NEW SHIT

Note: everything on this page is my original work. I have the original documents, so please do not use without asking me.

Insanity

November Elegy

Pulse

Kometka

My Lover, Asimina

Unnameable fruit, scenting loamy marsh forests of my homeland,
untamable, golden with rot
She is sweet, impossible, on my tongue mouth nose-
unplaceable scent, kind god above.
Hands in the cold, hand on my heart, hands on my fucking heart.
Come to my table and bring your hunger-
you shall be fed.

thoughts on a subway platform

On the subway there are people waiting for their train. And I am also waiting for my train, standing in the cool black monument of concrete and motion that we all pretend is not miraculous, and I am thinking of nothing.
Or, not nothing, perhaps; perhaps I am thinking of my work or a child, or I am thinking of nothing, but in an active, conscious way. No matter. For our purposes I am thinking of nothing.
And my train arrives, and I am very nearly late, and it is rather too humid here, and the weather says that it may storm.
And my train is about to leave. And I look out the windows, idly, thinking of nothing particularly. And there is a woman
looking into my eyes,
like a wounded dog looks into the eyes of the beloved friend
who will give them a final rest.

She waits on the platform in plain cheap clothing in an unpleasant shade of beige. Unremarkable.
Like I have the power to save her, she stares directly into me. If it was only a glance it could be forgotten,
but I cannot pretend that she means only a glance. The people on the platform flow past her unnoticing. My train is now pulling away, uncaring of this woman and her impossible demands.
I cannot help you, I scream. The train, it is leaving. It is leaving and I have no power to stop it.
I beg her, weeping: forgive me.
And at the time I am silent because the men of the offices are reading the newspapers to see that the weather says it may storm.
I do not know her.
I will never know her.
In the days that follow I can still feel the eyes of my observer, mournful on the gaps in my spine. On the subway waiting for my train I watch for her. I stare directly into the eyes of those people on the outgoing train, in perverse mimicry of the woman
that on my worst days I think I have unforgivably betrayed in some nebulous sense.
If I knew her I would be free.
It is monstrous potential, potential to be a lover friend mother villain, potential of a cursed woman. I beg her, weeping: answer me.
And my train arrives, and I am very nearly late, and it is rather too humid here, and the weather says that it may never rain again.
And my train is about to leave. And I look out the windows, idly, thinking of only those things which I can understand.
And I am thinking of nothing.

A Culinary History of Genocide

1835
My great-grandmother knew squash and deer and sweet persimmon.
Her skillful hands fed the children of the Cherokee
with kanuchi, winter soup of hickory nut and maple sap
-and she remembered it
frying corn mash far from home
as she mourned the children who died upon the trail.

1848
My great-grandmother knew cassava and goat and mashed yam.
Her knowing voice taught the children of the Yoruba,
And sang as she sliced the hot peppers for efo riro, warming vegetable soup
-and she remembered those songs
As she scrubbed pans in the cramped darkness at the back of the big house.

1915
My great-grandmother knew bulgur and chickpea and apricot.
Her bright eyes smiled on the children of Armenia
And beheld the beauty of a sweet ghapama pumpkin at christmas
-and she remembered that beauty
As she faced another Christmas with her grandchildren dead.

1942
My great-grandmother knew beets and fish and honeyed bread.
Her loving arms held the children of the Ashkenazim
and rolled holishkes, cabbage and meat and sour tomato
-and she remembered how it felt to roll leaves in her own kitchen
As she waited for her family who would never come home.

1994 My grandmother knew pumpkin and groundnut and banana.
Her kind heart cared for the children of the Tutsi. She cared for them when they were sick with ugali, maize porridge.
Her heart stopped the day the Interahamwe shot her at the roadblock and left her to bleed out on the ground.
She remembered no more.

2023 My grandmother knows kousa and lamb and spiced dates
Her undying spirit sustains the children of Palestine
Gone are the days of sfeeha fragrancing her home with the warmth of fine meat, peppers, bread
All that remains to her is the cold comfort of the rubble
-and she remembers her mother and her grandmother and her great grandmother,
Their love, their songs, that way they rolled the pastry to celebrate a daughter's wedding-
Indomitable, unceasing, limitless history-
As she serves too-little rice
To the children who yet live
beneath the shadow of the bombs.

