ariel-evangeline-baptista

Stretch me out and count me like clouds Say she is vapour Venom, velvet and vermouth With hair of hazelnut rapture Clutch the moments, clutch the moonbeams Clutch the stretched out skies of cloud and mustard gas sunset Sing she is a child of trauma Supressed in the name of breathing Violence in the name of skin And she is venom, velvet and vermouth She was born to pink salt lakes in the low country With ruby pomegranate eyes And hair of hazelnut rapture Girl with the soul of a thousand pilgrim journeys Girl with the soul of a blackberry bush Girl with the soul of olive trees and sheep meat and oven bread in the fire country Human smiles And other dark things of value She lies like velvet She lies in the name of supressing traumas In the name of breathing She bleeds like a billion stars bleed vapour She is venom and vermouth With hair of hazelnut rapture She is the sum of a thousand pilgrim journeys The prayer of holy rivers in the canyon country The smoke of incense burned by sages The scars of bodies burned by crusaders in mustard gas chambers Goddess of Nuclear energies Red-eyed like ruby pomegranates Like the dewy cauldron of morning When tenuous steps lead bodies down the path of executionary revolution To boarders, frontiers, walls of white-skin scar tissue Sing songs of Babylon in the free country Clutch the moments Clutch your breaths and hold them in broken palms Clutch the tides and teach them Breach your rib-cage, unstitch and return the borrowed bones Melt the metaphoric thrones Breathe backwards in the name of unsupressing traumas In the name of truth Stretch me out and count me like clouds Girl of angel-breath ambition Soul of blackberry bush and smile of splintered terracotta tile Sing your songs Say she is vapour

0

Jan 26, 2017

Jan 26, 2017 at 1:32 PM UTC

Self Portrait

Stretch me out and count me like clouds Say she is vapour Venom, velvet and vermouth With hair of hazelnut rapture Clutch the moments, clutch the moonbeams Clutch the stretched out skies of cloud and mustard gas sunset Sing she is a child of trauma Supressed in the name of breathing Violence in the name of skin And she is venom, velvet and vermouth She was born to pink salt lakes in the low country With ruby pomegranate eyes And hair of hazelnut rapture Girl with the soul of a thousand pilgrim journeys Girl with the soul of a blackberry bush Girl with the soul of olive trees and sheep meat and oven bread in the fire country Human smiles And other dark things of value She lies like velvet She lies in the name of supressing traumas In the name of breathing She bleeds like a billion stars bleed vapour She is venom and vermouth With hair of hazelnut rapture She is the sum of a thousand pilgrim journeys The prayer of holy rivers in the canyon country The smoke of incense burned by sages The scars of bodies burned by crusaders in mustard gas chambers Goddess of Nuclear energies Red-eyed like ruby pomegranates Like the dewy cauldron of morning When tenuous steps lead bodies down the path of executionary revolution To boarders, frontiers, walls of white-skin scar tissue Sing songs of Babylon in the free country Clutch the moments Clutch your breaths and hold them in broken palms Clutch the tides and teach them Breach your rib-cage, unstitch and return the borrowed bones Melt the metaphoric thrones Breathe backwards in the name of unsupressing traumas In the name of truth Stretch me out and count me like clouds Girl of angel-breath ambition Soul of blackberry bush and smile of splintered terracotta tile Sing your songs Say she is vapour

46

i am not beauti- ful but I am free and that is so much better

0

Sep 6, 2016

Sep 6, 2016 at 10:28 AM UTC

Haiku - Free

i am not beauti- ful but I am free and that is so much better

3

Although I have loved posting on Hello Poetry the past couple years, I am transitioning to a blog format as a means of sharing my writing. The link is https://letrangerechezelle.wordpress.com/ I look forward to future creative collaborations and criticisms from my hello poetry family. Thanks for everything so far.

0

Jun 19, 2016

Jun 19, 2016 at 11:23 PM UTC

New Blog

Although I have loved posting on Hello Poetry the past couple years, I am transitioning to a blog format as a means of sharing my writing. The link is https://letrangerechezelle.wordpress.com/ I look forward to future creative collaborations and criticisms from my hello poetry family. Thanks for everything so far.

