by Arcassin Burnham




flowing like the earths motion when i take a puff,
blowing out some the gunga,
could you help me up,
ambient as all things,
when its dark and quiet,
hand structures and wedding rings,
your mind is not alined,

too many ******* in this world,
suppertime,
if you find the time to pick up the pieces,
it will be fine,
hopefully,
let yourself be the host of your own enemy,
of get therapy to comfort you,
havent been right since elementary,
hoping they all turn against you,
and look!!! there it goes!!,
cant remember the first time i ate a mango.

I sailed on a catamaran, and let the wind guide it
I didn’t push against the current but let destiny choose it
I let it choose its people, I let it choose its place
I let it choose its timing, I let it choose its race

First thing I know, we jump off the boat
We swim under sun set and let our bodies float
We put clay on our faces, now looking all white
We laugh about it and talk for a while

The sun is down, so we start heading back
All the sudden, thousands of stars are out
We jump off again, time goes in slow-mo
Water to the hips, I was given a mango

A mango so tender and sweet
It almost swept me off my feet
While sharing laughter and lifelong conversations
These travellers became my constellations

I sailed on a catamaran, and let the wind guide it
It left me with amazing friends and joy wrapped around it
This excruciating happiness was like an oracle
And little did I know, it was my mango miracle

Take me back to the days of a Ghanaian sunset.
When hope dwelled above the waters of despair
And I gazed into the eyes of a sinking soul.
Where trust and fear were honest and pure --
Felt in the mountains, cities and fishing boats alike.

I want the hot air, the mango juice dripping down my hand, the dirt kicked up around my shoes, the roosters in the streets, the taxi cab dodgeball games, the eggshell passenger rides, and the shy children singing across from me on the shore. Because I want it all back.

It's the feeling I had when I was there in a wide space so open -- it is a feeling I call free.

Mango
High on the tree she grows
Mango
Too high for me I suppose
In all of her colors: Orange, gold, green, red
Let it go, fade away instead

Mango
Safe in her leathery skin
Mango
I never knew how to begin
But one thing in common, as I sink my teeth
We both hide the sunshine underneath

Can't hear no sour talkin
You were always sweet to me
When I grow tired of walking
I have a sit beneath the mango tree

Purple mango leaves,
The tree unfurls on one morn;
Tender smile at the porch!

bright mango radiant orange mango slippery in hands mango
melts in mouth mango like your words to my blushing ears
mango is my favorite fruit fruit my favorite food evokes appetite envoked by you
are like a mango

swarms of
migrating
fruit bats
beat
their wings
from
front to back
to the steady
heartbeat of
the golden sun
they move
swiftly towards
central Africa continent
seeking
the
a tantalizing taste of
the
sweet mango tree harvest
uncovered root
shall bear its fruit

You remind me of a spicy wasabi mango
Just like ice cream covered in lobster shells.
                   So hard and spicy on the outside.
So soft. So sweet on your inside.
       I really want to ask you if you had a           good day.
             Longing to be the good of your day.
                                  We are not different.
         We are not the same.
    Do you ever muse on how tight we.....       could be.
               *Conceptualize a wasabi mango embrace.
         And see in your minds eye...........

it's only you and me.*



-Jennifer DeAngelo
Copyrighted 2016

Everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the gutters, right outside my door. Flourishing in the streets of Tegucigalpa, like leftover confetti from Mardi Gras. Lining the paths, nestled in the gravel, the broken concrete, and overgrown weeds. Coloring the landscape with orange and green.

Proliferating around garbage cans, discarded bottles, tires, and take out boxes, liberated to the acrid landscape around.
  
Men, cutting back the peels, devouring the tropical flesh, delectable, united to pits. Dark skin and eyes, their accents singing, so different from my own.

I stepped carefully, but always underneath, a sweet stickness, clinging to my soles. A bond to the red dirt, platanos fritos, and cattle roaming the street.

When I returned to the wide boulevards, pristine and meticulously clean, I stopped watching my feet, looking for mango peels underneath.

leaves start to fall they're mango-red and dry
but seem like scattered tears in the grey dawn
when i have got the paper from the lawn
and sought the new day's fortune in the sky
with hope the auguries will not now lie
while those who sleep behind curtains still drawn
miss happy sight of trotting deer and fawn
for all the world like neighbours passing by
now this is change and magic in its way
which multiplied becomes the world's own form
and contains us such moments we retain
in deepest memory against the day
of dearth and sorrow in the heart of storm
when we are lashed by coldest wind and rain

tastes like v8 on a good day
today it tasted like a kiss from a goddess whose entire essence irradiated mango
needless to say
I was thirsty

there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

You are as sweet as they come
You help me in simple ways.
As your juice flows through me
I have a suddle relief
There's very some comfort you proide
It is always a brief release you give me.
Your'e my guilty pleasure
I just need a bit of you in my mouth
I want to **** on something
you are it

O Golden Hair, My Friend

Kitty kitty
So fluffy
So witty
So unbearably pretty.
Stay away from
The city,
My kitty kitty
It'd be such a pity.



Hussanara

This is my mango.
There are many like it,
But this one is
Mine.
Without me,
My mango is useless.
Without my Mango,
I am useless...



My Sweet Wonderful Mary

Dark dim witty kitty
Trailed into New York City
With bad intents inevitably
Bad.
Through Earth and lake committing
All its great natural giving
Forced utter pain incoming,
Dad.



