The thousandth
****** beneath
Lake Baikal of
The Trident
The gods' mouthful
bristling iron
is spat ashore
Leviathan's bones
glint and crackle
Man is one celled
Apocalypse
yet to divide
His name in Manganese
splinters under the paths
of the mastodon

WHY'S YOUR DADDY GOT BLUE EYES?


it was never so much a question I heard
as much as one i thought, why's my daddy got blue eyes?

i used to peel this picture out
of the floral decopauge box
a sepia toned senior photo
of him in a varsity jacket
a wide spanish grin and
my full lips,
leonard scrawled on the
back, and why's your daddy got blue eyes?

I have always felt alone in this
body, a bit of my mother and none
of a father, have always
hated this brown
this skin filled with
shade, in the shadow
of girls with lean limbs
and long hair the color
of satin flower,
viridian eyes
that smile without tryin'
and long slender fingers
that'd be good for playin'
with children and kissing--

i have never
seen myself as anything else
than muddy water
always heavy, full
of sand, steaming earth
in the grasslands, dense
and bitter like orange rinds
too round, too full,
bubbling with all a manner
of pith and marrow
quick down in the mire
fixed into the silt

I have reached for the men
like the one in the photo,
dark and ethnic, pleading
for affirmation, that there
is beauty in brown, in
dusk, that I do not
have to be Rotomairewhenua
clear and effortless
that I can easily be
fresh and still
full of depth
and darker
hues.

why has my daddy got blue eyes, I wonder?

If I was a king of Asia I would give you all the gold there is
But I'm not even prince of Persia, all I have is love and dreams
Let me show you land of legends, land of honeymoon and rising sun
I am not as rich as Ali Baba, but I promise we'll be having fun

I'll take you to Bali the gem of Java Sea
Then we'll go on to safari a little south of Abu Dhabi
I'll take you to Maldives to swim in coral reefs
We'll enjoy the sweet papaya on the islands of Pattaya

I'll show you lake Baikal, Tibet and Taj Mahal
We'll see Macao, Yokohama, Hanoi, Jeddah, Jaipur, Jakarta
I'll take you to Dubai, Dushanbe and Mumbai
We'll spend some starry nights in yurts near the city of Yakutsk

I’ll take you to Tashkent where melons got their scent
We will taste all sorts of apples in the city of Almaty
I’ll take you to Beirut we'll go nuts on dried fruits
And the coffee with vanilla we can try it in Manilla

I'll take you to Kashgar to shop at old bazaar
Then we'll fly a magic carpet to the markets of Qatar
We'll see ruins of Karakorum the old capital of Moguls
Then we'll go to Kathmandu and then Karachi and Kabul

We'll discover caves with treasures, make three wishes all at once
All at once will turn to a fairy tale, like in one and thousand nights
Let me show you feast of colors, take you cross the dunes in caravans
Even if I don't look like Alladin, I sure know a thing about romance

I'll take you to Taipei to see its lovely bay
We will sip on Coca Cola on the silky sands of Goa
I'll take you to Shanghai where towers touch the sky
And the best of architecture we will see in precious Petra

We'll go to Ashgabat, Bishkek, Busan, Baghdad
We will see Great Wall of China and Cambodian Angkor Wat
We'll see the Everest, mount Fuji, Gobi Desert
And it's certainly my pleasure to take you all around Asia!

Babushka doll, you're an acid vase
Empty as church mornings
Devoid of all feelings;

You unravel your sullen smiles,
Ill-bred and unclean.
You are not complete.

You lost your babies.
Now you're alone.
Darling, darling, darling, how does it feel?

To feel the root of brute in the stubby heel,
Your silly scarves lost in the wheel.
Just peel off the cabbage roses

Petal by Petal,
Dismember yourself.
What a laugh!

The air has asthma,
The sun gives it T.B.
Oh dearie me!

It wheezes kisses heavier than a lecher.
Saboteur of my days,
Why must you hurt what you can?

Because you hate me, hate me.
You are an acid vase full of hate.
I can see your ruddy heart like an X-ray.

Unstick yourself from me.
I don't want you,
Your scarlet lips

Lake Baikal eyes,
or Eastern European knits.
The rings shed their gold.

Knock knock,
Dead at 30.
The last twist of the knife.