"academy" poems
HOT WHEELS.
I went from broke to buying a Lamborghini,
Price tag not so teeny,
Sleek and black, for my driving academy,
Or should I buy the red Ferrari?
Command a salesman to "comprare"?
Wouldn't he be a happy chappy?
But would it make me happy?
I could be buying loads of stuff,
But when you're old, you've got enough!
To me, consumerism is in vain,
My peaceful simple life in the slow lane.
So, today I did not buy the red Ferrari,
Or indeed the sleek Lamborghini,
There was no Hot Wheels Driving School,
Consumerism as a manipulative tool.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 5:26 PM UTC
Gold crown of Olympus, hair crown and
Skin gown. First we throw our bodies at
One another. Heaping piles of human soup.
Bold maneuvers, hands and mouths and
Boy meets girl lying down, on top, intertwined.
Skittish moves on a tryst. Wet fingers of freshly
Tendered infinite decibel pleasure screams.
Streamers above a long rooting movement.
Overture of Aphrodite. Sparkling, glitter woman,
Legs pressed tightly to the chest,
Loose appendages intertwined. Intersticed dactyls
In rapture, soothing. Bodies build to one heart's beat.
Two muses fused together. If I wasn't afraid I'd wake you up
I'd slip on my shoes and make a tropical fruit fondue.
Stage two:
Ice cream lover's delight. Opus to brown sugar.
To swimming again, a pursed lurking of lips
In the academy of the pastoral commonwealth.
We eat at our stations of the sublime. Today which was
A day of discord- you nursed me back to the land of the living.
Stage three:
***
Stage four.
***
Stage five:
As we earn our pageantry to take
Stride on this Earth, and string a
Great bow of eager success among all of us,
You, me, them. While I continue to
Gaze at you. If not dinner, perhaps a
Cup of tea instead.
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
#*A passionate dancer , excellent teacher
You possess an innate quality of a master
The one with a discerning nature
You understand the heart of your students
With your dance moves you are prudent
Positive energy flows through the dance floor
when you say one two three four
To the music I can dance
Folk , never took a chance
You taught the moves and grooves
My fear has gone without a trace
And someday will learn some grace
On the dance floor
Like a bright star you shone
Sure , one day you will
Run a Academy of your own*#
Oct 11, 2018
Oct 11, 2018 at 8:02 AM UTC
(Pompeii/Florence, 1997)
Vulcan was real, alive as you were,
you and your language, long dead now.
Your town was prosperous, with its paved streets,
bars, bath-houses, brothels,
mosaics, painted walls, graffiti.
Your domestic gods too were real to you;
they had saved you before,
and when the superhuman hammer blows shook
your houses, you repaired them,
decorated in greater splendour,
erected a temple to your protectors.
But Vulcan was not appeased - years are not long
to the lord of earth and fire.
This time he struck swiftly, sending you death
from his mountain, overwhelming you
as you ran. Your garden
gave you no protection,
hot fumes choked you,
hot ash surrounded you,
sealed in your tomb as you died.
The ones who excavated your town
marvelled at its completeness,
and in the ash that filled your garden
they found hollows.
Filling the hollows with plaster,
they found . . . not you,
but echoes of yourselves,
like statues in a museum.
We came to see you, and after that
to the Academy, standing in awe
at David's perfect marble humanity.
But we were troubled by the others,
the uncompleted ones, the Prisoners,
their twisted limbs, hidden faces,
frozen in the act of emerging
from the stone, recalling too painfully
in their unfinished creation
your own agonised poses
as you died.
*"I had seen birth and death,
but had thought they were different."*
.
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Ok, where’s everybody?
I’ve been gliding round in this pond the last half
hour singing my Duck-thoven tunes:
Quack! Quack! Quack
Quack!Quack! Quack!
And so why’s everyone avoiding me
like I don’t know how to make conversation?
Quack? Quack?