Lord (Religious readers please take no offense again the writer was not quite there)

God is a champ.
The bearded light upstairs.
He's cold and he's damp
Like fresh lumpy pears.
Won't one, if you dare,
Stick your hand in the air
To clamp
Like bears?
He's a scare of
Puny people
With long ginger hair.
Whose souls the cannot
Go in there,
The holiest of despair.
They all run through his stare
Of bulging eyes he got!

Anyone want to translate that one? I sure couldn't.

if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

Why do you have to throw rocks on my window?
You can just climb the mango tree and yell my name.
I promise I'll open my curtains and look at you like how Juliet looked at Romeo for the first time.
But please, don't die.

Peace is easily found
under the mango trees:
softly push from the ground,
swing to the gentle breeze,
smell the blooms – every kind,
hear the rustle of leaves...
Heals, the beauty around –
under the mango trees.

Nice to see you again. Our paths were supposed to only intersect once. Yet here we are. You and me. Lost in a sea of other friends and volleyballs. Whenever we meet, it feels like I'm drowning.

"Long time no see!"

Or sea. There is always something vast and new to you - perhaps a hint of peanut brittle, or the slightest hints of sea salt just enough to keep me wondering. Or perhaps, keep me talking. You see those bright red Bang and Olufsen speakers in the corner - well they cost about five thousand US dollars. You see that cake broken open on the balcony floor - well that cost about a fraction of that. But you should have seen the look on Andrieu's face when they threw it at his face. Andrieu over there - well when I first tasted coach's angry spittle on my teeth, he was the only one brave enough to stick out his hand for me to shake. Nice to meet you, he said.

"It's your lucky day."

There's a mango cake coming. So maybe you ought to stick around.

my heart
a javelin
hurled
straight up
towards
the
mango moon
a place
where
i
thirst for
your love
when
it blooms

On the cold solstice
the velvet magnet
of Luna's magic
pulls

quietly urges

whispering
gentle spells
into dreamy ears

compelling
her lover
to rise
quixotically
coaxing
him from
the warm sleep
of winters
first night slumber

she summons
a willing lover
inviting him
to follow
her stark
alluring light
illuminating
the lonely blackness
of a bleak universe

her
seductive powers
transcends distances of
a thousand solstices

her
resounding light
a sure mark
braces any weakness
emboldens desire
guiding the bidden
to unforeseen
destinations

standing
in your presence
my face is flush
reflected by your
resplendent light

my heart
broiled
by your
vexing
radiance

the roiling tide
of a midnight reverie
ebbs
as my
earthen shadow
begins to pass
over your
indelible
whiteness

I witness
my dark countenance
eclipse your light

defiling you
fearing
to forever
mark your
effervescent silver
with the baseness of me

without shame
your smile
allays my fear

you understand
you anticipated
the expression
of my
coy reticence

a sweet chant
sings
unencumbered
reveries
gently
reassures
you've danced
through many
moonlit nights
with eager lovers
only to return again
in virginal whiteness
across the
endless cycles
of time

released
relieved
abandoning
all restraint
now
I
summon you

my blackness
your whiteness
breeds a
sensuous
orange
sweeter
then an
open mango

she rules the sky
a celestial monarch
forcing Mars into
a sheepish retreat
commanding
mighty Orion
to sheave his sword
while
Venus
seethes
with envy

my form
begins to swallow
your lines
and
soft curves

my blackness
disappears
into
inviting cracks

falling into
dark creases
the soft billows
sweet mounds
voluptuous craters
gay playgrounds
for my mouth
mysterious hillocks
eagerly explored
with hands and
limbered fingers

a quixotic Eros
the scent of spice
swells in my head

everything
enveloped
like a
holy ghost
playfully gaming
hide and seek
radiantly moving
through
darkened canopies
of a lush forest

nostrils fill
with
tang of spice
a scent
of Caribe

face buried
in thick tresses
of maddening blackness

becoming unhinged
by eyes speaking
a thousand languages
as lips whisper
joyous whimpers

a silent kiss
of an orange lit night
writhing bodies
splayed together

ravenous tendrils
shape sloping
cloud pillows

quivering lips
unveil smiles of
alabaster pearls

mocha darkness
sambas through
the night

she exhales
her lovers name

Luna bathes
her cinnamon curves
in delicious
mango light
offers generous
dollops
of ******

peeking
baying
drifting
I cast off
onto a sea
of lucid dreams

drinking from
a dark aureole
as the tresses
of her
sweetened nest
moistened my member
in a sacred communion
to a hungry lovers mouth

her dancers legs
slim, supple
unbounded
and open
sweet to taste
smooth
so soft
to touch

the fullness
of our rumba
se los tango
con cha cha cha

light steps
close caress
kinetic commotion
wild laughter
fills the sails
of bold schooners

Luna's smile
commands
the seas
to heave

un poco loco
ola de feliz
los hablamos
un contrara
la estas
la esta

the lavender sky
of the mornings
twilight
inspire
Meadowlarks
to herald
the emerging day

still
drunkenly swigging
loves nectar
sleep creeps closer

confessing
small regrets
she fell
victim
to passion again

Luna
comes back
to her lover
pets his chest
with delicate fingers

in a voice
as light as air
she sings
a poem
into his ear
of passionate nights
beauteous art
longing to express
heartfelt truths

The mango consumed
Luna's whiteness returns

my shadow recedes
into inconsequential
nothingness

naked
I stood
sadly witnessing
the dark horizon
overtaking
my fleeing lover
swallowing her
in tiny bits
as morning drops
a final veil
over the face
of a now
vanished love

Music Selection
Grant Green, Moon River

jbm
Oakland
1/19/11

Mango tree grows
along the roadside
none bothers to look
green leaves wave
asking man a favor.

