I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

for Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it ***** out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That ****, that ****, that ****.

You,
You and those pale blue eyes of a full moon,
How I cannot stop thinking of you,
For some reason you've entered my mine like a scar on my body,
There is no erasing or forgetting,
I've locked you into my heart,
I cannot bear to think of letting go,
The infection has spread and I've been shot by cupid's bow,
But our fairytale is beginning to end,
You are not the once you I first met,
And I'm hurt and terribly mistaken I fell for a ruse,
A **** ruse of promise,
Now I'm alone and unsure of what I've gotten into,
A long summer ahead, of fear and unsurity of what next step I may have to take,
I don't wanna lose you, just win what I somehow lost,
I wanna whisper lost secrets in the edges of the night,
And look towards a morning of more you, The you I once knew,
Please make it all come back soon

No, you're wrong.

Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be

Particularly at lunch
in a laughing restaurant

Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be

And they are moved
by their own beauty

And they shed tears for it
in the back of the taxi home

As she chooses the flowers to decorate her bun
She chooses the petals, she thinks the best
She has to choose….
What would you do if you have two difficult choices to make?
What if both choices were equally important?
Whether to just ignore your people and lead your own life?
Or …to follow your dad’s footsteps and lead the country?
It was hidden in Aung San Suu Kyi’s life
She only had two choices to make and she finally made her choice
But she was kept in her house all alone
by the cruel Burmese military for so many years
But she still chose to save her people’s life
And made her father and ancestors proud
She is happy with her choice
Not because she was caught by the military
It is because she is one brave lady
The lady Aung San Suu Kyi has made the choice of her life,

i left my favorite sunglasses in your bed.
and what a perfect metaphor that is
for the other pieces of me
that i won't be getting back
any time soon.

The first snow
When it just starts to stick to the ground
Around nine o clock,
And the snow dances in the streetlights.
And the first thing you think of when you wake up
Is getting to walk in it's beauty.
That's her smile.
But she doesn't think it's beautiful.

The first time a hug meant something.
You feel their arms,
Their shoulders,
Their warmth,
The tickle of their breath on the bottom of the left side of your neck,
And the last moment when they tighten around you
Into a solid, comforting fortress before they pull away.
That's the air she exhales.
But she doesn't think it's beautiful.

The most devastating thunder storm.
When the rain is sad,
And not peaceful or light hearted,
And the echo of the cracks of thunder sting your ears.
And the lightening stops getting interesting,
The lightening looks worried.
It looks like suicidal tendencies.
That's what it's like to see her cry.
But she doesn't think it's beautiful.

Battle fields.
Soiled with distraught courage,
Limp hopes,
And dying bravery.
Yet somehow holding the promise of a victory
That will effect hundreds of nations.
Those are her scars.
Yet she doesn't think it's beautiful.

The most perfect day on the beach.
Sandwiches without the sand,
Waves that kiss your toes,
Sun that blankets you with the feeling of security,
And a sunset so perfect
That you wonder if it's real,
Or just a calender's picture for the month of August.
That's her.
But she doesn't think she's beautiful.

lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.