The other day the duckling glided near
and asked if I’d share bits of the bread
thrown to me by
these pesky humans who can’t
read the Don’t-feed-the-ducks signs
and I swallowed the bread bits whole and said:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
And the silly duckling ran away crying! –
Hey how can I answer with food in my mouth?
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Your mum taught you to speak with food in your mouth?
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Have you got any brains in that quacking head of yours, duckling?
Really, no reason to avoid me…
I mean the other day they asked me what
I think about the environment and I said:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
and they all looked astonished
at the wisdom of my words.
So why avoid me now?
This cute **** duck glided quite close to me
and asked me what I thought about pre-marital ***
and I said: Quack! Quack! Quack!
and I flapped my wings and walked on water
and held my head high with the sweetest:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
and that silly female duck jumped to the overhanging branches
and refused to come down for all my quacking:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Seriously, what’s this all about? –
You excite a ****** duck and then hide in the branches?
What’s this pond coming to!
The other day a silly fish swam close to me and asked
for directions round the pond and I said:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
And the fish said: Hey! I don’t understand Duck language.
Don’t you speak Finglish?
What the Duck! I said. Why don’t you learn Quacklish!
Quack!Quack!Quack!
So where’s everybody?
And really I don’t understand why
everyone’s avoiding me.
I mean really I can qua-ttle off the Entire History of the Pond
and the Holy Texts Revealed by Duck God to the Duck Prophets
and I can quack about anything and I can quack
about all the wines and grog
and I can teach the creatures how to change pond water into wine;
and I can quack about all the delicacies in the pond
and I can sing too, listen:
Quack! Quack! Quack!
And such a delightful voice and such original tunes too!
A graduate of Duck-kovsky Underwater Academy.
And so – hey! – where’s everybody?
Why do they avoid me like I’ve got the Swine Flu or something?
Hey, I’m just a pond duck who likes to Quack! Quack! Quack!
You got a problem with that, you quacks!
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 10:40 AM UTC
On the East Coast of England there’s a small resort
Called Cleethorpes, where I happen to reside.
And out towards the Pleasure Park
A short way from the shore
There is The Boating Lake.
I love to go there on a still, sundowning evening
When the parking is free.
To walk those walkways around the lake,
Dreaming I’m on Starfleet Academy Campus.
Walkways flanked by lawned hillocks and shrubs.
The lake is fringed by red-flowered reeds
And punctuated by ducks and geese.
Families and couples roam about
As I sit in meditation
Watching and listening
To the central fountain play.
Such a tranquil scene,
Far from the madding crowd.
Go over the bridge and cross the mini-railway line:
Before you reach the saltmarsh and the sea
You’ll find a stretch of shrubbery and trees
A haven for the birds
And for me,
As I walk my favourite path.
The lake is thus a prelude
To some splendid growth
As nature does its thing.
Serene and tranquil everything
A spiritual feeling
As I meditate
Beneath multi-layered clouds
Under endless sky.
