Toast to the Senses

I just remembered
you introduced me to
salt & vinegar potato chips
in the supermarket
not yet bought, you said the cashiers
don't care, we pay for it anyway
and placed one on my tongue
it burned like sour cloves
like the thought
of getting caught

And I know, about life...
Here's to tasting freedom

In Disneyland
before the fall of the U.S. curtain
we wore full dress
I was livid when we became
mainstream's movie, judged and watched
as if we wouldn't understand the talk
you pulled black up, to make me laugh
to cover those eyes you hated
But our secret was we
could see through the fabric

And I know, the world is good...
Here's to showing them all

In the depths of high school
low-budget, high-emotion drama
you came with humility
the others talk about me
when they think I can't tell
they say I reek of outside
asked me dark-eyed if you did
I lied; how could I explain
your perfume of spices, trade winds,
onions, and your home?

And I know, I know, Allah loves us...
Here's to incense

More than summer sounds late at night
hazy shouts and carpet-held sobs
your father, he loved my eyes
liked to joke and pretend
I would be his other wife
you asked me, what should we do?
when your mother sweeps bruised skin
under the rug
Revenge made me answer
call the police

Oh, I know, mankind is alright...
Here's to telephone wires

You wanted to hold my hand at school
show friendship as you knew it
Stick-shift lesson at 2am
with sand for shoes
Still: Nothing was so warm-cold
as the Pacific at night
in denim or yards of holiness
seemed like a dream, but we had proof:
salt slipping through our hands
waves like me crashing rarely in your life

And I know, I know, love is waiting...
Here's to manmade distance.

~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~For Peace~~~~~~~~~

Grandmothers I Have Collected: I

On a sunlight-heavy street
she leans brazil nut fingers
down to her wrinkled ankles
adjusting elephant skin tights

she is caught in a freeze frame
by an errant shaft of sun
that catches a dark shadow
just there on her calf

this spotlight reveals
hidden edges and pastel colors
the bruise dissolves into
a faded tattoo

on an eighty-five year old woman's calf

And my mind is off and racing
even while I hide my gaze
behind the glare and dark lenses
there is a story I must hear

mistress of the burlesque
or darling of the circus ring

How did that needle come
to worship glowing brown skin?
lost bet, lover's promise
blood sister's dare?

In my favourite daydream
she comes by it naturally
polynesian baby on the move
tradition rolling off her

like waves off an ancient shoreline

I hold this memory of
unexpected rebellion
twisted flicks of ink
and replay it on eyelids

when I need to see something beautiful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~

Handmade Demons

I want to be insane.

To feel that slow,
sensuous
unraveling
of sanity.

I want terrifying visions to assault me,
swirling their bright colors and
bucking their sharp limbs
like rabid carousel horses.

I want to hear mouthless voices
ricocheting along the halls of my brain.

Maybe then, when I am beyond all hope,
you will not run when I approach you.
Gamboling, strutting, glorying
in my hard-won psychosis.

Will you let me hold you then?
I imagine you admiring the bitter cold I wear.
Reveling in the docile nature
of my touch

When I have lost all reason
you will find endless reasons
to love me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reptile

Every high-noon night
is just cold enough
that he dances to feel
heat move within him.

One body to body collision
is all it takes to break him.
Jarring loose the memory
of coveting hands
slick with sweat
stroking him
dulling his polish.

His sure steps falter
as his body quick-shakes
and he can't meet
even his own gaze
in the mirror.

As he cuts the fingerprints
out of his own flesh
Strata of shame
pile up on the ground
like discarded layers
of reptile skins.

Shells he has outgrown
while searching for a home.
None survive more than one season
The bitterness he swallows
rots them away
from the inside out.

He holds thin husks
up to the light,
turning them over and over;
searching for some meaning.
Seeing runes and figures
in careless scratches.
Finding significance
in the number of scales
he once wore.

Swaddled in a nightmare
his fingers clutch too hard
He wakes to feel dust
sliding between his palms
and waits for dark.