4

Amethyst and evaporating Counting down the seven days before I disappear again; Dissolve into a shooting star And lose myself along the fractured horizon Bleeding white tea Drowning in debt and memory Elegant, apathetic, re-shattered Remembering. I pull the summer back up over my face Like white sheets so quietly in the morning Sunlight streams in The beams crosshatch our scavenged posters and prints The home we built ourselves Slowly etherized, erased Reduced to amethyst and onward. Stretch out the time and I will spend it gladly Budgeted and rationed beautifully One year boils down to seven days And here is how I count them out: Sitting on couches wrapped up in rainbow blankets, Throw pillows I chart these days on a map; Meticulous. One by one they follow each other in perfect order Like stupid wandering sheep Progressive Blinded and bleating ****** ****** Numbered, they lull me to sleep Sweet seven of them These days I count in wine glasses I count them in hours and smiles and tears Every second of my battered year Counted like clouds on the spring lilac sky-scape Days counted down in popcorn kernels and ice cream cones In laughlines and scars, in lavender scones And showers and trips to the gym and dishes in the sink I count my days in vanilla candles and scratched records And papers and poems and midterms and paintings Polaroid photos and the deep breaths we take between moments I counted every moment But now it’s amethyst and over. Purple like the city skyline in the spring sunset light Jasmine, indigo, magenta And you and I Our apartment White walls we plastered in memory All the homes I never had blurred together Filtered through this glass prism And projected in progression Here is violet Here is vanishing rapidly With what velocity the end races towards us Another melting mauve goodbye to add to my resume of heartbreaks Strong scent of hot magnolias We lay maudlin in burgundy wine And purple rain. I sit hurting how I always do Mourning like death’s an opportunity Mourning like I’ve already moved on How it cuts me to go How it’d break me to stay This amethyst year so sharp and sparkling It scraped and stained me Left me shades of purple like our night sky shining With constellations overlapping Loved and loathed in suffocating lavender limelight The winds whisper only of how I adore you all I so adore you. This is who I am for seven days And just only seven Here we are gemstones, Dissipating salty starmatter Fleeting amethyst crystals Evaporating into oblivion.

0

May 14, 2016

May 14, 2016 at 6:39 PM UTC

Amethyst (April)

Amethyst and evaporating Counting down the seven days before I disappear again; Dissolve into a shooting star And lose myself along the fractured horizon Bleeding white tea Drowning in debt and memory Elegant, apathetic, re-shattered Remembering. I pull the summer back up over my face Like white sheets so quietly in the morning Sunlight streams in The beams crosshatch our scavenged posters and prints The home we built ourselves Slowly etherized, erased Reduced to amethyst and onward. Stretch out the time and I will spend it gladly Budgeted and rationed beautifully One year boils down to seven days And here is how I count them out: Sitting on couches wrapped up in rainbow blankets, Throw pillows I chart these days on a map; Meticulous. One by one they follow each other in perfect order Like stupid wandering sheep Progressive Blinded and bleating ****** ****** Numbered, they lull me to sleep Sweet seven of them These days I count in wine glasses I count them in hours and smiles and tears Every second of my battered year Counted like clouds on the spring lilac sky-scape Days counted down in popcorn kernels and ice cream cones In laughlines and scars, in lavender scones And showers and trips to the gym and dishes in the sink I count my days in vanilla candles and scratched records And papers and poems and midterms and paintings Polaroid photos and the deep breaths we take between moments I counted every moment But now it’s amethyst and over. Purple like the city skyline in the spring sunset light Jasmine, indigo, magenta And you and I Our apartment White walls we plastered in memory All the homes I never had blurred together Filtered through this glass prism And projected in progression Here is violet Here is vanishing rapidly With what velocity the end races towards us Another melting mauve goodbye to add to my resume of heartbreaks Strong scent of hot magnolias We lay maudlin in burgundy wine And purple rain. I sit hurting how I always do Mourning like death’s an opportunity Mourning like I’ve already moved on How it cuts me to go How it’d break me to stay This amethyst year so sharp and sparkling It scraped and stained me Left me shades of purple like our night sky shining With constellations overlapping Loved and loathed in suffocating lavender limelight The winds whisper only of how I adore you all I so adore you. This is who I am for seven days And just only seven Here we are gemstones, Dissipating salty starmatter Fleeting amethyst crystals Evaporating into oblivion.