Paul Butters
Aug 27, 2016
Aug 27, 2016 at 6:21 AM UTC
Being the Academy Sports discount punching bag was so yesterday
I love it when you say I'm not good enough
Because I didn't pay you to be my personal coach
It gives me so much depth in my existence
When so many people who barely knew me tried to slow down the inevitable win
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 6:30 AM UTC
I hate censorship
if anyone asked me
I'd say
**** CENSORSHIP
Life is raw and gritty and bare
everywhere you look
and this ******* facade we put up
it's just ****
and anyone with a brain
can see right through it
thats why the smart ones
are usually con artists and crooks
because its a ******* joke
its just some game you made
out of living reality
babies see ghosts in mirrors
and demons at the windows
but we convince them they aren't there
and they become like us
they just stop seeing them
those magical things
have been censored from their lives
now dull
now hum drum
now fit to be enslaved
in school
by the rule
by the belt and fist
by the military academy
drum hit drum hit
by war
by tv
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 3:07 PM UTC
Jesus Christ, Lord Almighty
Expel my demons and watch them die with me
Satan Lord, Leviathan
Give my demons an interesting origin
Plague me with poets smoking joints rolled with rejected poems
Fill my thoughts with cockney accented thespians
Let them hold Academy award nominations from films long forgotten
Enthuse my self-destruction
Bring me goth kids brought up in wholesome homes
Bring me Art school students choosing to abandon their degrees
Bring me women aroused by smashed clocks
Bring me men aroused by awkward teenagers
Bring me Christians questioning their faith
Lord Almighty, God, Yahweh, Jehovah
Tell me the story of your disagreements with Vishnu
Let me see Moloch's disgruntlement and subsequent drunk and disorderly
Show me when Hera was seducing your nephew
Bring me into the world of the soap opera battles
Write to me Paris
Write to me Paris
I want to read your poetry
I want to read your mind
Sing to me Helen
Embrace me and we shall escape from torments
Heavenly and humane
We shall watch hipsters walk past us
Smoking Spirits and drinking poison berry teas
Let Adam grow disgruntled
Let children laugh
If, Lord Jesus, you grant me my wish
Send me a djinn with evil in his heart
Who's bound to be annoyed by my desires
Send me an ent to lift me above my world
Send me an elf to love me for all my time
Send me a mountain to travel over home
Transport me to Germany
Transport me to Spain
Transport me to New Zealand
Give me a free pass, one-way ticket to Darwin's islands
Write my story so that I collect new, unprecedented species
And devour the flesh of my find
Hide me in Antarctica with a monstrous creation of my own mind
Let me eat
Let me gorge
Then starve me
Show me Caligula
Show me Marilyn Monroe
Then leave me with Ed Wood
And force me to watch his films so that I may inherit my grandfather's fortune in comic books
Which, of course, will bring her to love me again
Oh Lord Jesus
Lord of Hosts
Possess me so that I may live again
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 4:56 PM UTC
I don't know what to think
when i'm staring in your eyes
more akin to speak
in blind lullabies.
than logistify
my heightened
surmise
in flight
to somewhere nice
if only for tonight
come with me this night
ignite
the cindered fires
of our desires
and incite
the throws of light
in **** obscurity
moaning through the sincerity
of our oddities
gleaming in the rarity
of our academy of lust
all or bust
entrust the accounting
of blaspheme
to the enemies
of poverty
and shove me
all the way down your throat
fill you
instill you
with the hope
of a million
grinning in **********
of the tangled mental merchants
of pretty lights and custom curtains
drawn at first light
dispersing
amongst cursing pedestrians
prior to ***********
of forceful ************
with an another human
lightened strikes the truant
in 9 months of fluent
agony
just imagining little Timmy
has me scavenging for a shimmy
to escape
its social ****
to a blind ape
still patting his head
don't be mislead
by ***** carriers
pack your own barriers
and prepare for the scarier
side of a mans mind
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
Thirty Hours
Who are these men,
Do they have daughters,
Mothers, sisters, granddaughters?
Do they call tenderly their loving
Wives
Their ******
Behind closed doors?
Thirty hours
In the country
I live, love and worry and wonder about...
This is Justice blinded,
But worse,
Publicly, proclaiming,
I am
Deaf and Dumb,
And lost in Her way.
Thirty hours.
I too, have a question.
Have you no shame?
---------------------------
WASHINGTON — For roughly 30 hours over several days, defense lawyers for three former United States Naval Academy football players grilled a female midshipman about her ****** habits. In a public hearing, they asked the woman, who has accused the three athletes of ****** her, whether she wore a bra, how wide she opened her mouth during oral *** and whether she had apologized to another midshipman with whom she had *********** “for being a **
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/us/intrusive-grilling-in-rape-case-raises-alarm-on-military-hearings.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 9:57 AM UTC
The old order changeth, yielding place to new
-Tennyson, Idylls of the King
Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there
If you vote they give you a sticker
The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees
If you vote they give you a sticker
The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.