Slithering and slinking
his way across the floor,
he tastes out a rhythm with his tongue
Jagged snippets of shell
bite his heels.

Willfully, he closes pounding ears
to suggestions of ways
- more conventional, more vile -
of keeping the ice
out of his smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~

Godzilla has nothing on this monster... <-- Yet More Poetry

Vertebrae

You are so lovely when breaking.

I see a demon's year of pretending to heal
in the shallow curves of your lips.
Ugly stories you tell so studiously off-hand,
divorced from the vibrations of vocal chords.

Your collarbones twitch out a dance,
moles on your skin forming words.
Patterns shift between each vertebra
parts of your design I must study.

Here is my guilty little daydream:
my touch sliding down your arm,
linking our bony fingers together.
Our hands pressed back to back.

I will apologize for the shocking
temperature of my simple caress.
You may slap me for my carelessness.
But you will use the other palm.

We are a joyously dirty pair.
Who sensed it first? The fates? The muses?
Even with detachment as our motto,
we somehow connect, fit atom into atom.

By 'connect' I mean, not that we two
are complimentary halves of one
gloriously elusive, mythic whole.
Keys to locks and corks to bottles.

We are instead the same half,
If you line us up, hip to defiant hip,
and examine our sullen silhouettes,
you will see our identical jagged cuts.

We can compare whose grooves run deeper,
cut to disguise our fear with bravado.
We face down our demons by fleeing,
playing blindman's bluff on a cliff.

Sweeping our limbs with casual airs,
we reach to burn the sins right off,
remove our cancerous memories by
making love to the greedy sun.

Eyes slitted with pleasure-burn,we
blind-skip over that seductive edge
proving that heavy souls must fall
stripped of all but skeletal hope.

As we lie here, licking our many wounds,
re-feathering wings and sharpening claws,
watching our lover leave us for the sea,
I confess I want you most when breaking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shiver me allegories! <-- More Rhymes

Empty Mirrors

You are a
most ineffectual light,                
aching to shine your
glass heart out.              I would worship you but
In a world filled
with white-hot                you are blind to me.
brilliant suns,
you are a flicker.

You are a
desolate hallway                       
lined solely
with empty mirrors.           I would fill you but
You clean this
reflective skin               you spit me out.
every night with a
toxic solution.

You want to wear
that symbolic ring.
Throwing yourself
at the whoring moon,          I would hold you but
willing to lick
the sweat off his feet        you despise my touch.
and let him
use you as a throne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My friends occasionally inspire me to write poems about them, their situations, their attitudes, etc. To date, seven poems on this site have been nudged into my consciousness through interactions or observations of them. When I say inspired, I mean just that, only inspired. Nothing ever stays true to life for long, especially in my poems.

This is one of those poems. I dislike all but the last stanza. So, I'll keep working on it. Because I love torture.

The A in Egypt

She stands in rigid parade-rest,
but if you squint you can see
the ungainly baby deer bends
of her long-boned limbs.

Neither golden sun
nor amber shaft of wheat
sit trapped in the twisted folds
of her paper-pale hair.

Smoke got caught in two blue marbles
hardened in the depths
of her mother's womb.
The sidhe mined them to form her eyes.

Balancing on graceless, masculine feet
sprouting the curious legs of a crane
she rests her torso
on the hulls of her flat hips.

Harsh sounds alone comprise her voice
dog-cries and shutter-slaps,
even her lullabies grate;
pitch and keen instead of croon.

Scarred cheeks, small breasts;
all of her delicious faults
are made immaterial
by the sheer shock of her existence.

She is real. Her heart races, and falters.
Her soul-filled body is solid.
I am her reflection diluted and disturbed,
broken by a thousand ripples.

I slip through her on my way to hell,
a barely-felt shiver as from a ghost,
as she strides forward, steady and unerring
I forgive her for not stopping my fall.

~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~

Why is this poem called "The A in Egypt", you muse? Well, I couldn't just put the title I wanted, so I ask you...what starts - and ends with - an A and is in Egypt?