75

The ambivalent affect of a cold cup of tea On a snowy day, late March When everything rings of life and death and urgency Like our elliptical elections With their Messiah complexes Mundane Like Thursday desks and tables Green tea tainted with undertones of unwashed coffee Lingering in the pores of mugs The politics of shame And all the things I wish I told you (I wish I had told someone) But cyclical realities are ultimate realities And I've chosen mine already Woven with interchanging self-destruction And re-composition Re-construction Resurrection. Pain. Dull, dualistic And dripping from my forehead Did I mention Thursday? Did I mention scars? Shall we move to new and different places And leave ourselves behind? Burdens like sticky, heaving blackberries Molten, melting, gooey, globbed together and leaking Through the cracks in my straw basket Heavy. Dropping berries walking paths to places Falling like blood-bombs One by one on the white-brick Walking silence into sunsets And never looking back at the Rotting plasma carnage That marks the roads I travelled What's left are leaves and stalks and thorns A basket dyed dark red and sticky Me, poised and paralyzed Gasping, gagging, groping in my liberation Homesick For places that never existed That never will Crying stories that never happened Fearing creatures never born Blisters and bruises, Beckoned to oceans In the soft-tide I saw my future In the undertow, my past Riding the waves with crystal foam And diaspora trash All my chunky sins intermingled with salt and seaweed. Questions burn me Bind and blind me Battered and bleeding Left helpless on the floor And they yell Learn faster! Learn better, learn well! If pain leads to the deepest learning Then I will know so very much Muffled and maimed I'll sink in it Drowning, Docile in the knowing of things. Facts and figures Factors, functions, fractions And formulas Here are the things I know Splintered, smiling, basking in their blinding light They’re my diamonds, my precious disasters. They are my welcomed death. Eyes open and perceive Taking stock of the surroundings A blood-burned path of blackberries and scar tissue My knobby-spine leaning against a tree trunk Sea breeze, and my aura Free-floating but defeated Affected ambivalently by these words By worlds Spirits and bodies and Torn flesh and minds Still always cold questions Still always early Thursdays Walking Working Willing to draw more breath Willing to keep walking To keep working To keep breathing And bleeding.

0

Apr 9, 2016

Apr 9, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC

Blackberry March

The ambivalent affect of a cold cup of tea On a snowy day, late March When everything rings of life and death and urgency Like our elliptical elections With their Messiah complexes Mundane Like Thursday desks and tables Green tea tainted with undertones of unwashed coffee Lingering in the pores of mugs The politics of shame And all the things I wish I told you (I wish I had told someone) But cyclical realities are ultimate realities And I've chosen mine already Woven with interchanging self-destruction And re-composition Re-construction Resurrection. Pain. Dull, dualistic And dripping from my forehead Did I mention Thursday? Did I mention scars? Shall we move to new and different places And leave ourselves behind? Burdens like sticky, heaving blackberries Molten, melting, gooey, globbed together and leaking Through the cracks in my straw basket Heavy. Dropping berries walking paths to places Falling like blood-bombs One by one on the white-brick Walking silence into sunsets And never looking back at the Rotting plasma carnage That marks the roads I travelled What's left are leaves and stalks and thorns A basket dyed dark red and sticky Me, poised and paralyzed Gasping, gagging, groping in my liberation Homesick For places that never existed That never will Crying stories that never happened Fearing creatures never born Blisters and bruises, Beckoned to oceans In the soft-tide I saw my future In the undertow, my past Riding the waves with crystal foam And diaspora trash All my chunky sins intermingled with salt and seaweed. Questions burn me Bind and blind me Battered and bleeding Left helpless on the floor And they yell Learn faster! Learn better, learn well! If pain leads to the deepest learning Then I will know so very much Muffled and maimed I'll sink in it Drowning, Docile in the knowing of things. Facts and figures Factors, functions, fractions And formulas Here are the things I know Splintered, smiling, basking in their blinding light They’re my diamonds, my precious disasters. They are my welcomed death. Eyes open and perceive Taking stock of the surroundings A blood-burned path of blackberries and scar tissue My knobby-spine leaning against a tree trunk Sea breeze, and my aura Free-floating but defeated Affected ambivalently by these words By worlds Spirits and bodies and Torn flesh and minds Still always cold questions Still always early Thursdays Walking Working Willing to draw more breath Willing to keep walking To keep working To keep breathing And bleeding.