Come the harvest time
every golden mango fruit
being sweet to the taste
unselfishly gives life a flavor.

The passers once ignored
the mango tree by the roadside
now so adamant to devour its juice.

Ever so green as the mango tree
leaves' chlorophyll cooks the honey
as it captures the sunbeam at noon
is sharing its blessing to fill our hunger

THE RAT AND THE PREGNANT WOMAN


A story poem

BY

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)



Dedicated to;
My mother Neddy Nabisino Mayende Kuloba Makhakara
And her mother Maritini Nabengele Nasenya Mulemia Namugugu Ilungu wa Wenwa.
The story telling power of these two ladies is the primary source of my passion and love for humorous and peace bettling stories. I owe them all the recognitions.







OPENING SONG
How do I start telling this story that I got from my
Grandmothers when sited around the fire yard in the evening?
I don’t know how to start surely,
For to day I am very shy; all of your eyes
Are on me, looking at me like ocean of looking organs
But let me embolden my self with the belt
Of a story teller that my grand father gave me
And commanded me to preach peace
Through story telling in every place I go
So my spiritual service to humanity is telling stories
Is to soothe and heal wounds of humanity
By softly telling peaceful stories
Let me then cough to clear my voice and start;

Long time ago, but not very long time
Some where between the centuries of twelve hundred
And seventeen hundred after the death of the other Jewish
Story teller who died without a wife, who died on the cross
But others say he died on the stake, his name was Jesus,
There existed only two kingdoms in land which is known today
As Bukusu land found in the present east Africa or Indian Ocean coastal Africa,
The first occupants of this vast land is the sons and daughters of Babukusu
Or the ones who like selling ironsmith products
And hence the name the people of Bukusu; the people who sell,
The two kingdoms were the Kingdom of muntu and the kingdom of manani
The citizens in the kingdom of muntu were short men and short women
Handsome and beautiful, slender and not assertive in their physical disposition
But the citizens of the kingdom of manani were all cyclopic,
In their everything; the manner of walking, talking farting, micturating
Farming, breathing, snoring, smiling, singing, whispering
Their whisper was a noisy as the tropical thunderclap
They were tall men and tall women, very tall
Their young person was as short as the tallest
Person in the kingdom of muntu,
When one of the citizen of manani snores
All the citizens of Muntu along together with,
Their king Walumoli wa Muntu had no option
But remain awake throughout the night,
Because the cacophony of a snore from
The sleeping courts of Manani was not bearable,

On many occasions Walumoli wa Muntu
The conscientious king of the muntu kingdom
Had arranged to talk to Silinki wa Namunguba
The ostensible king of the Manani Kingdom
About the cacophonous sleep robbing
Snores of daughters and sons in neighbour kingdom of Manani
Only to cow and chicken away in a feat of prudence
Lest Silinki wa Namunguba will suspect him for being
A night runner or a thief of *** perhaps
Who roams his compound during the wee of the night
In hunt of any of Namunguba’s wife maybe
Perchance having gone out for a mid-night *******,
This is how legendary snores of the sons and daughters
Of Silinki wa Namunguba the king of Manani
Has remained unchecked for ever till today,

One time an ugly passer by happened to be seen
Traversing the kingdom of muntu
In the early afternoon some two
Hours after Walumoli the king
Had just cleared the last plate
Of the mid day meal from
His last wife Khatembete Kho Bwibo Khakhalikaha Nobwoya
He always eats her food last in the afternoon
Because it comes on the table steaming youthfulness
He loves his Khatembete wife, the wife of his old age
The wife he married by use and show of the royal regalia
The powers and dignity of the king of muntu
He married her when he his a king, the scepter in his hand,

