strawberry lips

taste of strawberry

strawberry tongue

tattooed pimpled licks

The pimpled butterfly i echoed. it traveled miles and miles far away that my memory was led to rest. I had watched it fly around my window every morning, every night dancing through the sound of my melodious whistles.  It would ease the pain to forget- I said, for it would never return. This Freedom was a choice it made, to conquer the world.

The taxi man smiled at me, his eyes bulging out from the cone shaped mirror as he tried to look at what he had carried. The car still in motion. like sarcasm to an overgrown folly his ears had been condition to, he whispered slowly, nice story lad and so what happen to the butterfly?

Through thick and thin it flew. The rain drops of the Asian sky's would leave tiny spot on its wings, but it still looked beautiful. on the in and out, Wherever it went, It looked beautiful even now in my memory.

On this journey It would drink through peaceful stream of mountain tops, fresh that it kept it soul alive till advent. Finally It was home. Home where the green would meet the sea. Home where the crickets of the night sang beautiful songs through dusk.

I closed my eyes and the memory of music, of dance, of words spoken through departure came to light. When I open them to speak, he had stop the car, turning his face and looking at me in disbelieve, like this unknown passenger had turn into something else. Trans might be the word. I looked at him and continued.

Once upon a time I knew this butterfly. when it flew free in my very before, that it spread joy and sweetness like a honeycomb- that taste so sweet my imagination could burst in tears. But how it flew away that day, that I only dreamt, and hope.

What's the point, it's just a butterfly.

Well if you must know, there are candles in this world that do not need extinguishing. For the wax that falls from their frame, like tears that binds the wounds of others. Like this butterfly the world seas the light and relax the pain of life. The world feels the tear drops and receives healing. That's why it journeys.  

Ok..

Yes this butterfly may be on its way, might be on a journey but I have come to realize it journeys for that reason. To heal. There's a butterfly In my thought that I keep. The memory of its colors that spreads upon its feathers resides in the depth of my heart - for even this is a healing to my soul. I will wait, for I cherish this healing it pours to the world.

He opens the door of the taxi like a gentleman to a lady and tells me to my face.. Listen dude I don't know where your going or what your up to but this is where your journey ends. Take another taxi, you don't need to pay me. You are just too weird.  

The taxi was just two minutes away from my destination. All I had in my pocket was a hair band the shape of a butterfly

It took him awhile,
To decide to dance,
He was always the first,
To roar, to prance,
Nevermind his sweaty palms,
As he pushed off the wall,
As he bowed,
Before her cotton dress in a graceful fall,
His hand hung for eternal seconds,
As she decided; looked around,
But, ah! Lo! His eyes, they beckon,
And as the entire room gawked,
At the bold, beautiful ****,
As he bowed before an ugly, pimpled nobody,
As if she were a queen; the most beautiful in this here, his flock,
And as the ugly, pimpled nobody,
Dared to consider, to frown, to appear unsure,
Of this, what was sure to be pure allure,
Finally, she ended his wait,
With hesitant nods, the innocent wide-eyed child,
He smiled beautifully, leading with a mesmerising gait,
They alone swept the floor,
She was surprised at this happiness,
And he was relieved of disappeared nervousness,
For he thought himself lucky,
To dance with one such as she,
The people they can stare,
He don't mind it, he don't care.

She always burned her
Barbie dolls after she cut
All the hair of that plastic,
Magic perfect blonde ****

She was 11 and had just
Always hated how all
Her family and friends kept
On giving her a doll

That was perfect and had all
And she just couldn't see
The relevance and the elephant
In the room is insecurity

So at 11 she Cant see what she is
but what she is not
her imperfections made her check
If Barbies got what she got

But Barbie did not barbies
perky with both ***** and ****
Her legs don't grow hair
And she don't need cover up

And her short legs look
Nothing like barbies do
Even her *** and
Thighs are all proportioned too

Fit her spectacular body's frame
that frames her reflexion
with the blame to detain
what remained as complexion

Of her oily pimpled skin that
Is too fair and needs a tan
And living up to all that not to
Mention a corvette and a man

That's why Barbie hangs across
Her closet where her mom
Saw the Barbie dolls She hung
by the neck yelling what's wrong

butShe just masks how she
felt so a head doctor was
a psychiatrist who sighed
A bit but had sided with her cause

She was an ugly duckling herself
That Never grew to be pretty
But the city has no pitty for no
Pretty so best you be witty

And told her to keep with the
hate she now held for Barbie
and before She left the doctor said
**** a corvette get a Ferrari

So She left happy but hardly
Cured of her obsession
Over beauty and style,
With a classy shoe collection

But she is now only 11
And reassures herself that she
Is no barbie and would repeat
barbies not prettier than me, and

Til she believes it she still burns them
To hang them soar
Shows a mirror to the bald barbie so
She knows she's not pretty no more

See what its like to feel too short
as She cuts at the knee
She says" i can be more
like Barbie if she's more like me"

Wheres obese Barbie,
or Immigrant Barbie from far
Black haired or short haired Barbie
Who's bus pass is her car

How about welfare Barbie or
realistic Barbie anything but
A smooth long haired long legged
Perfect shaped ***** and ****

With Friggin hips child birth was
Not made for and why
She asks Can't barbie have flaws so
I can pause the feeling that I

Will fail before I try if I
Am expected to be
So beautiful and Barbie never talks
No wonder kens easy to please

the message seems look pretty and
Dont talks all u need
So she hangs them violently
but quietly wishing they would bleed

But as she gets older shell
Like herself more and won't dwell
That god didn't make her a Barbie
maybe hes not as good as matel.