90

Fall and follow down the river Walking the sacred streets in silence How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth I wrote lies with causal power Constructed the material from ideas Spoke over the waters and found land Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath And get on a plane Green busses down cobblestone lanes Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace Fall and follow down the river A brown bench, Balding fog Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence Repeat her prayers Chant her mantras Sing her hymnals Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter Down the river Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great Like eighteen razor blades Shot through the sunrise Bitter fruit of memory merciless No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control But I hail Mary nonetheless Fall and follow down the river Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current So seal your lips with black clay And do not cry For there is nothing more to mourn Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory Tremble tell me I’m forgiven In your white robe anointing oil Tell me I’m the chosen one Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See, Oceans of archives, history, prophecy, Frankincense and myrrh, Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs Jump off bridges Fall and follow down the river An eye for an eye And a stitch for a stitch Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters Masala chai and sunshine Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores Embrace the snow Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood Donate freely. Fall and follow Down the river To the sea Salt water heals all razor blade wounds Even the self-inflicted The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer Like cups of strong Masala chai.

0

Jan 15, 2016

Jan 15, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC

Masala Chai

Fall and follow down the river Walking the sacred streets in silence How imbued with the ethereal mist of prayers are these tables These wooden chairs I sat in and wrote the diaries of my youth I wrote lies with causal power Constructed the material from ideas Spoke over the waters and found land Eat a candy cane to cover the scent of rolled tobacco on your breath And get on a plane Green busses down cobblestone lanes Follow them like purple orchids on the terrace Fall and follow down the river A brown bench, Balding fog Sit like kneeling at the altar of the saint of childhood innocence Repeat her prayers Chant her mantras Sing her hymnals Ritual tower chimes with hell’s fear behind it Rope and brass that dare not fall or falter Down the river Ripples like innumerable green eels screeching through the sacred heart of our Lord and city centre Mornings like Masala chai and sunshine How infinite and unceasing the heartbreak of those who love too deeply How inevitable the prolonged fall of the great Like eighteen razor blades Shot through the sunrise Bitter fruit of memory merciless No amount of sacrifice can atone for the imperfections that lie beyond the boarders of my control But I hail Mary nonetheless Fall and follow down the river Mother Mary cannot hear over the pounding power of the current So seal your lips with black clay And do not cry For there is nothing more to mourn Morning comes ripping down the track like a freight train Tarantula clouds and sunbeams scamper over the sockets of your log-laden irises Bleeding indigo from parallel razor blade canyons Filled with the ghosts of things you were never promised Masala chai oversteeped like the strong scent of river memory Tremble tell me I’m forgiven In your white robe anointing oil Tell me I’m the chosen one Incense and ****** knees from kneeling at sandpaper pews Getting drunk of Eucharist, the Holy See, Oceans of archives, history, prophecy, Frankincense and myrrh, Frankenstein, the Light, the Vine and highways through the suburbs Jump off bridges Fall and follow down the river An eye for an eye And a stitch for a stitch Mile for mile river prayers define and drown me Thick slabs of scripture separate me from my sisters Masala chai and sunshine Vaseline and pale northern light clear the black river clay from your pores Embrace the snow Teach yourself to love the suffocating questions that burn and blind you Retroactive sacrifice still requires fresh indigo blood Donate freely. Fall and follow Down the river To the sea Salt water heals all razor blade wounds Even the self-inflicted The choices you make to be good or great are swallowed in the moon tide Sticky tie-dye bruises erase themselves with time and prayer Like cups of strong Masala chai.