Going back to the ugly passer by
It was never known where he came from
Not from the east where the Indian Ocean is
Not from the west where the vastness of the land
Of black people of Baganda and Bacongo
Baigbo and Bayoruba or Bafulana of Nigeria
Or the sons of Madiokor Ngoni Diop in the Senegal,
Not from the south from shaka the Zulu and Mandella the wise one
Not from north in the land of Dinka and Nuer, Ethiopian Jewish and the Egyptians,
The passerby was ugly and from no where, in a dress and
A very ***** dress that fumed out a malodorously stenching reek
He was a man in attires of a woman; this was a taboo in the land of muntu
He was left handed and a heavy weight stammerer, with an appalling
Protuberation of   a hunched back, an enormous hunchback
Enmassing entired of his masculine shoulders,
When the wind blew his loose dress followed it
Leaving the man’s thighs and then bossom naked,
Leading bystanders to a strange discovery; he was not circumcised
He was old like any other father, he had beards
But not yet circumcised, his ***** ends in corkscrew of a sheath,
This was a taboo in the land of muntu, in the kingdom of muntu
Which Walumoli wa Muntu the son of Mukitang’a Mutukuika ruled
For the spirits, gods and ancestors as well as foremen of the kingdom
Behooved that all male offsprings of the kingdom of muntu
Whether born in marriage or out of the wedlock
Born the blood or born as a ******* must and must be
Circumcised in the early teen hood
They must be circumcised before they grow the hairs
On the face, on the chest, in the scapula and on the areas
Surrounding the testicles, the **** and the endings of the backbone,
The man again had six fingers on the legs and on the hands
He walks slowly like a porcupine, his dress was in tartars
He was violent to every one he met
Insulting old people and old women with words
Of bad manners not used in the kingdom of muntu,
He terrified and beat young children, including the royal children
And grand children of Walumoli the king of muntu
He again had to beat and chase nine young virgins
Who had come from the palace of Walumoli the king of Muntu
Away from the forest when they picking fire wood
As well as playing a game of hide and seek with other palace lads,
The ugly passer by then chased to get hold of the
Nalukosi the first born daughter of
Khatembete Kho Bwibo Khakhalikaha Nobwoya
The beloved last wife of the king of Muntu
All other virgins ran home, but Nalukosi remained behind
In the inextricable grip of the ugly passer by
She screamed with hysteria of a hypochondriac
She screamed and kicked with her wholesome mighty
The stubborn passer by never left her alone
She gnawed the ugly passer by with
Her girlish claws of her fingernails
But is like the passer by was mentally disordered
He was a ******* of some time
He derived some pleasure and instead
Enjoyed the girlish scratches of his captive,
Before the eight running virgins reached the palace
Together with their companions, the playmate lads
The shrilling scream of the captive Nalukosi
Was sharply heard at the palace, first by King Walumoli
Who called his wife Khatembete Kho Bwibo Khakhalikha Nobwoya
To come out of the hut, the kitchen and help to listen,
Immediately Mukisu wa Mujonji the palace keeper surfaced
His face displayed genuine askance of an adept military man
Whose martial arts have rusted for a week without usage
He confirmed to the king that the cry from the forest
Is of the one from this royal home of your majesty the king
And none other than the ****** princes Nalukosi Mukoyonjo
The pride of her father, the eye of the palace,
Without hesitation the king permitted the wallabying Mukisu ,
Permission to run in a military dint and find out whatever that
Was eating Nalukosi Mukoyonjo the familial heart of the king,
Mukisu wa Mujonji who was clearly known in the kingdom of muntu,
For his swift running like a desert kite, he already twice chased
And gotten single handedly two male gazelles,
Without aid of a dog nor aid of fellow hunters
And delivered them to the king as a present to the palace
Which he achieved because of the speed of his legs,
On this royal permission he unsheathed his matchette
And went away like any arrow from the bow
His shirt trailing behind him like mare’s tail
Or like the flag on the post on a windy day,
Not a lot of time passed.
Mukisu wa Mujonji is at the spot of struggle,
Between Nalukosi and the Ugly passerby
There was no question or talking,
The first thing was Mukisu to sink the Matchette
With all of his mighty into the tummy of the ugly stranger
The bowels of the ugly stranger opened puffwiiii!
He breathed and gasped twice then succumbed to death.
His grip still strong on the leg of Nalukosi Mukoyonjo
The ugly passer by reached the rigor Mortis
When Nalukosi was still strongly gripped in his
Beastly hand, Mukisu wa Mujonji with all the skills
Used a Sharp matchette again; chopped of the hand
Of the ugly dead passer by off, from its torso
At the point of the muscular elbow,
Now Nalukosi was extricated, but not fully
From the grip of the dead ugly stranger,
The chopped off hand is still knotted at her leg
Around her leg, the dead hand also grips.
Nalukosi jumped here and there to throw away
The leg and the dead hand, but it was not easy to throw
The hand still stubbornly gripped around her angle,
*** time passed, each and every one of the kingdom came
Including the king Walumoli wa Muntu himself
And his nine wives, Khatembete Khobwibo Khakhalikha Nobwoya
Came last, as she was energyless due to rudely shocking tidings
Which the escaping virgins and lads had given her
That the ugly passer by had turned into the ogre
And had swallowed her daughter Nalukosi
That he had swallowed her piecemeal without chewing,
People of muntu came and found the ugly passerby dead
The left had chopped off its torso
But still hanging loosely on the leg of Nalukosi
Nalukosi jumping, kicking, screaming
Screaming away the dead hand from the grip of leg
But nothing had forthcame her way,
Walumoli wa Muntu could not afford to see
The hand on the leg of her beloved daughter
What could he tell his wife, is your all know
Dear reader and audience to this song;
Even the mighty and the wise ones
Generously bend when under the pressure of love,
Out of this dint, even before Mukisu wa Mujonji
Could display his next military card
Walumoli wa Muntu grapped the dead hand
That stuck of the leg of her daughter
And pulled it with another force that
No man born of woman has
Never used since the creation of the earth
By the gods and spirits of Muntu,
The hand come off, he throw it
On the cadaver of the ugly stranger,
He clicked and clicked and hissed
With anger like a wild turkey
In the African thorny forest,
He ordered the dead one to be buried
Their without haste, nor ceremony
Mukisu wa Mujonji buried the body
Quickly in a brief moment with precision
As if he was taking notes
From the lines of the poem
OF Pablo Neruda on how
To bury a dog behind the house
This time burying an ugly stranger
Behind the forts of the kingdom,
After all these women, children and men
Of muntu plus their king Walumoli
Went back to their houses hilariously
Broken into a song and a wild *** dance;
Makoe eehe! Makoe !
Nifwe Talangi Makoe !
Talangi!
Khwaula embogo sitella
Nifwe Talangi!
They sang up to midnight before
They all retired to their beds
Respective beds with panting thoraces
From heavy singing and dancing.