First, I spotted the gaggle sagging innocently enough,
One might say blissfully reflected in the laptop screen.
Then out of nowhere came the phrase, "whodunit?”
And from the hanging sag, a sly, silky, voice whispered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Clearly a few clues were left behind, wispy hair strands,
Scattered age spots, skin tags, a few moles, posed upon a
Pale listless, crinkly, lightly pimpled, surface, and from a
Wrinkly, shallow crevasse a voice teased,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

Totally hooked, curiosity piqued, southward I spied,
A once upon a time perky, treasure chest, half hidden,
Now two solemn, empty grain sacks laid east to west,
And close to death but not quite, lazily they muttered,
"Ahhh, don't stop before the good part."

The final chapter, an ancient, untold mystery solved,
No crime, no villain, nothing stolen, only flesh alchemy,
Where a plateau of supple, touchable, skin once resided,
A lumpy, bumpy, flabby flesh pillow lolled, and it murmured,
“Ahhh, Boston cream pie, a quick nap, that's the ticket."

i started smoking cigarettes
with my ex fiancé (olé!),
after i started smoking ****,
aged 21,
i was so anti smoke
that i remember my tobacco stink
clothes being aired
after a night out at the disco (ha ha,
oldie, discotheque quack -
albeit disco tech', not disco phi reek
of sweat and elongating cheese limp
limbs doing the dance of pharaonic
irony to banana ram boom bomb la la lamb),
so i moved to the quickie of all addictions,
as one jazz fem soul said:
a cigarette is the most satisfying dissatisfaction,
in a span of five minutes...
so i see the young poets mention coffee...
where's the cigarette though?
oh right, you left it at the gym, on the treadmill
along with don quixote? i bet.
so i started smoking aged 21...
vocally i went from angelic soprano
among the mule smog thickening over cities
to a personal base baritone of a personalised
exhaust engine...
but when i reached the reach of the rhapsodic
thespian choking on his own ***** of
un-originality i started sounding like darth vader
playing the didgeridoo -
i know the smokers' cough tuberculosis,
but lack of nicotine does that,
and active ingredient missing, head spinning
carousel of carbon monoxide...
as they say... take in the carbohydrates...
off the top of my head nietzsche said:
god is dead... yep... true that, esp. now...
and the replacement? diet...
centimetres of calorie intake:
drain the fat from yoghurt and fix it up
with sugar tax...
you do that while i relearn brushing
my teeth, once a day,
with a pea sized dollop of fluoride paste,
~20 seconds of brush and rinsing,
my teeth don't look like worthy of
twice a year visit to the dentist to get the nicotine
stains off my mandible bones - clean as norwegian
rain... shame the beetles didn't write a song
about norwegian rain of acid, export from
old coal england on the industrial complex
pacified without a warring-industrial complex just yet,
awaiting u.s.a.
otherwise it's a compositional irony,
i like walt whitman, i do, i like ****-****** literature,
but then walter becomes pompous bombastic
when writing about a *******: the damnation
of all homosexuals: i.e. writing about prostitutes -
spare the details of your identity... tell me
the parts where you squeezed the orange out
into goose pimpled juice.

talent --
that double edged sword or
sleepless dove with derringer wings
the ability to break yourself open
let others look inside your chest
and find the notorious self-doubt
pimpled succulent you keep fertilizing
because old habits never actually die
and the huge romantic idealism
of the old farmhouse heart
with crooked creaking screendoor
white paint chipped windowsill
the enduring softness of eyelashes left there
flies gorging themselves growing fat
from the dishes in the sink and
prickly leg hair still clutching the drain
sentimental tractor asleep in the barn
next to the weak ego rusted crowbar
the ivy-moss growing thick out there
perfect nostalgia really misplaced for
sepia tone memories i was never part of
a heart full of tongues and cute thighs
and backs of knees that i've never seen
lungs under clavicles filled with patient
lovers breaths never breathed
digging deeper with small fingers
for smooth freckled scapula flesh
that has never found warm pink rest
inside my cheap cotton sheets
-- i know that i have some

I want to be super me

Shave off my eyebrows
as an act of demolition
leave no roots to grow
let sweat beads know
this is a law of prohibition
against the curse
I want to be the last one on earth
and yet the first
to birth a warrior generation
all colors
all sizes
all shapes
and variations
of a people whose DNA serves as an abbreviation
of perfect