68

To these Babylonians Oh father, and I am a child of Abraham Daughter of salt and desert Daughter of the sun blazed beige dream mountains Who roll together like sleeping dinosaurs In the archives of my memory. To these Babylonians And I have withheld from them my true name For their tongues are not fit to pronounce it Written in black stardust across my ankle Branded like the wandering sheep In the blue hills drowning in yellow gnats and cloud. My father taught me how to survive Babylonia By the seaside the shore was covered in Transparent jellyfish and dark ocean weeds Abraham inhaling foamy salt waves Preaching black oil, blood and fire Preaching this, Babylonia When foreign lands resemble home When homes revert to foreign land. When earth and sky and water do not remember you When you do not remember them Singing still in the salty undertow Treble clefs caked in the cracks of my bones Barefoot fire altar, sticky sunbeam fractures Progeny of Abraham Singing sacrifice Stolen seconds folding themselves into eternity. To these Babylonians And I am a child of Isaac Violin strings shouting with the river Jacob whispered all rivers and all rivers Flow to Rome And all salt water tastes of home Find me in the poison current of the obsidian ocean Jellyfish seaweed and petroleum-slurred sands My father Abraham sang many songs.

0

Dec 2, 2015

Dec 2, 2015 at 5:17 PM UTC

Salt Stained Babylonia

To these Babylonians Oh father, and I am a child of Abraham Daughter of salt and desert Daughter of the sun blazed beige dream mountains Who roll together like sleeping dinosaurs In the archives of my memory. To these Babylonians And I have withheld from them my true name For their tongues are not fit to pronounce it Written in black stardust across my ankle Branded like the wandering sheep In the blue hills drowning in yellow gnats and cloud. My father taught me how to survive Babylonia By the seaside the shore was covered in Transparent jellyfish and dark ocean weeds Abraham inhaling foamy salt waves Preaching black oil, blood and fire Preaching this, Babylonia When foreign lands resemble home When homes revert to foreign land. When earth and sky and water do not remember you When you do not remember them Singing still in the salty undertow Treble clefs caked in the cracks of my bones Barefoot fire altar, sticky sunbeam fractures Progeny of Abraham Singing sacrifice Stolen seconds folding themselves into eternity. To these Babylonians And I am a child of Isaac Violin strings shouting with the river Jacob whispered all rivers and all rivers Flow to Rome And all salt water tastes of home Find me in the poison current of the obsidian ocean Jellyfish seaweed and petroleum-slurred sands My father Abraham sang many songs.

38

Hair burned into beautiful submission Face acrylically defined and chemically composed Adornments meticulously chosen Scent tested and approved Smile practiced and performed I am a porcelain doll Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment Porcelain doll dainty wrists Washing dishes, feeding cats Folding linens, singing hymnals Praying for peace and safety Porcelain doll knitting sweaters And folding paper cranes Reading poems, setting tables Wearing cardigans and pearls Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes Lighting scented candles Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth  But lipstick can be dark Eyes lined black as city alley ways There is anger at injustice The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house It’s messy It’s hard It’s iron and concrete and coal And I am too Biking through the brick metropolis Sunglasses and headphones And anarchist literature Evenings spent sprinting through the smog Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city So hard to impress I’m on the metro Eyebrows structured and defined And adorned with a calculated air of apathy See me social justice march Down highways with fervently entitled youths See me armed against misogyny Until my peers learn to better conceal it See me smoking cigarillos Drinking black coffee Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me And chanting manifestoes. But my manifesto can be love And love can conquer anger and fear And hatred Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity And it can abolish resentment Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth. I burn incense And wear long skirts Naked face and braless lazy days Reading pacifism in the park I walk far to find pure air to breathe I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy Under a wise and ancient tree I trace myself backwards and forwards I meditate on the paths I have traveled I cry for the things I have seen And for the things I have done I contemplate transcendence I drink wine and listen to folk music On the terrace of my home I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room I think only of death And resurrection Of betrayal and redemption Of opposites and compliments And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize I think about minimalism and materialism Sentimentalism And swords and pens And how this race I run was rigged from the start I think about blackberries And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation I think about God, And TS Eliot And If I dare disturb the universe I think about porcelain dolls and ****** activists and ***** hippies I think about war and peace and politics About corruption and poverty and imperialism About western ideals and conspiracy theories And communism I think about being radical, And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear The absolution of fear And how I am fairly certain it is the answer I think about the inevitability of art and war how they create each other how they destroy each other inspire each other and annihilate each other and how there is nothing that is innocent. I think about pain and privilege And stacked decks of cards I think about dreams and nightmares And prophesy. I think about the darkness within me Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal The darkness that I know could make me very great But alone in the ashes of the world I think of the curse of wealth and power And I try to evaluate my motives And the driving force of my ambition But I don’t know. I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand And toil and fate and destiny The shape of these things, their origins and culminations And what this black box of secrets contains. I think about so many things, Until everything I was on the outside is gone. My body is gone My painted face and sculpted hair My varnished nails and pierced ears All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone My blood evaporated My brain an invisible energy in the wind. My home and street And city Are gone. And even in such complete concentration When it is only my essence and nothing else And I transcend throughout my past and future When I am spread thin And stretched into the corners When I fill the cracks and crevices And melt into the pores of everything And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality Even then, Scio Nihil I know nothing. .