There is connection and disconexion between
The living and the dead, the living fear the dead
And dead loves the living,
The dead want the company of the living
For the living to accompany in the land of the dead,
When the ugly stranger was killed
And buried uncircumcised with the hunch
Not plucked out of his back
The gods and the livings dead
In the realm of the ancestors
Of the kingdom of Muntu were not happy,
They never wanted uncircumcised old man
With a hunch back to join them
And worse enough with the six fingers,
The gods and ancestors really god annoyed
That Walumoli wa Muntu has done them bad
He is only caring for the living, the pre-mortals
Especially his last wife and the daughter
But he has neglected the ancestors,
Why trash to ancestors a stark humanity,
They communed among themselves
And resolved to sent Namaroro
The god of dreams, dreams as messages
From the ancestors and dreams from the gods
Namaroro visited Namunyu Lubunda the palace
Prophet in the Kingdom of Muntu to pass
The message vesseling unhappiness of the ancestors
And gods in a blend of gloomy read to execute
A vendetta;
This is when in the wee of the night that Namunyu Lubunda
Dreamed and had a vision of a old man from
The east is warning of the coming long spell of starvation
That will befall the kingdom of Muntu for ten years
                                      That Namaroro told Namunyu Lubunda
As for ten seasons of foodlessness
Behold a begging kingdom
Behold a starving throne,
The scepter of Muntu is a disgrace
To the holder
Then Namunyu Lubunda set forth by dawn
To the Palace to meet Walumoli wa Muntu
In his, palace before any other royal chores come up,
Both good and bad luck combined
Only to have Namunyu Lubunda to get the king at the palace
He got him fresh and relaxed chewing the cup of fortune
In his full ego, all his wives had submitted to the morning dishes
To his dining hall in the palace, he moved his hands from
One plate of food to the other.
Namunyu Lubunda entered with a submissive salutation
To the royal, He bowed and declared the glory of the king
In typical standards of the ethnic composition of the house of Muntu
Walumoli wa Muntu Mukitang’a Mutukuika
Majave Kutusi Mbirira Omwene esimbo ya
Kumukasa,
Walumoli responded with a feat of dignity to Namunyu Lubunda
The palace prophet, as he roared to him; come in
Come in son of Lubunda son of our people,
He did mention the name of Namunyu Lubunda father
As he fears his words may escape with the power
Of his kingdom the scepter of Muntu
To other insignificant families in the kingdom,
Let me announce what brings me here; intoned Namunyu
Go ahead and announce my holiness
s the prophet of this kingdom; responded Walumoli,
Misfortune is awaiting the kingdom
It will eat this kingdom away
Like a ravenous hyena on the ewe’s tail
The ancestors and the spirits of this land
This kingdom of yours the son of Muntu
Are immensely offended with your recent behaviour
In which you commandeered all villages
In your kingdom; from east and west
The **** the innocent passer by
With your owner hands that handle the scepter
You killed and lay to rest the foreigner
A pure omurende to the kingdom of muntu
You buried him uncircumcised without contrite
In the cemeteries of our foremen who asleep and circumcised
Why did you lower the dignity of our forefathers
Who never share a roof with uncircumcised person
To share the ancestral realm; our emagombe
With hunchback foreigner not circumcised?
This kingdom is condemned to all spell of curse of death
Ceaseless hunger famines and starvation
Women dwindle in their reproductive capacity
Rarely will you come across a pregnant woman
Food will be difficulty to put on the table
Even the sweat of your brow will go to naught,
You will not be buried with insignia
Like a pauper you killed will you be buried
The house of your wife Khatembete Kho Bwibo
Khakhalikha no bwoya is a house of no consequences
For even your daughter Nalukosi stands cursed
She will not mature to be wedded into a marriage
She will hover the earth under heavy agonies of hunger,
My assignment is done and over
With or without your permission let me go.









THE FIRST SONG
Our song continues dear brethren
Come join me in arms we sing
Joyous singing of these songs of peace
Telling the world peaceful stories
As we enjoy sitting together around my grandmothers fire yard
Warming our selves to her lovely fire inherent in her good stories,
These songs will sing the glory and success of the king of Manani
It is an irregular Ode to Silinki wa Namunguba the son of Mwangani,
The son of Tunduli, the son of Wajala Njovu, the son of Welikhe, the son
Of manyorori, the son of Chumbe, the son of Kajo, the Son of Mabati, the son of welotia,
The son of sikele sia mulia, the son of Toywa,the son of siruju, the son of Mango, the son of Mulwoni sinyanya Bakhasi, the son of Mbakara , the son of Makhakara wa Nambuya, the son of Mukoye mulala kukhalikha w0nga, the son of Zumba the son of God.
Silinki

It is sweet like the middle of May
Moldable like Taino clay
Its juices stick to my skin because it knows about sweet tooths
The cravings crash into my body like waves do the sandy shores that harbor its trees
Shake shake shake
Till 10 fall from the tall tree
I try to grab them all but people weren’t meant to hold that much greatness
My small hands grab the biggest and the smallest
Peeling off its green and orange skin
Letting the sweet juices create art on my body
My teeth sink into sweet orange flesh
Reminding my body that this taste goes back for generations
Who knew fruit could time travel

Lovely dainty Spanish needle
With your yellow flower and white,
Dew bedecked and softly sleeping,
Do you think of me to-night?