If you vote they give you a sticker
Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps
If you vote they give you a sticker
Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The **** lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math
If you vote they give you a sticker
An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather
If you vote they give you a sticker
And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence
If you vote they give you a sticker
While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world
If you vote they give you a sticker
And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists
(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)
But if you vote they give you a sticker
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 7:30 AM UTC
Independent Grammy
Ameripolitan Billboard
CMA Triple Play
Indigenous K-Love Fan
Austin YouTube
Loudwire MTV Video
GMA Dove iHeartRadio
Canadian Country
Stellar BBC Music Magazine
Americana Blues
Tennessee Songwriters Association
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
APRA Western Heritage
Texas Sounds
Academy of Country Music
Wine Country
Carolina Teen Choice
Pulitzer Prize
Latin American Unsigned
Alternative Press
International Western
People's Choice
American Tejano
ASCAP Country Soul Train
Soribada Best K-Music
Texas Country
American Songwriting
Branson Terry
Nashville Industry
International Bluegrass
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 6:27 PM UTC
This week, Jesse Herndon has more on her plate than the typical high school student.
She has spent hours after school each day making calls, finalizing details for an event happening Sunday.
Collecting donated items for an upcoming silent auction. Calling every bakery in Greensboro.
“It’s very stressful,” said Herndon, a junior at Weaver Academy.
But it’s all for a good cause.
She’s organizing an event with free pastries, live music, a fashion show and a silent auction, which will be held at 7 p.m. Sunday night at The Blind Tiger, 1819 Spring Garden Street in Greensboro.
Admission is $4 with the donation of clothing of any size. The goal is to collect clothes that would comply with Standard Mode of Dress, or SMOD, the uniforms required at some local schools.
The fashion show will feature clothes from Plato’s Closet, Mack and Mack, and Patina Bridal and Formals.
The silent auction would include items such as Weaver Academy student artwork and a gift bag full of beauty products valued at about $200. Herdon is still seeking donations of items to auction.
The event will benefit Backpack Beginnings, a local organization that provides food and clothing for thousands of local needy children.
All 127 Guilford schools have a dress code, but a few dozen require students to wear uniforms.
Some parents have complained about the cost of buying the uniforms. They’ve also complained that the uniform dress codes vary from school to school, requiring additional clothes purchases if a child changes schools.
Parents and some students also described dress code violations for wearing a jacket with a hood, a logo deemed too large or the wrong color shoelaces.
“SMOD is really expensive,” Herdon said. She knows because her sisters have attended SMOD schools.
In January, the Guilford County Board of Education unanimously approved changes to its policy on SMOD. Principals of current SMOD schools have until June to survey parents on whether to continue requiring students to wear uniforms in the 2015-16 school year.
Now, school administrators at traditional schools also have to get public input before requiring uniforms. Ever two years, traditional schools with SMOD have to reconsider requiring uniforms and demonstrate public support for the policy.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 10:42 PM UTC
Life is a puzzle
That won't be solved
By the argument of your mind.
It can neither be cracked
In ivory towers
Nor in the parlors of grapevine.
The mystery of life
Crowns the benighted
With a twist of a wand
Leaving the enlightened
To commune with the dark.
At best, it is a glass enclosure
Attuning your moves
Along the belt of blessing
Beneath the shelter of stars
And at its worst,
A dungeon floor
Delineating your lot
In unbending reality
Under the dome of despair.
Exposed to eternal pumping
Of raw information,
Student of life knows
But a speck of curricula
At any given time
The process of life's lessons
Extends well beyond the grave
Not even multiple lifetimes
May suffice to scratch the surface
Let alone discover the core
Yet the student of life
Knows no limit
Goes to village today
And metropolis tomorrow
Mounts a mustang to Shangri-la
Hops on a boat to outland.
Tantamount to the amount of stars
Are pictures of life
Full of synonyms and antonyms
Boding inflections and reflections
Of thought, taste and bearing
In the academy of day-and-night.