Stranger

My friends agree that I am the most likely among them to be only pretending to be human.
I laugh at this. I don't tell them that we are all only pretending to be human. The word encompasses so much.

A Warning before Arguing with Me

Someday I will be Mature about This

If i ever face the unlikely circumstance of meeting the man in san francisco who outbid me by one fucking dollar at the last fucking second of an antique auction for a oversize lot of instruments including a melodica an army bugle and fifteen woodwinds among *numerous* other items i am going to kill him with my bare hands and i will NOT regret it, and take back the instruments, leaving behind cash, purchasing them fairly and generously from his surviving heirs at the price he paid in the auction when he fucking outbid me like the irredeemable asshole that he truly is. (I would call him a cunt, but i am rather more fond of those than i am of him)
There was an instrument, a tiny instrument, shaped like a little wooden frog in that lot.
That *motherfucker*.

Mourning

We were, for a time, in on the same secret.

One More Time

I Dream of Water

Every night without sleep I can still feel the waves.
I stepped ashore months ago, I am free, I am free
-and every night I rock gently in my low canoe
brought back to the bayou I left behind in childhood.
This old ohio clay underfoot is firm and unshifting
but I have been drowning on dry land ever since.

AXIOMATIC

wild rosebushes planted over by turfgrass
and all the teeth stolen out of coyote's mouth

Crowwoman

No one will ever love me like the coming of winter does- deeper than bone, heartdeep, heartbreaking- cold as life.
They ask if I'm okay and I tell them I'm as good as ever by the office cooler, the closest thing these days to a fireside chat. These days grow shorter and my life turns away from the sun and the day my blood finally freezes I will be glad, I think.
The crows call my name clearer every day
From the alder trees that line my way home
I lie awake on the lingering nights listening
to the wind and the wind and the wind
In time with my heartbeat and the hot aching blood of my hands.
I am tired of only pretending to sleep.
I dream of black feathers, and I am consumed.

A Song Written in Pokeberry Ink

Impossible summer brightness on stalks brushing tops of little-kid heads
Nothing is that purple, surely
Coating little-kid hands in radience, impossible
Filling little cork-topped bottles with rich dark ink
They wrote the declaration in purple, did you know?
I would know, the independence of little-kid hands
Writing letters with a seal to a young love
Crushing berries into blood-rich purple, still little-kid hands
It's carcinogenic, did you know?
A poison to stop your heart besides.
My great-grandmother knew a way to cook it until it lost the purple sting
I still remember
The taste of that little-kid summertime dying on my tongue.

Prometheus at the Yoga Meet

The laws of god and man bind tightly, bind tightly me to darkness in these high halls of learning
Punishing harshly they who light-fingered catch the firelight
With exile from home and countrymen, no sleep for those who steal the sun

I cannot keep the true fire captive here
And so I seek the false, a foolish pilgrim.

Above, far clouded olympian peaks shine out
I climb, hand by hand, to steal the crafted sun
O Hephaestus, god of artifice, grant me skill
For I am no Icarus.
The fire does not love me as it loved him
And so i have hope to make it out alive.
In these hallowed halls fair godkin dance and turn in slow concordance
Their bodies sharper beauty than I can bear to see
And I, Prometheus, at the outdoor yoga meet
Lift an LED candle from the high throne of Zeus
And escape with my sin shining out through the cracks in my fingers

It's probably worth about $2, to be honest.
But It's the *principle* of the thing.
And Prometheus has plausible deniability in *this* story.

No Contradiction

A young man laughs with his friends
All dressed up for the occasion of nothing more than burnt coffee
and joy
He is a simple thing, his swaggering gentleness
he dances without music
and wants nothing less than to have and hold
all sharp edges and dark eyes
A young man who holds no contradiction

A young woman dances with her friends
All dressed up for the occasion of nothing more than swagger
and joy
She is a burning thing, her dark eyes and laughter
She dances to her own music
and wants nothing less than to have the simplicity of gentleness
All sharp edges and held back wantings
A young woman who holds no contradiction

There is a misunderstanding here.