Shadowed by the spreading mango,
Nodding o'er the rippling stream,
Tell me, dear plant of my childhood,
Do you of the exile dream?

Do you see me by the brook's side
Catching crayfish 'neath the stone,
As you did the day you whispered:
Leave the harmless dears alone?

Do you see me in the meadow
Coming from the woodland spring
With a bamboo on my shoulder
And a pail slung from a string?

Do you see me all expectant
Lying in an orange grove,
While the swee-swees sing above me,
Waiting for my elf-eyed love?

Lovely dainty Spanish needle,
Source to me of sweet delight,
In your far-off sunny southland
Do you dream of me to-night?

Ah the persimmon, a word from an extinct language of the Powatan people of the tidewater Virginia, spoken until the mid 18th C when its Blackfoot Indian speakers switched to English. It was putchamin, pasiminan, or pessamin, then persimmon, a fruit. Like the tomato, it is a ‘true berry’.
 
Here in this postcard we have a painting of four kaki: the Japanese persimmon. Of these four fruit, one is nearly ripe; three are yet to ripen. They have been picked three days and shelter under crinkled leaves, still stalked. Now, the surface on which these astringent, tangy fruit rest, isn’t it wondrous in its blue and mottled green? It is veined, a ceramic surface perhaps? The blue-green mottled, veined surface catches reflected light; the shadows are delicate but intense.
 
You told me that it troubled you to read my stories because so often they stepped between reality and fantasy, truth and playful invention. When you said this I meant to say (but we changed the subject): I write this way to confront what I know to be true but cannot present verbatim. I have to make into a fiction my remembered observations, those intense emotions of the moment. They are too precious not to save, and like the persimmon benefit from laying out in the sun to dry: to be eaten raw; digested to rightly control my ch’i, and perhaps your ch’i too.
 
So today a story about four kaki, heart-shaped hachiya, and hidden therein those most private feelings, messages of love and passion, what can be seen, what is unseen, thoughts and un-thoughts, mysteries and evasions.
 
                                                                            ----
 
 
Professor Minoru retired last year and now visits his university for the occasional show of his former colleagues and their occasionally-talented students. He spends his days in his suburban house with its tiny non-descript garden: a dog run, a yard no less. No precious garden. It is also somewhere (to his neighbours’ disgust) to hang wet clothes. It is just grass surrounded by a high fence. He walks there briefly in the early morning before making tea and climbing the stairs to his studio.
 
The studio runs the whole length of his house. When his wife Kinako left him he obliterated any presence of her, left his downtown studio, and converted three rooms upstairs into one big space. This is where Mosuku, his beautiful Akita, sleeps, coming downstairs only to eat and defecate in the small garden. Minoru and Mosuku go out twice each day: to midday Mass at the university chaplaincy; to the park in the early evening to meet his few friends walking their dogs. Otherwise he is solitary except for three former students who call ‘to keep an eye on the old man’.
 
He works every day. He has always done this, every day. Even in the busiest times of the academic year, he rose at 5.0am to draw, a new sheet of mitsumatagami placed the night before on his worktable ready. Ready for the first mark.
 
Imagine. He has climbed the stairs, tea in his left hand, sits immediately in front of this ivory-coloured paper, places the steaming cup to his far left, takes a charcoal stick, and  . . . the first mark, the mark from the world of dreams, memories, regrets, anxieties, whatever the night has stored in his right hand appears, progresses, forms an image, a sketch, as minutes pass his movement is always persistence, no reflection or studied consideration, his sketch is purposeful and wholly his own. He has long since learnt to empty his hand of artifice, of all memory.
 
When Kinako left he destroyed every trace of her, and of his past too. So powerful was his intent to forget, he found he had to ask the way to Shinjuko station, to his studio in the university. He called in a cleaning company to remove everything not in two boxes in the kitchen (of new clothes, his essential documents, 5 books, a plant, Mosuko’s feeding bowl). They were told (and paid handsomely) to clean with vigour. Then the builders and decorators moved in. He changed his phone number and let it be known (to his dog walker friends) that he had decided from now on to use an old family name, Sawato. He would be Sawato. And he was.
 
His wife, and she was still that legally, had found a lover. Kinako was a student of Professor Minoru, nearly thirty years younger, and a fragile beauty. She adored ‘her professor’, ‘her distinguished husband’, but one day at an opening (at Kinosho Kikaku – Gallery 156) she met an American artist, Fern Sophie Citron, and that, as they say in Japan, was that. She went back to Fern’s studio, where this rather plump middle-aged woman took photographs of Kinako relentlessly in costume after costume, and then without any costume, on the floor, in the bath, against a wall, never her whole body, and always in complete silence. Two days later she sent a friend to collect her belongings and to deliver a postcard to her husband. It was his painting of four persimmon. Persimmon (1985) 54 by 36 cm, mineral pigment on paper.
 
‘Hiroshi’, she wrote in red biro, ‘I am someone else now it is best you do not know. Please forgive’.
 