0

Nov 29, 2015

Nov 29, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC

Manifesto of love and obsessive compulsive introspection

Hair burned into beautiful submission Face acrylically defined and chemically composed Adornments meticulously chosen Scent tested and approved Smile practiced and performed I am a porcelain doll Sipping tea, at 6 am in the quiet of a sleepy-city apartment Porcelain doll dainty wrists Washing dishes, feeding cats Folding linens, singing hymnals Praying for peace and safety Porcelain doll knitting sweaters And folding paper cranes Reading poems, setting tables Wearing cardigans and pearls Porcelain doll decorating cupcakes Lighting scented candles Watering potted plants and humming childhood lullabies With my porcelain painted lipstick mouth  But lipstick can be dark Eyes lined black as city alley ways There is anger at injustice The world outside the confines of a pastel doll house It’s messy It’s hard It’s iron and concrete and coal And I am too Biking through the brick metropolis Sunglasses and headphones And anarchist literature Evenings spent sprinting through the smog Heartbeats synchronized to the crude drumming of the city So hard to impress I’m on the metro Eyebrows structured and defined And adorned with a calculated air of apathy See me social justice march Down highways with fervently entitled youths See me armed against misogyny Until my peers learn to better conceal it See me smoking cigarillos Drinking black coffee Breathing the tainted air of the city that birthed me And chanting manifestoes. But my manifesto can be love And love can conquer anger and fear And hatred Love can reconcile, it can erase timidity And it can abolish resentment Let it wash my face and take the need for vengeance from my spirit Let it replace the thirst for power with thirst for truth. I burn incense And wear long skirts Naked face and braless lazy days Reading pacifism in the park I walk far to find pure air to breathe I sit and deconstruct my dichotomy Under a wise and ancient tree I trace myself backwards and forwards I meditate on the paths I have traveled I cry for the things I have seen And for the things I have done I contemplate transcendence I drink wine and listen to folk music On the terrace of my home I bike barefoot to buy Indian takeout And eat it in silence on the floor of an empty room I think only of death And resurrection Of betrayal and redemption Of opposites and compliments And how to progress in knowing how divergent pieces of myself can learn to harmonize I think about minimalism and materialism Sentimentalism And swords and pens And how this race I run was rigged from the start I think about blackberries And the complexity of their literary and symbolic significance I think about the number seven as I see it reoccurring in every possible sequence and equation I think about God, And TS Eliot And If I dare disturb the universe I think about porcelain dolls and ****** activists and ***** hippies I think about war and peace and politics About corruption and poverty and imperialism About western ideals and conspiracy theories And communism I think about being radical, And how both sides of this ideological war are defined by fear And I think about love, as radical but defined by the absence of fear The absolution of fear And how I am fairly certain it is the answer I think about the inevitability of art and war how they create each other how they destroy each other inspire each other and annihilate each other and how there is nothing that is innocent. I think about pain and privilege And stacked decks of cards I think about dreams and nightmares And prophesy. I think about the darkness within me Tendencies to lie and manipulate and steal The darkness that I know could make me very great But alone in the ashes of the world I think of the curse of wealth and power And I try to evaluate my motives And the driving force of my ambition But I don’t know. I think about grace and all the things I don’t understand And toil and fate and destiny The shape of these things, their origins and culminations And what this black box of secrets contains. I think about so many things, Until everything I was on the outside is gone. My body is gone My painted face and sculpted hair My varnished nails and pierced ears All my clothes and appendages and freckles are gone My blood evaporated My brain an invisible energy in the wind. My home and street And city Are gone. And even in such complete concentration When it is only my essence and nothing else And I transcend throughout my past and future When I am spread thin And stretched into the corners When I fill the cracks and crevices And melt into the pores of everything And my spirit is awaked to a dimensionless reality Even then, Scio Nihil I know nothing. .