Simply

I want to love without working

I want to kiss the thickly oiled
pus inhabitating pimpled t-zones of anglo saxon adolescent girls
and tell them they’re beautiful
just after they’ve reached out and grabbed one of my locs
only to ask me if my natural hair is artificial

I want to eat lunch with the friendless 14 year old boy
caged in elementary special ed class
Immediately following him walking me
arms pinned
in front of the boys during recess
asking them how should he **** my ***

I want to tell him of a Savior
That can mold him greater than his absentee father
or molesting godmother that has affected his behavior

I want to wrap my arms of comfort around the shoulders of every insecure woman
that was confident enough to tell me
men would only see me as ***
but never as beautiful
I want to reach my go-go-super me hand in
and choke the life out of the wormy wretched murderous spirit
that eats their lives
I want to starve its lies
leaving it to die by granting the grace of a new name
befriend them with but a call and response game-

Me: “those who look to HIM are radiant!”
Them: “their faces are never covered with shame!”


I want to sound the finger snap
hand clap heard round the world
while giving a standing ovation
to all of the open mic night writers that hid their jagged daggers in a cloak of being truthful
saying my words and antics scored high for the stage
But for the page
this thing I should think twice about calling poetry
would never ever be suitable

I want to carry the little white boy on my hip while singing
The rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” that I sing to my kids
just after he hurls “******” in my direction
in a vile attempt to reduce me from perfection
I’ll teach him that the coned sheet his father keeps neat
and breaks out for story time at night is but a cry for help
that the most important thing he could ever do with his life
is to recognize others as his brothers and sisters
and to love them even as he would love himself
I’ll tell him communication isn’t erasable
and before he speaks he should remember to care
I’ll give him a lollipop
then fly through the galaxy to land on a planet
where I’ll purchase every CD created featuring John Mayer

I’ll speak and smile at every cop
That’s harassed brown people

I’ll drop an offering in the basket of preachers
that think I can’t deliver the Word
because as a woman in ministry
I’m not equal

If mine eyes can see my shell’s end
I’ll make love to my husband
in a way his second wife would never be able to transcend
even if earlier it was his day off
but instead of living it with me
he chose to leave me alone with our kids

If loving without working is tough as a glass jar of vlasic dill pickles
I want to pop the lid

As soon as offenses are committed
my earnest desire is to be super me

I want simply

to easily


FORGIVE.

****** a self bone love
where only crystal skulls *****
in morphine harbors of youth.

Penetrate the gentle pink dawn
of dead days hanging -
moon rising red mouth, half-open.

Savor the metallic ******* ragtime
of cold handsome lips.

Razz the fluid glutted
plop of fossil *****.

Slip the light, hot licks, squid squirm
tight snarl back to spread-eagle rising.

Gnaw at the fresh goose-pimpled flesh
in tribes of sweat crossing.

See the green railwayed eyes,
half-smile sprouting.

Urge spasms to go slack, end-to-end
like hair bellies over, shudders run-
down one foot flutters, fluid waves drop.

Flash on the swamp cypress relief
as the **** sputters out
and faded pink curtains heave.

Allow the bring down roll.
The two planes, silent park
like some ***** bed repose.

We have let go of our frantic lust
for the shiny metal in the Sacramento hills.
It was hard for my grandfather,
in coming west on horse and with wagon,
dragging a family across the pimpled skin
of the young land, to help John Sutter
build his new empire.
He then found that his dream of good land
for ranching was subverted with easy gold.

Grandfather’s first home on the bank of the river:
a tule hut, or grass hut, left behind by
Mi-wuk Indians, who wandered with
the elk and circulated with the
wonderment of passing stars;
no regard for what shined beneath them.

It’s in the luring poems and the stories that the
old California adventure comes back to us.
No one longer builds much with grass,
and cannot so easily pick out fortunes
by following the earth’s deep cracks.

Some would walk away from jobs and cities,
bulging packs strapped on shoulders,
and head up through the openings
and narrowings of the valleys,
and into the foothills of the Sierras.
Camp beside ****** trout holes
and dip into the riffled water
at the edge of perfect green mirrors:
to find what is precious and become
free from the cycle of the frantic lust.

I’ve sat on a bare-damp chair.
out on the North deck
where the moss blurs the lines
between itself and algae and lichen
and me.  Me, who wouldn’t know such a line
if it were less blurred...I’m not so sharp as all that.


I set my glasses down on a stone table.
Beside the cold-soon tea.
I watch the wind coming, first through the reeds.
And then shifting the banana leaves.
And soon the birch curtain crowding out my
writing place.  My righting place.

The labyrinth is hosting some flowers.  A dragonfly alights on an altar of crystal
and stone and birch branch.  And offerings.  
The dragonflies seems to (me to) re-write spider lines
or maybe ley lines.  A frog just leaped from a tree past my feet.
I’ve lost my word lines, my throughline.
This frog is now in the leaves by the ivy under the bees.
Looking so green.  Leaf droppings dropping on its head.
It’s green head.  Like an emerald in a mountain’s side.

