99070 enter escape yes. 88366 enter escape yes. Yes. Escape. Enter Enter Enter.
Doing data entry at this gynecologist's office, in the cool air, I lay aside the excitement always knifing me. I type 99070 I am an ant I enter escape yes I am no random collection of wants I offer my crumb to the picnic.
99070 This morning I dreamt my lover pollen drunk with a head like a hive. 99070 enter escape yes enter escape yes escape escape yes enter enter like a bee I drone for honey without tasting.
88831 In this office there is a beautiful woman who moves like honey in a jar. 88831 enter yes I distrust beauty; it is too simple. 88831 enter escape yes 99070 88831 enter enter excitement like a knife, like an antennae. Enter I am not wearing underwear yes yes.
99070 enter escape yes I can always see my lover's blood biting him under the skin like red ants. 88831 enter my lips roam over him like ants and he beds in me like a stinger. Enter. Escape. Yes.
Wanting is a wound happy enough To bleed into its own mouth. I want to be white but I was born a red penance, a sweet stain Which speaks ten dead languages, Tap dances before strangers like A jigger of venom which Erases its own raw face. I want to stop living like a scab: Hard, shiny, born around a hurt. I want my open palms To be dashed with blue, calm. I want to learn how to receive With no shackles of acceptance Jailing my heart. I want people to untangle in The sharp, sticky briar patch of my voice. I want to scale myself to daring new chromatics. I want to diffuse into this world like mist. I want to plant my roots in lava And throw sparks heavenward. I want new language like fire. I want to live like a torch. I want to be neat as a rock garden and Lush as a rainforest. I want to mend. I want to break. I want to bend. I want to know what it's like to be a daisy. I want the soft, scarred part of me Understood without apology or apotheosis. I want cigarettes to be nutritious. I want to eat potato chips all the time. I want desire and decision To recreate me, daily.
These hands which measure garlic For tomato sauce by touch. These hands which nimbly knit The dim flickers of finance. This mouth which licks the salt In a day's deft rivulet. This mouth which learns to tongue The bloated sting out of routine. This heart which yowls and claws at Convention's patched hem. This heart which shivers and departs Its capsized wants for The hub of bright moments. I offer a hot lunch and Its sudden God: A small, impetuous gift Brewed in the flimsy blue Hum of a gas jet. I offer a motion of lava at The pit of the world and The luminous conviction that We are the juice, the pip, the fruit. Litany of the Inconsolable by magdalena If I could bleed like a straight line into the Horizon which blinks into swallowing dark If I could accept if I could open my arms Wide if I could stand unflinching If I could unclench fit in my own pocket If I could pay attention If needs didn't cram my throat with Fistfuls of choked air If I could stay breathless In the bare jugular dark If needs could be struck like flint Flaming put to use If I could step into the ventricular sun Recast my shadow If I could eat my past Furrow it for planting If I could ease the urgent now Into this heart so long untenanted If I could mentor my kaleidoscope eye Leave what I see unresolved If I could run away like rain Vanish into a plinth of ether If my smile was not too torn to wear
Night's haunch flexes its furred silver. The pant and stroke of it blackens over me startled tricked into air it ticks in my throat. This night sheds all its tightly wound heat. Its flawed gold pools in my bedside cup. I am exhausted with hushing the very ground, nourishing the trees' fat white roots. In order to praise, I bite back. The wind's hands are opals which click in the trees. The moon in columns dances like a harem in the pale air. I move in dizzy plurals filaments of flesh which sweeten on their stalks nailed to the root with a careless doubt; almost like glee. MAGDALENA ALAGNA