135

Diaspora From the Greek When I heard the word I felt it And I looked it up In my old red dictionary I could have used the Internet, I suppose But I like to run my forefinger down pages Of words I read the definition And I felt it Oh Oh We are diaspora. Am I using it correctly? We are a diaspora. Diaspora From the Greek From the green valley of Ottawa From Scotland From Ireland on wooden boats From the French village thirteen children From the mines in the North From Poland and from Germany From the churches and From the Blueberry patches From the Island Manitoulin From the dark lake Kagawong From Kinburn and Arnprior From Markstay and from Sudbury From Waterloo From Kitchener, Michener From the Suburbs Oh From the Suburbs From the red bricks, red currants And geraniums From green island cabins From the desert Oh From the desert From the potholes and pipes From the salty wind Cracked Caspian Sea From the middle of the east of nowhere. From the mountains Oh From the mountains From the crystal water fountains From the tram bells On the cobblestone streets From the torrents of the Rhein From the white cross Oh From the white cross On the green hill From the river Laurence From the French and from the English Plains of Abraham We are diaspora We are a diaspora Diaspora From the Greek How did it end up here on my tongue? It is diaspora. It is a diaspora Diaspora is a diaspora And I wonder if it misses its other pieces The way that I miss mine Ours There is no Roping us back together now There is no Home to go back to There is no Point of meeting Of reunion No White steeple in our old town No Yellow slide in our backyard No Old folks on an old farm No Walled house on a hill No Luzernerring 93 No Familiar riverwater There is no Ancient Greek anymore Diaspora Only fragments of fragments Of roots of stems of words In different dialects There is no Place for you to belong, Diaspora You’ve been sliced to pieces And scattered Into the wind But When people ask you Where you are from You say simply From the Greek Oh From the Greek And When people ask me Where I am from I say simply From the diaspora.

0

Oct 19, 2015

Oct 19, 2015 at 10:50 AM UTC

From the Greek

Diaspora From the Greek When I heard the word I felt it And I looked it up In my old red dictionary I could have used the Internet, I suppose But I like to run my forefinger down pages Of words I read the definition And I felt it Oh Oh We are diaspora. Am I using it correctly? We are a diaspora. Diaspora From the Greek From the green valley of Ottawa From Scotland From Ireland on wooden boats From the French village thirteen children From the mines in the North From Poland and from Germany From the churches and From the Blueberry patches From the Island Manitoulin From the dark lake Kagawong From Kinburn and Arnprior From Markstay and from Sudbury From Waterloo From Kitchener, Michener From the Suburbs Oh From the Suburbs From the red bricks, red currants And geraniums From green island cabins From the desert Oh From the desert From the potholes and pipes From the salty wind Cracked Caspian Sea From the middle of the east of nowhere. From the mountains Oh From the mountains From the crystal water fountains From the tram bells On the cobblestone streets From the torrents of the Rhein From the white cross Oh From the white cross On the green hill From the river Laurence From the French and from the English Plains of Abraham We are diaspora We are a diaspora Diaspora From the Greek How did it end up here on my tongue? It is diaspora. It is a diaspora Diaspora is a diaspora And I wonder if it misses its other pieces The way that I miss mine Ours There is no Roping us back together now There is no Home to go back to There is no Point of meeting Of reunion No White steeple in our old town No Yellow slide in our backyard No Old folks on an old farm No Walled house on a hill No Luzernerring 93 No Familiar riverwater There is no Ancient Greek anymore Diaspora Only fragments of fragments Of roots of stems of words In different dialects There is no Place for you to belong, Diaspora You’ve been sliced to pieces And scattered Into the wind But When people ask you Where you are from You say simply From the Greek Oh From the Greek And When people ask me Where I am from I say simply From the diaspora.