Now a rustle.  Just beyond.  But not that far.  Like feet away.  But beyond.
Another distance.  Another limit.  Another world.  A bank-robbery escape-mode
Squirrel is making off with what it made off with from the free-to-all and undefended
(and legal, too) pear tree in the far yard.  It leaped upon the birch trunk and then, startled to find me unstartlingly well...just here.  And unstartled.  Paused to set its claws in bark.
It teeth gripping as fifth grip the rind of an unripe pear, its size, if I might compare,
the size of its head without the ears, without the hair.  This unrepentant squirrel leaped                  from
     here
to
     there
all of which was over there but just there so basically here.  (Just not here here, more there.)  It found its place to contemplate me.  To observe.  It made no offer.  But of itself.  Which, really, is all that we can do.  It chuffed a few times but it seemed to me that this was more to do with why-not-give-this-a-try-but-I-don’t-know-why.  It’s belly flush to gray birch bark.  It’s tail extended, and caught by a breeze that the leaves were not informed of.  A deceiving breeze.
Soon - which wasn’t soon, it was minutes - the squirrel scrambled up the birch and branch-to-branched its way to overhead and then out of sight.  I may have smelled of peanuts as I’d just emptied a jar.  I may have been the deceiver.  I may be the lone believer that I might know at all.

The frog hasn’t yet moved.


Something is buzz-whistling.  In the grass?  The trees?  The soil?  The sound rises and the tone
shifts.  The pitch lifts.  I cannot say if it is insect.  I cannot say if it is amphibian.  I cannot say if it is electric and thus man and thus unwelcome.  Cicada?  Frogs?  A hummingbird just fooled me into thinking I knew something about speed.  Something about color.  Something about birds.
Something about Nature.  Something about need.  Something about life.  Something about something about my self.  A partial-second lesson.  The teacher came and went.  The teachings stayed behind in mind.  I have so much work to do.

The far birch, placed in the yard for a long-ago dog
seems to offer up a peach harvest this year.
(At least when my glasses are off.)
The landscaper says that all the birches are yellowing this summer
this year this near to the midsummer and this far from the far flung
and far colder cold slumber of December and November and October.

The blue spruce has a still-for-the-first-time-this-season small flock
of oriole.  Or sunset-breasted, warbler wren throated tipped somethings.
I count seven.  Or six.  No, eight.  Wait.  Nine.  Uh, now eight.
Oh, there’s one!  Oh, no matter.  There’s some.
Too flighty and flittery each blur-glance I’ve had all year.  And I've tried each time
to secure them (sharply) in my lens.

The ducks converse as they arrive at the pond’s far edge.  About to traverse the
turtle-hiding waters, the en-flowered pond’s surface, the distance between heard and seen.
I reach for my glasses.  The birch leaves in yellow have fallen and lied.  Belied to believed.
There are no birds in the tree.  That I can see.  That I care to see.  Autumn come early.

A hawk glides past my edge-of-can’t-quite-see.  It’s loping-like arc its own pleasure...to me.
And, I imagine, it.  The meadow is blushing in purple, ironweed.  The jewelweed, too is a star-field of twinkling orange.  A constellation by day.  A bowl by the winter-blooming something (jasmine?) is concentrically coming awake as drip drip drippings are drop drop dropping.  A yellow-spiked caterpillar treks through the detritus of the unkempt bits of the beside-the-garden which isn’t so much a garden as a place I once planted and once planned.  A spider fast-ropes down to investigate and, as it happens, to pester.  The caterpillar twists and tumbles.  Righting itself, it plods on in its stretch-curl way as the spider ascends to the invisible upper home in its way.  The frog hasn’t moved but I notice and note its **** has two bumps.  Like its bulbous eyes in its front which, as I notice and note is spear-shaped as is its hind.  I wonder at defenses.  It is still.  It still is still.  It’s stillness is still stilling.  Until...I move on.  My fastest is not footed but mindful.  Not mindful but of mind.  I am of a mind to move the mind along.  The caterpillar closes the distance.  What a distance to it it must be.  It’s face is black as an undersea shadow.  It has spikier spikes of black here and there.  Likely in some pattern but my mind has moved and so, here and there it will be.  My story.  My pattern.  My refusal to change.

The mushrooms where the spider met the yellow fellow, though.  Sesame-seeded.  Decorated.  Pimpled.  Bejeweled.  A tawny cup beside a stone behind the frog.  Soft mustard-dotted.  But now!  A new frog where the old new frog had been.  This one a leopard toad.  I think.  (I shouldn’t think.)  Browns upon browns with stripes and blots and dots.  Tans and browns.  At the end of the birch twig is now the first frog.  The green-headed bumpy-butted one.  The leopard in tiger lily patches watches the caterpillar (a different one?) clamber though the unswept unkempt.  