Sawato’s bedroom is on the ground floor now. There is a mat that is rolled away each morning. On the floor there are five books leaning against each other in a table-top self-standing shelf. The Rule of St Benedict (in Latin), The I-Ching (in Chinese), The Odes of Confucius, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th C folk tale) and a manual of Go, the Shogi Zushiki. Placed on a low table there is a laptop computer connected to the Internet, and beside the computer his father’s Go board (of dark persimmon wood), its counters pebbles from the beach below his family’s home. Each game played on the Internet he transcribes to his physical board.
 
He ascribes his mental agility, his calm and perseverance in his studio practice, to his nightly games of Go in hyperspace. He is an acknowledged master. His games studied assiduously, worldwide.
 
For 8 months in 1989 he studied the persimmon as still-life. He had colleagues send him examples of the fruit from distant lands. The American Persimmon from Virginia, the Black Persimmon or Black Sapote from Mexico (its fruit has green skin and white flesh, which turns black when ripe), the Mabolo or Velvet-apple native to Philippines - a bright red fruit when ripe, sometimes known as the Korean Mango, and more and more. His studio looked like a vegetable store, persimmons everywhere. He studied the way the colours of their skins changed every day. He experimented with different surfaces on which to place these tannin-rich fruits. He loved to touch their skins, and at night he would touch Kinako, his fingers rich from the embrace of fifty persimmon fruits, and she . . . she had never known such gentleness, such strength, such desire. It was as though he painted her with his body, his long fingers tracing the shape of the fruit, his tongue exploring each crevice of her long, slim, fruit-rich body. She had never been loved so passionately, so completely. At her desk in the University library special collection, where she worked as a researcher for a fine art academic journal, she would dream of the night past and anticipate the night to come, when, always on her pillow a different persimmon, she would fall to ****** and beyond.
 
Minoru drew and painted, printed and photographed more persimmons than he could keep track of. After six months he picked seven paintings, and a collection of 12 drawings. The rest he burnt. When he exhibited these treasures, Persimmon (1989) Mineral pigment on paper 54, by 36 cm was immediately acquired by Tokyo National Museum. It became a favourite reproduction, a national treasure. He kept seeing it on the walls of houses in magazines, cheap reproductions in department stores, even on a TV commercial. Eventually he dismissed it, totally, from his ever-observant, ever-scanning eyes. So when Kinako sent him the postcard he looked at it with wonder and later wrote this poem in his flowing hand using the waka style:
 
 
*Ah, the persimmon
Lotus fruit of the Gods
 
Heartwood of a weaver’s shuttle,
The archer’s bow, the timpanist sticks,
 
I take a knife to your ripe skin.
Reveal or not the severity of my winter years.

It's been a million miles
Hundreds of long nights
And now we've crossed the desert
We have beat the devil, at his game
It's time for us to be us
Uninhibited and insane and free