113

You have heard it said that A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose But truly I tell you that I am that I am that I am that I am Dripping with Jehovah and stardust we fell to earth Pieces of atmosphere pieced together And who can trace the mythology of our chemical compositions Or rewrite the narrative of our anatomies? I fell to earth soaked in Yahweh and covered in snakebites Black holes where the fangs sunk into the astronomy of my freckled skin All the galaxies of my body each with their own elliptical orbits Connect the dots to form two wolves in my milky way Romulus and Remus – My ******* bear venom white as the purest lamb Whisper astrology and Remember the day we built Rome by stacking corpses Remember the day when all the stars burned red for us But that was millennia ago and I’m not your Venus anymore – I’m nobody’s ********* Venus anymore It was the age of Pisces and we came out drenched in Messiah You found me picking painted roses on asteroid planets With a blonde-haired child and a fox In the garden green snakes and white roses Thorns and soft pink ribbon-tongues Fangs and velvet petals Two drops of blood in the white sand like Mary, I bore a son and named him Ares I named him Mars I named him Set Boys will be boys will be boys will be monsters, you know that I am that I am that I am that I am. Swim down deep enough into the black waters and you’ll reach the heavens Keep drawing blood from thorn wounds and you’ll drag out the atmosphere Stare out intently into the abyss and the abyss will stare back into you These are the things we knew When we reached the outer boundary of the cosmos And realized how hydrogen is nothing but celestial amniotic fluid We, motionless Smothered by God and Carbon and perfume and poison In this ****** we named universe On this fetus we named Earth I am that I am that I am that I am Truly with you until the end of the age Until the afterbirth of star matter gets tossed out with the baby and the bathwater. You have heard it said A rose called by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet But truly I tell you A rose is only as beautiful and fragrant as its thorns are sharp And if you want to know what fills the space between protons and electrons The gaps between breaths The light-years between planets Then listen to the sound of your own heart beating Counting down the gestation period of our own reality I am that I am that I am that I am I’m more than a Rose.

0

Aug 25, 2015

Aug 25, 2015 at 7:14 PM UTC

Soaked in Yahweh

You have heard it said that A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose But truly I tell you that I am that I am that I am that I am Dripping with Jehovah and stardust we fell to earth Pieces of atmosphere pieced together And who can trace the mythology of our chemical compositions Or rewrite the narrative of our anatomies? I fell to earth soaked in Yahweh and covered in snakebites Black holes where the fangs sunk into the astronomy of my freckled skin All the galaxies of my body each with their own elliptical orbits Connect the dots to form two wolves in my milky way Romulus and Remus – My ******* bear venom white as the purest lamb Whisper astrology and Remember the day we built Rome by stacking corpses Remember the day when all the stars burned red for us But that was millennia ago and I’m not your Venus anymore – I’m nobody’s ********* Venus anymore It was the age of Pisces and we came out drenched in Messiah You found me picking painted roses on asteroid planets With a blonde-haired child and a fox In the garden green snakes and white roses Thorns and soft pink ribbon-tongues Fangs and velvet petals Two drops of blood in the white sand like Mary, I bore a son and named him Ares I named him Mars I named him Set Boys will be boys will be boys will be monsters, you know that I am that I am that I am that I am. Swim down deep enough into the black waters and you’ll reach the heavens Keep drawing blood from thorn wounds and you’ll drag out the atmosphere Stare out intently into the abyss and the abyss will stare back into you These are the things we knew When we reached the outer boundary of the cosmos And realized how hydrogen is nothing but celestial amniotic fluid We, motionless Smothered by God and Carbon and perfume and poison In this ****** we named universe On this fetus we named Earth I am that I am that I am that I am Truly with you until the end of the age Until the afterbirth of star matter gets tossed out with the baby and the bathwater. You have heard it said A rose called by any other name wouldn’t smell as sweet But truly I tell you A rose is only as beautiful and fragrant as its thorns are sharp And if you want to know what fills the space between protons and electrons The gaps between breaths The light-years between planets Then listen to the sound of your own heart beating Counting down the gestation period of our own reality I am that I am that I am that I am I’m more than a Rose.

56