I’m soo sad I missed this week’s Poetry Thursday post. I travelled for a little bit and have been pretty crazy this week. But I am on the board of a literary press who does “Poetry in Unexpected Places,” and we recently did poetry in eggs. So I’ve contributed to the Guerilla Poetry idea.

For this week, I did a Cento for class. It’s a collection of lines from other poets. Do you recognize any of them??

Happy Poetry Thursday!

The Incarnate

i rose from the dead just for you, i say finally
to the girl . and her indelible mascara of sadness
would be devastated by the amplification of its own sound,
smudged charcoal in reflection. you don’t want to hear
of letters here. here. home is the fear of size. a word can fall apart. y. e. -
hieroglyphs of belonging. there are no names and dates.
we say little, rehearsing the embarrassment of your crying. the bare
muslin dress like sad wisdom, an induced schizophrenia.
we want our hearts wrung out like rags & ground down
over and over in the sunny field of my palm,
again and again, that private thing. Between them,
my husband’s seed in my mouth, i walk
and as soon as i die, i hope everyone who loved me learns:
good-night, no thanks, hallelujah yourself, go to hell.
let me put you in my mouth and hum sweet tunes:
you kept saying you were always there.

I didn’t follow the post today, however, I like this poem (though I recognize the first line needs a lot of work!!), so here we are.

The Orange

There is no reckoning with god on his omnipotent decisions.
How do you argue with a god who flooded the sperm of his own
creation and gave Eve an apple tree, knowing the sweetness of
the orange would not rot under the weight of a world’s impending sin?

Last night, I attended the Harmony Magazine release party. There were 12 or 13 of us readers, and the setting was Casa Libre en la Solana, a writer’s retreat snuggled amidst the craziness which is Fourth Avenue, one of the local shopping districts and hang out spots in Tucson. Several of the attendees, including myself, remarked about how we had never even seen the place even though we’ve driven, walked, biked past it several times over the past. But it’s there, a little haven in the middle of the city, and honestly, once I stepped foot in the place, I didn’t want to leave.

Around 7:30 when I arrived, there were maybe a dozen or so people milling about, drinking wine or chugging their beers. The atmosphere was mixed with artistic pondering as people wandered about looking at the paintings, and photographs or sat clustered in pairs or small groups discussing whatever needed to be discussed. I, of course, am interviewing Casa Libre. I’d been planning on applying for the writer’s retreat for some time now, over a year, and to me it was more than a lucky chance that Harmony had chosen the place to host their event. I was being allowed to step inside of Casa Libre and find out what the hype is about, if it’s truly as great as all the reviews proclaim.

It is.

But I’m trying to un-infatuate myself with Casa Libre enough to talk about the artists… it’s been a long time since I’ve been grouped with such talented writers. We had essays about cunts and crazy people, poems about a whole range of things, my own Cosby Kid Wisdom in the mix. We heard short stories and memoir pieces. Indeed the reading section was too short for me. I could have listened and listened and listened.

I stayed long after the reading was over, mingling, talking to people who genuinely wanted to know about art, my art, their art. Exchanging ideas with people who love words as much as I do. It would have been a perfect evening if just one person had come up to me and said, “you know that one line… I don’t think it suits the vibe of that stanza,” but there is no thing as perfection. Anyway, I probably would have died from over excitement at that point, so it’s a good thing that did not happen.

I met a lot of wonderful people. I met many talented writers and poets. And I hope to have entered a network of people whose work I enjoy. I am lucky enough to work with someone I consider a wonderful person as well as writer – she has become my first “writer friend.” It seems there are more out there. I hope I can tap into those resources and soak up the spirit that surrounded me last night.

Thank you to all who shared your words with me last night. Thank you Casa Libre for hosting a wonderful event and also for the great things you do over at your retreat. I will be seeing you soon.

So I was in my advisor’s office this morning, and I saw this painting, a Dali, called La Muchacha en la Ventana, and immediately, I loved the image. I couldn’t resist the possibilties. This is a quick sketch of this image, but I thought I would share the work-in-progress as it is. I want this painting on my wall at home.