The frog, beside me in ceramic keeps time for the timeless.  The throat bellowing.  As though feeding a fire somewhere where Earth is turned to plow.  We all make our own ends, don’t we?

Choson dynasty,*
you utter from a stub
on the stand's neck,  
your eyes admiring
pimpled spaces or
the bulging curves
of the moon jar.

It is imperfect like
papier-mâché,
the hollow centre
surrounded by
a slumped figure:
two bodies thrown
as lovers, where,

noticing a crease
stretch the belly,
the mating halves
fuse to function
a wholeness like
the moon we make
when we hold hands.

There was something heartbreaking in his gaze.
Looking into his eyes
Was like watching every good and perfect thing in this world
Shatter.
It was as though
All the stars had fallen out of the sky
And splintered into glittering fragments all over the ground.
It was as though
The sun and the moon had collided,
Raining shining pieces all over the earth.
Looking into his eyes,
I felt my very being
Shattering,
Being pulled asunder by his loneliness.

And it was exciting.

I felt my heart quicken,
Pounding fast with the prospect
Of watching the world end over
And over again.
I knew this was the kind of loneliness
That gnawed at the world from its foundations,
Prowling like an un-mourned soul
And, in its brooding solitude,
Whipped up the howling winds that keep children up at night.
In all my sun-drenched life,
I had never seen a darker being.
I had never been this intoxicated by a mere gaze.

I had never known a bitterness so strong.

My world was all sweet harvests and smiling flowers,
But when he touched me,
It felt as though I'd stuffed my mouth with dandelion greens.
My taste buds protested but my body thrilled,
Reveling in his Armageddon eyes.
His fingertips were ice,
Trailing down my goose-pimpled skin,
And I knew I was the first hot-blooded woman he'd held.
I wanted to add fire to his shattered soul.
I wanted to watch the fragments of the world
Smoldering when he looked at me.
I wanted to feel his fierce loneliness grab me by the hair
And set my heart aflame.

And he did.

As I watched the heavens colliding,
I offered all the heat of my veins,
And he drank it in like the gods guzzle nectar.
He slipped his arm around my waist
And ferried me across the River Styx.
So I watched the world end,
One soul after the other,
Cooling slowly from revelry
To bitterness
As he burned with borrowed flames.
I dreamed about supernovas,
Stars exploding out of the sky.
I'd been so quick to trade sunshine for his eternal night,
Never considering that I'd be getting nothing in return.

I wondered if my gaze had begun to shatter.

I’m sick of the lies
I’m sick of the guise
Be an ******* to my face you *******
Cut me out like a man
Don’t ****** walk away like I did you wrong
I’ve given you nothing but love from the beginning
and you snap it back in my face
*****, I can your disgrace
and this race of ungrateful haste should rethink their approach in the presence of a kind heart and unwavering loyalty
boy,
you pushed me to the edge
and so I pledge
to never trust a soul
cuz this tossing and turning in yearning cuts deep
and I don’t get enough sleep
so count your sheep and be gone without a peep you ******* creep
I’m too real to pretend
In a world of fake embellishments to conceal god’s embroidery
I really thought you’d mean more to me
but you blend n bend just like the rest and to me
you’re just a guest so save me
the best
As I attest to never rest my pen for a pimpled partridge laced to dance to the tune we all know is rehearsed
I’m different
I see your past
I see your essence
I know your actions before you make them and lemme tell you
I could sell you here and now but you wouldn’t be worth it.
Don’t name me n game me like your dame to-be cuz I hear your hesitation and bruises
look like ******* on wanna be bad boys
**** all that noise
I’ve done that ****
I’ve lived that life
And I can play ***** less flirty and more wordy than a whole gurney of gays with no praise for your plug’s percocet purse you’re tryna nurse cuz no curse will salvage a sick man’s mind
Next time, don’t even bother
hittin me up for a quick ****
cuz you blew that chance a long time ago and I’d have to be on twice the amount of **** I was on then to ******* now
Ha! Like you’d even know how!
I’ve seen your hickeys of conquests Do you think I’m blind?
And that shows you’ve still gotta brag
boy, I’ve ****** your whole family with out a scratch so catch a disease cuz you’ll never please between my knees
You were beneath me from the beginning
But I gave you the doubt
And still
you’d rather smash for the clout cuz your way out of this drought are delusions of grandeur
not credible candor

My belly, a pimpled basketball, 
puffed with pasta, 
and my chest, just a hoop and a net, swishing wine through.
Spent my last ***
on cookies and cakes
stuffing my cheeks in backwards
with gushing gobs and slushy slimes.
I go mad like a fat queen.
my hot mouth, 
now a thick, cocoa-creamy swirl, 
as it turns into a custard-filled pastry of its own. 

I do what I can to feel bliss among ****.
Try to ignore the flies fizzing like seltzer.
The candy wrappers scattered wherever 
like broken-into envelopes.
I feel a large thumb press, press, press
my skull to my ankles. 

