddly, they know their destiny. it is dark in here and my eyes are still cannons too large for their nests too large and so bright, round like grown-up breasts and I marvel at the things I will one day have though it is still dark in here And Then There Is The Pulse my heart is young and still so small it beats and thumps against its walls a tiny bird who flaps in fright of falling through that good cold night of falling, crazy, from the sky when he has just learned how to fly the deep maternal living beat that courses through those sanguine halls and throbs the womb's elastic walls to reassure the fetal seat that all is well when heart is meet And Birth Is Coming Soon |
I have seen a sunflower sitting Like a warrior in a window box Smiling like an angel but inside His fragrant corona, a battlefield. Out of fear for my sight I shied Away from the light of that incendiary Plume, and instead went out into the Night wielding my eyes like a knife. I walked briskly, hiding in the shadow From the beast and the man behind me In a dark suit with a chrysanthemum In his lapel. |
the sign, long since out of commission reads "bar, saloon, restaurant" the neon is not lit all the promise is gone from the façade. it is a ghost of an eatery and in the doorway below the graffiti i can see the faint outlines of another ghost. this one was not closed by the FDA due to infestation but rather removed from this, his natural habitat, due to addiction and is now (the rumor goes) very much substance-free in far rockaway he must be dull now without the dirt caked behind his ears and crusted between his toes and the track marks deep in his arms just as much as part of his personality as his reluctant smile. i can remember, like it was last week, the way the man at the t-shirt shop gave him a free nirvana t-shit because he looked "just like kurt cobain" and i remember easily, fluidly, simply, my reluctance to hug him dirty and unwashed as he was as though his boast that he'd shot up in every four-star restaurant in new york city could somehow rub off on me. and i remember his girlfriend the sweet black-haired innocent who roller-skated in central park and supported her homeless boyfriend's drug habit with equal passive vigor. and i remember that summer (the ghosts are still lingering on west 4th street) precisely, vividly, uniquely, i remember 14 as though it too had moved to far rockaway so removed but so close I can still go back whenever I want. |