Happy Poetry Thursday on Friday!

La Ventana

They come, year after year, los gringos
con casas mas grande than
my entire elementary school.
They carry handbags with fancy names
inked in browns and tans or bright, assaulting pastels
on thin bony wrists. They take over
our waters, the calming waves disrupted
by flesh once dimpled, now carved perfectly
smooth, like butter on an antique bagel.
They wear bathing suits, in thin lines across
Their browning skin, silicone
Embraced by rich fabrics, woven by the little
Boy down the street. mama covers
My brother’s eyes, calls the women names
I can’t repeat in English.
It used to be so perfect here.
Now I stare out the window wishing I spoke
Nigerian and could run barefoot in the jungles
Like I used to do on these beaches at home.

Happy Poetry Thursday.

Caravansary

Verisimilitude: their arrival. A patriarchal caravan toting lovely wives dressed in
silk dresses, children suited in tow. A legal separation from the western world.

Anachronistic: a feminine train. Heads low, their little girls like miniature dolls
swallowed by the weight of their inherent ineptitude.

Capitulate: no divorce. clips her husband’s heels, chokes on the bald man’s
smoke. Dust rolls over her thinly veiled feet in sardonic play.

Licentious: licking her lips. Maternally professed dirty habit. Beaten by a
husband for licking in the market square. Lips now chapped and raw.

Ineluctable: this man fortress. Her daughter tugs her finger, wants to whisper in
her ear, neither of them move, eventual wetness, dripping down the little leg.

Pilloried: their arrival. Pissy and pissed. Ignored, until she screams. Octaves
shattering the pistons of daisies in the courtyard. There she was buried while the little lilies wept.

Happy Poetry Thursday on Friday!!!!

Cookie Crooks

I swear these damn Girl Scout cookies are gonna do me in
They send the cutest ones and their thin mint socks, trap you quick
Last year, I promised to put the boxes away, but I’m at it again

How much for the peanut butter? You got change for a ten?
The little crook pulls out a wad of cash, slides a fifty with a lick
Sorry mister, try the cookie pusher over there on the Schwinn

I feel like an old, perverted cookie feign, how did this begin?
I used to have such self control, now I’m just Girl Scout sick
Last year, I promised to put the boxes away, but I’m at it again

I know when I get home, my wife will ask me where I’ve been
She’ll let me hang myself with Samosa lies, all men’s’ wives are psychic
I swear these damn Girl Scout cookies are gonna do me in

Little girl gives me the five boxes, my sad dollar change and then
I’m approached by one of the mothers; her look turns my belly toxic
Last year, I promised to put the boxes away, but I’m at it again

Your wife’s already been here, Johnny. Come on, trade ‘em in
How’d she get here so fast? I hate the mother and her shortbread grin
I swear these damn Girl Scout cookies are gonna do me in
Last year, I promised to put the boxes away, but I’m at it again

This time, i read the assignment and I knew immediately what I wanted to write about. Right now, I am going through a fasting detoxification, and it’s doing strange things to my body and my mind. And so I sat down to write a poem about that, but for perhaps the first time ever, or at least in so long that I don’t rememeber its occurence, I was guided by my hand in such a way that the poem I wanted to write came out as something completely different. And I am thrilled with the results of this definite intervention. Please be aware, this poem is a little heavy.

Happy Poetry Thursday!!