Tossing chocolate chunks square into
my throat like bozo buckets.
After a while
It stops being "eating"  
and turns into a factory of into me and out of me.
In the end, the delicious part always gets too salty and 
salt over salt is trash
and nothing stays
an ****** for more than a couple 
pinches of this or that.

my body yells at me, because it wants nothing more but to 
**** devil-face with those teeny-tiny, delicious
throbbing minutes. 
I can't feel my life
and so I have to eat dinner on the floor.

I thought I knew what envy was

When I threw that stupid fit when I was seven

While my sister who didn’t like to draw

Won the art contest, instead of me.


I thought I knew what envy was

On a Monday, when I was thirteen and pimpled

While my best friend’s face  

Was smooth, caked with foundation.


I thought I knew what envy was  

The summer before senior year taking tests

While after it all we compared scores,

And I wondered what I could’ve done better.  


I thought I knew what envy was

That it was quick, and runny in passing

That it was something that slips, slurped down your throat

Vindictive and vicious  

But cured: by making them cookies.


I thought I knew what envy was—

But I didn’t.


Envy is not smooth, but sticks

Stopped, stuck in your throat

Stagnant, it chokes.  


Envy is not green, but grey

You bat it away

But the fog overstays

Its welcome.


Envy is not thin, but fat

A wall—and for all of your gall

You cannot peek over.


Envy does not look out

Through narrow, hot eyes  

Shifting gazes, suspicious  

With hisses and cries


It doesn’t pace up and down

And beg you to listen—

Envy is silent. You can’t say, “Do you hear it?”  


I thought I knew what envy was  

When I was twelve, in Sunday school

White ribbons and smooth skirts

Under verses of thou shalt not covet---


But oh man, I didn’t.

all these things led you here
the oversized headlines
of your father’s newspaper
and his father's before him
the pakistani shopkeeper
who accused you of stealing
whose bark roasted your pimpled face
the boy at college you flirted with
the tall boy with the sleek curtained hair
whose family had fled iraq
who made you laugh
and nudged your knees
who went to study medicine
and never texted you back
your dad’s boss
the fat Jamaican
who sacked him at easter
just a handful of years before his retirement
the girl at work
beautiful girl
in the headscarf
who married a man she’d never seen
and when you asked her
if he was a good man
she replied joyously ‘yes!
the best man!’
the many taxi drivers
who ferry you home
and overcharge you
watching you in the dark mirror
beetle eyes glistening
caressing the face you prepared so neatly
now blotchy and wet
ketchup clown
bloated in the window
the face of second generation ivory
all these things led you here

the ultimate.
all and nothing simultaneously.
your pupils dilate when you see
her lovely figure on the inside of your skull.
she tantalizes your mind in the night.
with the little nibbles of her peace,
that serenade your transcendent taste buds.
those insomniacs who died a little within
wear it upon their skin as an
upside down flag and wait for her
calming breath on the back
of their goose pimpled necks.
when you breathe your final plea for her,
she comes to collect
that which she owns.
that's why we wear her
at funerals as a reminder
of the soul magpie
and the warbler who sings us
melodious songs of infinite tranquility.

I was a teenager.
a boy unshaven amongst
pimpled, insecure junior
high school brats.

I'd sit in the dark of my room,
hearing my father's smoker's
cough through the wall
under my Pantera.

long hair, biker boots, leather
coats and torn jeans was asking
to be excluded where I lived. oh,
I asked, begged, pleeded that

they would.
some did; most saw me as
a necessity they
compared themselves with

to assure themselves as normal.
mainstream. accepted.
at least I'm not freak like
Holter.

no. I built this confidence and
character alone.
that was my way to walk.
those were my teenage memories.

don't ever be afraid to get noticed.
it takes grit and
confidence; strong legs to
stand out. and stay there.

Pimpled
Pockmarked beauty
Barely my angel
Brace yourself for the world below

You should never be let out of sight
This earth will swallow you whole
Your life is more than surface scars
And attempts at something worthwhile

Their hands they long to hold yours
Gently graze your skin
Limping along behind you
I beg for forgiveness

It was not you who transgressed
I am a stupid fool of a man to ever wish anything more than you
I could not expect a love like mine for you to ever manifest again
Not if I ever found your equal
I would not believe that it was possible
Refusing that could happen
Madness driven panic stricken

Calamity Jane all over again!
All over the bathroom stall
Everyone heard it down the hall
I'm racing faster than my heart

This chase will never end
Until I collapse at your feet
Tearing at fabric
Soaking tears and blood

Screaming promises
Pledging allegiance
Pleading mercy

If my life is not fit currency
To pay the fine for transgressions against the divine

How many more times must I try before it amounts to
Whatever price you have in mind?
As a stray cat passes by I pause and realize
This life is not mine