Exactly.

Avast and Ahoy, Here There be Rhymes <-- More Poetry

Ribbon

      You are a ribbon,
   flat and two-dimensional.
Your body is lined
with uncompromising wire.
Your folds do not move
  as my supple body does.
    You are flesh and mind
  stretched taut on a stiff frame.

        Your ends are fraying.
      You send out whispy
   fiber feelers, too fragile
and hesitant to connect,
commit to taking a step.
To smoothly twirl your fabric
  to the rhythm of silk
    woven in a sinuous dance.

      Even your tears fall
        silent and salinesque
      in a straight line.
   Your gaze is direct.
And I bend once more
to deliver an embrace,
tuck you into my curve;
  but you will not give.

    I want to shear a diagonal
      across your head and feet.
         Give you a solid end
       and proud beginning.
    Gently, slowly pull out
  your wires, help you
collapse into a soft spiral,
flow into a shifting curl.

But I know you will
 not survive the dance
      without your beloved
  ribbon architecture.
The tense lines of your
rigid back warn me
 you will never let me
    plait your body with mine.

~~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~~

Prose is, like, SO over. Poetry is hot! <-- More Poems

I Have This Gift To Bring

One Year
I made for my family
on Christmas morn early
a magnificent dreamcatcher
glimmering with the dark eyes
of peacock feathers and laughing
with the tinkling of beads.
Its cord was stretched taught
over a tarnished metal hoop

I laid it out carefully
under the tree
shaking with cold and anticipation

Another Year
I brought from the haze of Buenos Aires
an old peso, no longer in circulation,
its Sun face a bright gold,
a proud "1" displayed.
Quartered and attached
to four black strings: you could
pull it apart to make four sharp
necklaces to scratch the unwary

My father's hangs on his briefcase
Mine from my unused keychain
I have not seen the other two since

This Year
I bring them four plates
in the "Talavera" style from Puebla
newpaper-wrapped and carried in
a bag whose strap dug into my shoulder.
Green with fancy edges for papá
Blue and traditional for mamá
Sunflowers and lilies for mi hermana
And the sun and moon for mí misma

Let the food lie plentiful on these plates
and easy in their stomachs
for the rest of their lives.

They have grown used to my
unexpected gifts,
oddly prophetic as they are -
I know that a chance encounter
with any strange item
will make them think of me.

~~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~~

Take Your Time, the Poems Have Just Begun... <-- More Poetry

Photographie

the photo
has her trapped
in a trance
its subjects
mummified
in wedding attire

their grins
their eyes
half-wild;
faces frozen;
embalmed with makeup
and so much hairspray

this image is not even
the core
of human-onions;
the layers have
covered
past imperfections

interactions that
made them decide
to grow together,
thinly meshed,
with the smell
of home

~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~

Feel that tingle creep up your spine... <-- More Poetry

List_serv: UNREADY

~~~~List_serv: UNREADY~~~~

She stares:
Ocean eyes: no sharks, webbed pupils, glossy black.
Impish lips: kissy face, sullen shine, surpise: not red!
Raincloud hair: unsafe frame, earth matted, so curlable.

My lists
are not
like yours

She moves:
Elfin feet: palm tree heels, family birthmark, pale fish.
Ballet arms: imperfect curves, careless tans, fluid flesh.
Smiling hips: rhythm=regained, playful shake, time hungry.

I hope
you don't
mind my asking

He sleeps:
Shadow skin: peaked crevices, no tourists, summer dark.
Moon eyes: model lashes, slow eyelids, spark iris.
Lake body: tight grip, smooth skin, warrior scars.

You took
the very first
one

He speaks:
Cello notes: hiding symphonies, crowded thoughts, swift release.
Soldier's triumph: unadorned words, gypsy prayers, seeking peace.
Child laugh: high tones, no demons, love pushes.

Can I
keep all
of yours?

~~~~~~~~AEW~~~~~~~~