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 8:40 AM UTC
The black, iron God arm punched
placid-blanched clouds, and dangled
cat cable down to lemon-vested men
with chalkboard faces.
*Basic algebra, today's date, daily
syllabi, God-fearing anecdotes,
and the evils of homosexuality.*
Fornicating with other dudes
is like moving Jesus' rock
with your condom'd *****
Let sleeping dieties die.
We find them buried deep beneath
**** ceramics by T.V. criminals,
rapists, murderers, buzzers, free-
lovers, angelheaded sweethearts.
They have nearly four dollar souls,
barely enough for a Wilpo dinner
at Hepburn Diner. #2 breakfast
with one cup of Columbian cartel
coffee with a pinch of whole milk
to take the edge off, so he won't
be gripping the booth vinyl when
a "freedom" flash cop car passes.
Police cruisers are just bigger bicycles
that we're afraid of, sporting cereal
box baseball cards in the spokes.
Cops were the kids that needed help
their first time fresh off training
wheels. Training academy training
them for low-speed cat chases through
flower beds.
Sweet daffodil, you didn't have to die
like this. You could've drank straight
from the pitcher at a stranger's dinner
party potluck, seen the guts of a New
York highrise, shared the coke left
beneath a woman's botched nose job.
You could have been more than this.
You could have been more.
You could have been.
You could have.
You could.
You.
You, daffodil, stamen-down
in Miracle Gro and dog ****
could have been more.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
A Secretary-Receptionist Faces the Future - “I Know Where the Door Is, You Little Police Academy Dropout.”
The name on the building changed again today
I must apply for my own job, they say
A smarmer wants more work for much less pay
It’s time to reconstruct my resume’
I once was great with videotape and film
And could type fifty-five words a minute
On an IBM Selectric; my skills are dim
The boy-boss taps on a plastic box - what’s in it?
For forty years I ruled the company’s ground floor -
Security, with a sneer, shows me the door
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 4:07 PM UTC
This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]
This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface
This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world
This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles
“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind
This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
i used to care so so much
for this world,
but then a cat on a street taught me
to do otherwise,
there i was, by the lorry bins
on an estate, and there he was,
autistic as he was,
i stopped, he gestured his five whiskers,
i asked afoot at the crucifix: 'may i pass?'
he gestured with a blank stare that
i was granted...
so i passed... i didn't want the poor
****** to feel displaced...
or as in vision: a giant Venus over-flowering
of genitalia descending onto Plato's academy
into picture like a roof - asking - will the argumentation
seize to continue?! a floral goddess could
not enlightened these stone hearts,
so descent of a goddesses' genitalia comparable
to a flower could not weaken and make root
of weeds and later flowers into these hearts,
and i know so... oh i know so...
i know the strength of this brotherhood -
it's akin to a tear hearing the islamic call to prayer...
and the competing disavowal of an engagement with
women, simply for their despotism in the realm
of the household, which only women of blue Indians of
the former Raj know how to avoid, via sway unto
Bengali en-route to the Himalayas.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 8:05 PM UTC
I’m the worst **** in the world
No one is worse than me.
For my next bride,
I shall marry the Queen of She
Ba (Academy presents her majesty.
Nominee gushes.
Audience applauds exhaustively.)
She will manhandle me,
Liquor on her breath,
Feathers framing ******
Inflamed blossoms drenching submissions
She told me to delete
The photographs,
Even though there were many
Caught her beauty in amazing graces.
She hated me
For putting up so little struggle,
Obliterating her splendor
Indifferently.
I wanted to prove
Deserving of her love.
she dilly-dallied, distracted.
I cried pitifully, “Where’s my girlfriend?”
Chain of events to nothingness
My desolate existence
One deficit after another
Honed to fragile cutting-edge.
I wanted her to pleasure me
With subtle painful tinge.
She brilliantly found fault
Every conceivable way to blame.
She accused, “you fiddle in noodle factory.”
She was the true artist,
Dissatisfied with the sound
Of my heart beating.