And your hands are too clean for me

So I will leave you be
And go find me
And when we learn to see again
I'll be a man with ***** calloused hands
Washing in the river
Wading and wishing
Drifting in and out of dreams of you and me

slips from nothing hugely poem of
light creating light by leggy moon
over whole earth palely tousled in
maimed and drizzled in silver curving
a point is risen amongst (man) and time
earth away sprawl echoes of finite
sleep.but though it moon over(in
a little naked comely heap of pert
and blazing tinder calmly foisted
between sabled ******* of aching
stupid darkness)burns how and fiercely
eloquent

o moon though small and nothing hugely
poem shall i (man) a poem slip by mortal
wiggling fumbles; and O moon!quiet sleeping
curves away silverly(into pimpled quavering
neatness)i muscle leanly dispute the soil
and up to you gallop sloppy gallons of kiss
(for you are most pleasant.UR round and fit
nearly in my lips (who shall pluck you from
between ******* and fill me burning
                                                                        )Lust

I am tragedy,
and i carry it with me wherever I go.
I am lost and alone,
at home and in crowds.
Pin ****** on goose-pimpled skin,
barely visible to the well dressed eye,
and less so to the naked.
I am the hopelessness you thought you'd escaped.
I wither with each day,
growing younger,
full of potential to waste.
Full of the potential desire
to finish this cruel tale,
I know now where it is going,
I get bored easily,
and such a story as this
hardly seems worth my time anymore.

For My Sister*

Doll face, what does it matter
if you're ugly as hell?
If you’re short or you’re fat
Or your face is full of pimples?
Why the hell should it matter?

Sweetness, who gives a ****
If you tie your laces upside down?
And your left hand smudges the words on the page?
If you break down crying at the sight of rotting road ****?
Who is anyone to laugh at you?
Who is anyone to tell you who you are?

I am sick and tired of seeing your red-rimmed eyes
I am sick and tired of seeing what they do to you
I hate to see you hurt and I crave the very best for you
I want you to be happy in all the ways you can
Let go of it all and crawl on the ceiling, weightless

Darling, people are messed right up
And we've all got cuts and stitches and oozing wounds
But don't let the bruised and beaten up punks
the privileged warriors, the wait-listed mental patients,
the scummy lost wanderers, the vengeful aching souls,
Tell you it matters if you're ugly as hell
Please please please
Understand you are so much more than a shell
than an exoskeleton of a soul
You are a glorious, bruised and beaten up,
Ugly, pimpled masterpiece,
And it's a shame that they don't see it

Bite the bullet.

A muddy boot,
A ****** boot
In the pimpled
Face of Some kid;
The barking
Goes on.

And they ask
Why I do not
Care, and I
Just shrug;
The barking
Goes on.

Hunger in the
Streets and in
Their media-
Rotted minds;
The barking
Goes on.

Faces split at
The seams, eyes
Peering At the
Scenes and I wonder;
The barking
Goes on.

The youth they
Snort and cuss
And the joints
Are passed around;
The barking
Goes on.

Birdshot in a
Brother's eye,
A blind dove
***** its wings;
The barking
Goes on.

And they ask
Why I do not
Cry, and I
Just shrug;
The barking
Goes on.

The poor get
Even poorer as the
Man on television
Shouts and moans;
The barking
Goes on.

Droopy eyes lost
Their spark as the
Fire dies and we
Linger in the dark;
The barking
Goes on.

A youngster jailed
For a bag of hash,
As an old man rubs
A girl half his age;
The barking
Goes on.

And I bite the bullet,
And I bite the bullet
And hail the beard
And hail the stars;
And the barking
Goes on!

My message seems too abrasive to send
Like handwritten ransom notes
With a geriatric hand,
Gnarled and pimpled with
                Weariness
                And experience.
Our war stories
Are cards thrown down at a poker table
So initially casual
Then troubling after the fact.

People spout perspectives;
Our inputs are faucets overflowing
With the chemicals that change the mix.
Each of us contribute to the compound of strife.
What I need – what I want
Is my own element,
                Thoughts pure of your life,
For you do not fully comprehend my experience.
My wuss-**** whines that resonate
As sure as a saxophone’s wail.

My jazz demeanor, burlesque figure
Only mask the pedigree of emotions

Beneath my wiggling hips, fluttering eyelashes.
Remember: this is a woman.
From smudges to sunlight to wind to aligned stars –
                The cracked liar’s smile never eludes me
                Just as the bite still scars my neck.

Marked, experienced, wrung out, aloof –
                Live for sin, looping exponentially.


The seagulls scavenging in
The grocery store parking lot,
We know them and hate them for it.
****, drink, yell, tip your way, son.
I’ll tap my cigarette, clamber into bed
[my motives are my motivation]
Deepstep, baby, deepstep:
                Come willing because I won’t.

I am the renegade impulsively flipping cards,
Smirking across the poker table
And yelling, “Checkmate”
For no good reason.
Scattered to the winds,
My nonsense is the very ground you have to tiptoe upon,
My sense is the word on the tip of your tongue that absconded.