A young man laughs with her friends
All dressed up for the occasion of nothing more than burnt coffee
and joy
She is a simple thing, his swaggering gentleness
She dances without music
and wants nothing less than to have and hold
all sharp edges and dark eyes
A young man who holds no contradiction.

A young woman dances with his friends
All dressed up for the occasion of nothing more than swagger
and joy
He is a burning thing, her dark eyes and laughter
He dances to her own music
and wants nothing less than to have the simplicity of gentleness
All sharp edges and held back wantings
A young woman who holds no contradiction.

Blood-taste

I think if I caught her in my teeth she would cut
through the meat of my cheeks until I could taste
the rust of blood on my tongue.
I think
Standing in the old town antique store boxed in by
tchotchkes and dust I feel more reverence than I
have in years (at the thought of blood-taste)
Coca-Cola signs and hand drills and smiling babes
But I am not smiling now. I have reading to do.

American corn knife. 1910. Steel.

The price is insultingly low, but this blade has never been held by a rich man.

If a coal miner's widow held proud against the world, she could've walked the fields with this.
If a tired farmer was forced to forge herself into a warrior, she could've beat her plowshare into this.
If the reaper danced with a southern belle for one glittering night, she could've worn this, THIS on her black gown.

The handle still has chips of leaded yellow paint.
The steel is pockmarked and the wood is cracked
and I think if i caught her in my teeth she would cut
through the meat of my cheeks until i could taste
the rust of blood on my tongue.
I think
i could cut my heart on her beauty.

i think i'd be okay with cancer

If I was terminally ill I would contribute to science by eating lots of poisonous mushrooms and documenting in detail their tastes. The world deserves to know.

Coyotesong

The coyotes sing to the sirens, and the streetlights shine on the spring peeper's call by the shores of that blackened lake where the algae blooms alongside the wildflowers, and the rain falls as it always has, and the thunder rolls as it always has, because it is spring. The earth still turns and the sun still shines, I swear it, I swear the sun still shines on the children's ballgames on the blacktop and the dandelions blooming through the cracks in the sidewalk, because it is spring. The earth still turns and she remembers the strength she once knew by the bitterns and swallowtails, and the sycamores remember the chestnuts, and the oaks reach deep to their roots, and we will never know oblivion. I swear that we will not, will never, though the sun is shadowed by the flames of that blackened sky, despite it all, the rain still falls, I swear it still falls. Despite it all it is spring, and the coyotes sing to the sirens, the streetlights shine on the spring peeper's call.

A November Prayer

And once more we breathe in the november air.
I'll swear it by any oath you ask me to
Once more
Once more
Once more
Once more
Once more
I'll swear it until it burrows in my chest and replaces my fragile heartbeat
Once more, i swear it, once more
I swear it as a promise and a prayer
The clear air, the prayer, that keeps me breathing
Even in november, this withering time
Once, it was summer
It will be spring, once more
The cold in my life and heart and hope will be forgotten, once more
I swear it

OLD SHIT

sage advice (i think i’m going to be okay)

i was given a sage plant once, in a chipped little pot
might be a strong word for it, “plant”
sage-scented dust with roots, perhaps
i am not always grateful
i forgive myself for this
i was so grateful for it
for a sage husk

i told myself that my gratitude came from the gift
a gift does not have to be good to be good
was it the thrill of the challenge?
if nursing a dry land to health
can be called thrilling
(it can)

the gift-plant on the windowsill will survive this march
i always want rain, but in spring the want hurts
the soil drinks water like a gift
sage-scented dry land
survives the spring

i want for new years in the same way as rain
i count the new years in marches
making a dry land whole again
slowly

sage-life given by a stranger
chipped ceramic plantpot
march-sunlight

april stormclouds breaking night
sageleaves in my teacup

i think i’m going to be okay