You want to play hardball with the big boys?
You better show up with bulging intelligent creativity.
You complain about
Every infinitesimal gargantuan thing.
Nothing makes you happy.
I will always love you no
Matter how impossible.
Looking back,
You were an impossible chance.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 10:28 AM UTC
*It is the Sabbath, and I am pleased to fulfill this high mitzvah and lead you to Paradise. It is the Sabbath and Shekinah Queen floating over you waiting to take you. It is the Sabbath and your beautiful ******* distil in my mouth honey of your secrets.
Tent of all Mysteries is your magnificent body. Your skin is my scroll and your follicles as the letters that God wrote on your magnificente skin and your belly adorned with my kisses. Hieroglyphs are your tattoos, sphinxes puzzles, the codices of the angelic scribe, the Angel of the Face, keeper of all secrets.
Destil out the liquor of your illuminated Vergel and feeds my world, like dew dripping morning. It is the Shabbat and your river flows now from your Eden to water my spirit. I hijacks thoughts your perfume. It incense aroma of your garden.
It's the Shabbat and already prophesies thy mouth the voices of Celestial Academy, whispering in my ear your high pleasures at the apex of your ****** revealing your messiah, your hidden light, creator of all my miracles.
It is the Sabbath and your Tantra connects the earth and the heavens, as a mystic linhame fabric with your esoteric moans. It's the Shabbat and you are the my highest mitzvah, the most sacred precept.*
Sep 9, 2016
Sep 9, 2016 at 10:44 AM UTC
After it blossomed,
The flower said,
"Now, my beauty is beyond my control.
Now, even I am beyond my reach."
Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, Selected Poems, The Pakistan Academy of Letters, Islamabad 1995
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
A message to the boy minding the pastry,
one finger in each the webs
of cosmic lust and mercy,
waiting to be told it is fine to want
the best for everybody:
It is fine. It is fine.
What are you?
Were you born here?
No, I was born on the banks of the Seine,
beside the boneyard of the nameless,
in the pits of Delhi with
the blood of roosters on my toes,
***** who pecked one another
to their entrails because the
colony of the living sunrise was
shrunk to a pocket of feathers and fire
by some wire, wood, and staples.
I was born in the Academy of Athens,
where Socrates made salsa with hemlock
and danced into a dialogue,
because the grocery habaneros were all too tender,
and St. Augustine could offer no alternative.
Never forget - we were born to unfairness;
unfair as long as our appetites differ,
or we exhaust sooner than one another,
or we grip one another differently and come at different times.
The only person less fair than me is God.
But my justice - that is perfect,
like my voice, which has none of a gavel's
authority. Or my heart: which was manacled by giants
and sentenced to be pecked by a flying poem, a girl
with hair she won't comb, a song about Jerusalem.
Fair. **** fair.
I am fair as long as I can wait, quiet -
silent as the sand, sunburned and happy,
to be drawn into
that kindness, the Atlantic - - -
the flip and twist of the sea.
Oct 24, 2011
Oct 24, 2011 at 4:01 PM UTC
I am told that my anatomy is the sheer academy of my lack of sensibility and that my sense of autonomy is just my way of rebelling against my own skin.
Because I was born in a body that is just a little too small to contain such an opinion, and so this must be just the remainder of some book I read, right?
I am told that at times my mouth traces outlines larger than my hands can, and all I know is that my fingers stretch to try and reach the cord that turns off the light on my porch so that I can find the streetlight shadow puppet.
Because I am at odds with the lightbulb delivery of my best friend’s idealism and my body’s realism and it’s all a sense of alchemism when I’m searching for altruism.
I’m told that I am too big for my body, or “for such a little girl, you’re very smart,”. I used to start in the plus-size section of stores, only to be escorted to diminutive floral prints and capri pants.
I am still mistaken for a lost child at the airport, I am still advised not to go out in certain areas after dark, I didn’t realize I was small until I wasn’t listened to.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:14 AM UTC