I am not your maker for he’s my friend.
I am not your mother for she’s my servant.
I am not your lover for you’re my witness.

This [whatever it is] is a syllable caught skipping on the record,
                                                         ­                                  And we’ll never know the rest of the word

Let us write a poem about love.
Can we be holy?

When we love - do we become holy?

Well yes - and absolutely -
when we love all.

Something softened me.
Too many yesterdays,
all those invisible tomorrows.

I look for their footprints
in snows not yet fallen.

a brown cabin -
wintered up - ready for
bedtime Westerns,
mexican standoffs -
sleep
and  perfectly empty

Pile in with me, where it is warm.
A marvel! How your hands rest, your perfume Ivory soap,
the shiny skin of your pimpled back,
a glaze of hair on your forearm. Designed by heaven
to be put behind my neck.

I am not made of sparks -
I am made of soft slow fires and
sunsets.

And she was there in that old school.
Like air.
Soft and sour.
(To her) Puberty made her face fat
(To us) it made her turn to skin and bone.
(To everyone) Who cares?

And even though she could not see it
She was darkness among light
And yes she was rude and moody
but she was also trusting and a true beauty
She was young when she was loved by the wrong person.
Looking for justice in a cold world

And she was a constant source of demonization
For her stringy hair, her ***** clothes
And her weight.
And her mistakes. As if they were any better
She tried to be brave.
But bravery only comes to those who have a reason to be.

And one night when fireflies danced
And the moon kissed her pimpled cheeks
She tried to fly - leaving us behind
She wrapped her fists around death and kissed the mouth of dignity
Because in that moment before she crashed
She saw the rare and infinite

And…
She wrapped her fists around a flower and kissed the face of God

I forgot my thumb
on my candle fire
till the smell of burning flesh
awoke my paused consciousness.

I bit my lip
and looked by my right side for
a small tissue-paper,
only to find the rats staring innocently
at my candle and my thumb.
It is fascinated by
the way the candle affected
my thumb
i guess.

I looked up
"no light"
was the reason
for the frown that
graced my slightly
pimpled face.

Heat!!
"shoo" i said
because of one of the rats
that sat on my
hand fan.
It shifted a bit
and i reached for it.

Thirst!!
All the water bottles and kegs
empty
all taps hissed, "no water"

Then the stomach growl.
Nothing in my cupboard,
not even a chewing-gum.

Gosh!!
I hate here.
I then layed down to
fantasize about my dream boy.

Sleep came
and floated me off
Nigerian Waters.

It whispers to me everyday, wide and deathly.
The heartbeat of it never fades.
The garland grows rounder and vague.

It’s like a warning, only you cannot avoid.
Where it will descend: on the dandruffed hair
Moping the pimpled cheeks? or on the

Origin of the thumps itself, losing the will to beat?
They do not speak, but their act volumes like nothing else.
The black magnolias bloom and bleed

Odours of life. Do not believe their
Scented breath. It is almost beautiful
Like ten minutes of peace.

I’m no longer afraid, my flowery enemy.
The buds sleep while monoecious parents
Mother a silent death.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

My darkness
Is unbearable
I lay underneath the covers
Curled up and blinking

Why
Do I feel so wretched?
Always?
If I had the strength I would change this terrycloth robe
Wash it maybe
Look out the window and not have it burn my eyes

Instead I lay here
I push the blankets away and
Look up at the pimpled paint job on the ceiling
The crackalure of antique white
I loathe that color
It pierces my soul with
Bland forbearance

What am I to do?
Nothing.
Survive.
Take a pill. Talk about it.

The phone rings as it does
My maid enters
There’s someone on the line
There’s a problem
It’s always the same

A rather large stegosaurus ravaging
the South Seas
A rich magnate with bombs and a timer
Laocoön’s prophecy coming true
It’s just too much

She holds the phone extended
with her hand on her hip
waiting impatiently
I know that she has work to do
and that I am no help, stalling
There are dishes and laundry
She wants to wash these sheets
I crawl out and put on my tights
My belt
My cape

She hands me
my multivitamin and my smoothie
as I leave
but I’ll be back
and will slip like a python
into the new ironed sheets
before the evening darkness
Which awaits patiently for me
And I will stay there
Until that phone rings again

masks of beauty
shooting at the moon
sweeping arrows
saddle the tunes
i cruise for nests of honey
set in diamond casings
situated among the flowers of yesterday’s
paparazzi
sages sneer at pimpled teenagers
future primal actors in the dreamtime
see me in this humidity
drier than a cactus
standing out like prickly pear flowers
and nopale sandwiches
made from green shoots and stems
our splendid appendages brought forth
oh the void
in mayhem’s embrace we chase the testament that
makes no mistakes
and never defiles them
grace is a carpet
a sheep skin in the winter
seminars of laughter barren like your refrigerator
sheet rock stallions
stand firm against the oppressive shields of bureaucracy
i see candle light dinners waiting for the masses
to matriculate from kindergarten