Cosby Kid Wisdom

that dr. huxtable was a damn saint!
taught rudy, me and my thick pony-tailed kin
about parasites and germs and animals
disguised as species with genitalia who
threw parties inside our bodies, who
would excavate our dark, pretty little caves
if given the chance, and leave us segmented
like the remnants of sierra leone. they have
a grand time feeding off the crap we never chose
to give them. the damn buggers must be
doing a jig in this [körper, cuerpo, corpo, corps]
of mine, words separated from the real thing
by a thin white sheet and a flyer on the nearest
bus stop asking working folks and crackheads
with four teeth, and a habit of talking to the air,
“have you seen this poor, stupid ass, little girl?”
cadaverous words scramble her lifeless body
found near the freeway alone with only
a purple scarf tied around a thick braid,
prismatic flesh embedded in nails which had tried
to claw their way to yesterday, to grade school
where you could always kick again if they
tagged you out, and a break up only lasted through
one peanut butter and jelly. i have stood on the side
of that road, day after day, watching the girls pulled
from ditches, and dreams and damn good dick
so that they could take their hot little asses home,
a word meant loosely to describe the place most
appropriate for one to reside when the fantasy is over.
and there isn’t always a difference between
the morgue and 124 w. humboldt avenue.
coroner’s report may list coffee, abortions,
loneliness, a sorry man and burger king as the causes
of death – if they really tried. but what matters are
the sacred walls which have festered with tainted
semen or rusted bullets or certifiable documentation
all inviting those nasty germs inside or perhaps
i have been too optimistic about the whole thing.

because surely, my body knows
like when that pricking starts at the base of my spine
and travels throughout my corporeal freeway,
my body knows. like when her vagina closes up
like a feeding baby who could give two shits about
stewed peas and branded yams, just so that he or she
can never come inside, her body knows. when that
incipient spin causes one second’s hesitation
before the poison travels from the pale powder on the table
to the kill switch in her brain, her body knows.
when she reaches for her child with murder in mind,
her body knows. when he grins and touches the bulge
in his pants, the body still knows,
and well, a bit of knowledge is always a good thing.

Little olivia told dr. huxtable, I know my body, but so
how come, she followed the glowing pipe into someone’s
dark alley to have her larynx massaged by a tender
blade? and how come she lifted her skirt to a pale, stiff
monster, who introduced her to acronyms, and
meningitis and life with working fear? and how come
i know that i will get into the car with that hombre over there
who just wants to take me for a little ride, and some dear
soul will have to tell my mother goodbye for me and bless
that dancing dr. huxtable who made me laugh and put on
a damn good show, but he forgot to give his little girls a cure
for what the logical, human mind just can’t seem to face.

Happy Poetry Thursday!!

OLD HAG

I am getting my hair done in the salon, a hot, melting day, and I am not in the mood. Next to me sits a woman, straight-backed, sitting in her own wooden throne. I say, hey, you, do me a favor. Glance down at your old wrinkled hand. Don’t you see, it is mocha only a few shades darker than my own and yet you turn your nose up at me, like you have shit on yourself when really you are the shit underneath my shoe when I jump from the bottom step and land in the wrong patch of grass. And isn’t it sad, that you could be my granny, hip and chocolate and proud, but also bourgeois and jealous and adorned by diamonds that weigh down your frail hands.

Psst… granny, you know babies are slaughtered in diamond mines.

And I never could stand my grandmother anyway. Why is it you turn your nose up at me? Because I am selective in how I choose to slaughter my locks for the sake of beautification? Is it because I speak, clipped proper like an Ivy League dropout? Is it because I just look so not black or is it because I’ve got the body of a playboy reject, not quite bunny status, where yours is simply rejected? Is it because I am the prime you wasted decades before? Let it go you old hag! This city has molested and mutated my Midwest courtesies, and well, I never much respected my elders anyway. And I’m okay with that. Even better one day soon, I hope you choke on your own bitter teeth.

Let x equal an integration by parts
As I do not wish to be diametrically opposed
You, there, me on the other end of tomorrow
While waiting for the #11 bus which is late yet again.
The street multiplying the silence of muted screams.

Let y equal an image of transformation
Dancing with my panties underneath my pants
Your boss’s toupee upon his head, and not in the
Punch bowl spiked by the least-squares regression equation
Reduced to sitting in the car, banned from dessert trays.

Let 2X+Y equal an integration by parts
Your dirty laundry, my broken vials, a passing grade
In home economics.

Happy Poetry Thursday.

**Update (1/23/07) – With the help of a genius, I decided to change the title from The Fox – a title given to us – to foXY. What do you think?

foXY

She draped the stoop like
chilled wax. They laugh for
her, busted lip framed

by red gloss, ripe fruit
now exposed, rotting
between lust and legs.