The smell lingered long after she had called the ambulance, after she had scrubbed the bathroom tiles back to a pristine white, after she had thrown out the ******* mangoes he had hid in the closet. For days afterward, she avoided the bathroom, showering the best she could in the old porcelain sink they had installed in the spring when he was able to keep fresh flowers in the kitchen vase. Those days, she would come home to jasmine and broken plates, marigolds and burnt biryani, pigeon wings and torn paper. Some days he was snake-quiet. Other days, his skin was fever hot, his limbs flailing to an alien language, his head tilting back, ululating.
Every day she would carry his soiled clothes into the laundry room, ignoring the thousands of whispered comments that trailed behind her. “Look how outgrown her eyebrows have become” as she strangled the hardened blood out of his blue longyi. “Look how her fingernails are yellow with grease,” as she beat the sweat out of his white wife beaters. “Look how curved her back is” as she hung his tattered briefs to dry in the small courtyard. The sultry wind picked up the comments as it breezed by her, carrying them down the road to the chai stand where they conversed until the wee hours.
Today, there is no wind. The coarse sun has left the mango tree in the back corner of the courtyard too dry, the leaves coiling inward. She picks up the green watering can filled with gasoline. The rusted mouth leaves spots on the worn parchment ground as she shuffles over. Her chapped sandals leave no impression. The trunk still has their initials, his loping R and V balancing her mechanical S and T. They had done it with a sharp Swiss Army knife, its blade sinking into the soft wooded flesh. “Let’s do it together,” he urged, his large hand dwarfing hers. A cheap glass bangle, pressed too hard against her bony wrist, shattered.  
Now, her arthritic finger traces the letters slowly, falling into grooves and furrows as predictable as they were not. When had they bought it? Was it when he had received the big promotion, the big firing or the big diagnosis? Or was it farther back, when he had received the little diploma, the little child or the little death? There was no in-between for him, everything was either big or little. Was it an apology tree or an appeasement tree? Did it matter? The tree was dying.
Her ring gets stuck in the top part of the T. He had been so careful when he proposed. Timing was sunset. Dinner was hot rice, cold milk and smashed mangos, her favorite. Setting was a lakeside gazebo surrounded by fragrant papaya trees. She had said yes because the blue on her sari matched the blue of the lake. She had said yes because his hands trembled just right. She had said yes because she had always indulged in his self-indulgences. She slips her finger out, leaving the gold as an offering to the small tree that never grew.    
She pours gasoline over the tree, rechristening it. Light the math, throw the match, step back, mechanical steps. She shuffles back through the courtyard as the heat from the tree greets the heat from the sun. She doesn’t look back. Instead, she is going up one step at a time on the red staircase, through the blue hallway, to the daal-yellow door. These were the colors he said would be on the cover of his bestseller as he hunched over the typewriter for days on end. Those were the days he had subsisted only on chai and biscuits, reducing his frame to an emaciated exclamation mark. His words were sharp pieces of broken glass leaving white scars all over her body.  
She remembers his voice, the deep boom narrating fairytales. Once upon a time, she had taken a rickshaw for four hours to a bakery to get a special cake for his birthday. Once upon a time, she had skipped sitting in on her final exams for him. Once upon a time, she had danced in the middle of an empty road at three in the morning for him. Once upon a time, she had been a character in a madman’s tale.
Inside, she takes off the sandals, leaving them in the dark corner under the jackets they had brought for a trip to Europe, never taken. Across the red tiled floor, she tiptoes silently, out of habit. From the empty pantry, she scrounges up the last tea leaf. Put water in the black kettle, put the kettle on the stove, put tea leaf in water, wait. On the opposite wall, her Indian Institute of Technology degree hangs under years of dust and misuse.
Cup of bitter tea in hand, she sits on the woven chair, elbows hanging off the sides, back straight. Moments she had shot now hang around her as trophy heads on cheap plastic frames. A picture of them on their wedding day, her eyes kohl-lined and his arm wrapped around her. A picture of them in Kashmir, her eyes full of bags and his arm limp. A picture of them last year, her eyes bespectacled and his arm wrapped around an IV pole. The last picture at her feet, her eyes closed and his arm is burning in the funeral pyre. No one had wanted to take that picture.      
A half hour later, a phone call from her daughter abroad. Another hour, a shower in the porcelain sink. Another hour, dinner, rice and beans over the stove. Another hour and the sun creeps away for good. It leaves her momentarily off guard, like when she had walked home to find him head cracked on the bathroom tub. The medics had assured her it was just a fall. Finding her bearings, she walks down the dark corridor to their, no, her bedroom.
She sits down now on the hard mattress, low to the ground, as he wanted it to be. She takes off her sari, a yellow pattern he liked. She takes off her necklace, a series of jade stones he thought was sophisticated. She takes off the earrings he had gotten her for her fortieth, still too heavy for her ears. She places her hands over eyes, closing them like she had closed his when she had found him sleeping in the tub, before she had smashed his head against the bathtub.  
In her dreams, she walks in a mango orchard. She picks one, only to find its skin is puckered and bruised. She bites it only to taste bitterness. She pours the gallon of gasoline on the ground. She sets the orchard on fire and smiles.

and then i am left,
at the upmarket stretch of sand
straddling this most unremarkable state,
quietly flicking my thumb against the blue lighter.

but it's too windy, at the water's edge
in an unremarkable state,
where no one recognizes me,
that bagpipes start playing

the wind acts against my fingers,
they are too delicate, too feminine,
no callousness ever affixed to these,
my ten silken extremities.

i.
He stared at the woman, eyes darting to memorize her angles and features,  
at any moment this mirage could disappear.
For two full minutes he was unable to speak, too scared to let words loose;
they can no longer be hidden once they’ve been exposed.
So he kissed her instead, because he liked how it felt to no longer feel alone.

ii.
The grip of loneliness refused to let her go, like the claws of a jealous lover.
“One thing for certain, there is no god. We are completely alone, love is *******.”
“What if I showed you that you are not alone, how would it change your life?”
“I think I might actually be happy.”
“You are happy when you let yourself be…there is this…fire inside of you,  but
every time the momentum starts to build you tell yourself whatever you need to
hear to keep it from taking you.”

iii.
“Why the hell are you starting this with me? This isn’t right.”
“Who says I’m starting anything?”
“Oh, you’re one of ‘those’ guys.”
“What are ‘those’ guys?”
“The type of guy who pretends that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and
doesn’t admit to what he’s doing so he can play innocent when he’s called to
the carpet. But in reality,  he knows exactly what he is doing, and most of it
is premeditated.”
“Like ******?”
“Yeah, something like that. There is a good chance something or someone
could die in this scenario.”

iv.
They laid still for a while, trying to catch their breath.
“I think your parents named you after the wrong Craig Finn character.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“They should have called you Hallelujah, because you sound like an angel
when you ***.”
She smiled and she kissed him and they made love again,
and she felt like an angel.

v.
He started out the door and turned, lifting his shy head to look at her
“As far as I’m concerned, you are the only one I’ve ever slept with.”
She stopped breathing, afraid to believe the nouns and verbs that were floating.  
She repeated the sentence out loud after he walked away.
They were the most loving, pure and perfect words she had ever heard.

.
                                1 can diced
                           mangos, drained•
                          1 can diced tomato
                         es, drained • 1\4 cup
                           diced red onion •
                           1\4 cup  chopped
                            fresh  cilantro or
                            mint• 1\2 jalapeñ
                            o, seeded and fin
                            ely chopped  or 2
                            tbsp. canned dice
                            d jalapeño. • 2 tb.
                            p.   fresh  lime or
                            lemon juice **
                 stir together     all ingredients
          in medium bowl  Serve as a dip with
          tortilla or pita ch ips or as a topping
             for quesadillas   or grilled chicken
                   fish  or                  pork