The Merchant: At 43, I had a heart attack. That brute pain in my chest Nailed my breath to the wall and Chiseled my gall from its rest. Now words are vinegar in my mouth, like tears What is preserved here what can be preserved Everything turns... And fermentation makes A deity of a grape. Suddenly I heard the Outraged treble of my life As it seized. I saw my own gears Bleed and fall flat on the Anvil of the clock I must ferment to its dizzy end What I began to tread No separate skin to burst, and No time for the wine I might have been. The Daughter: Fathers give their daughters away, Sooner or later, Flapping their palms White as flounder. Love and loss and the unsayable Tugging at their lips like hooks. Heroism he says Is taking out the trash every day. Washing the plates. Plunging the Black gunk out of the tub. If this is so, the hero is dead, Buried in his flesh and the trash it makes. The logic of his life posthumous. The hero is an absence. Give me the Fool for my model, then, If nothing lasts. The Merchant: I want my daughter to be happy. But the lush arbor of her Mind chokes out the sun. She asks if I am happy. I tell her my life is good, And she looks at me And asks "Why?". I never questioned my heart Until it faltered. What can I tell her? How can I sell her the wine I make, The wine I am, the wine I know... The Daughter: His wisteria trees. His mystery stories. His opera. His pasta. The almonds he hulls and roasts. Does nothing goad him? He ate my first pasta `e fagioli, The beans half raw and Crunching in his dentures. He has not once, not ever, said "I might have wanted more." When I uncork my rough wine He seals it up, puts it away Trusting age to sweeten the bitters.
Samantha, your face is round as a coin. Shiny and summed up; it hasn't spent its value, Hasn't looked in Fortune's hard blue Eye or seen Her bland, neat Mouth pursed over life's plate, Sealed over the hunger for more. I want to say a rich life depends more On how we mint our own coins Than on printing from society's plate. Trends can't unmake Time as currency of value. You will find I'm putting it too neatly But remember this when in the blue Of anonymous night threadbare blues Sing your heart sore for one more Chance to drink bold spirits neat: A heart-spilled song is a shower of coins, Your jackpot, your raw and radiant value. And I invite you to the banquet. I'll fill your plate. Samantha, so recently up to the plate To bat, your eyes unfocused-- still baby blue-- Forgive me for talking of these values When you are unaware of social mores And are such treasure-- a new word coined-- Not philosophy, rubbed to a glare, insultingly neat. Though I'd like to pluck the weeds, neaten Your path, I know the Fool's trove: plate And chalice; air and fire; pentacle and coin; Is enough; is tucked inside your soul's blue Bottle of senses: all you'll need, and more, To make a life of deep and ringing value. Poverty comes only if we devalue What we know. Doubt's slow knife cuts neat At first, a small slit and soon there is more Shifting under our ground's tectonic plates
My displaced life rises glinting like wheat. Days passing seem a matter of sheer whim. Each morning widens its wide air beat by beat. I burrow through my soul's dry gathering heat Held apart from my own vigorous limbs: My displaced life rises glinting like wheat. Each day I come to bear the crabbed effetes Who whittle days purgatorial and slim: Each morning widens its wide air beat by beat. The simple tunnel to my heart is bleak With bright desires quickly going dim: My displaced life rises glinting like wheat. Each day a struggle, a tremendous feat To fit my worn-down life for sailing trim. My displaced life rises glinting like wheat. Each morning widens its wide air beat by beat.
Left I am the analysand Who cups bromine dreams in My palm's brown bowl. Explanation is a grace I can't afford. I tryst with Anonymous persons. Right I am the historian. I am a solo flight home Using a new map for An ancient place. I have outlived myself, Evaded nostalgia's vapor. I approach my mind: it is a Tennis match of doubles in full swing. I cling like a scarred-over skin To fire mysteries, and you are The new red God of a wrecked cult, A torpid war with origin. Your palm's pattern is currency. I bear grace's diligence like a compass. My spirit languishes, a lab rat under a White-coated, awful observation. I fail to master this world's Complicated air. Flesh bites like a shackle. Smear me with my own salt Let me stand in the sun. I could tell you about boisterous And ill-formed wind, and about A man-shaped absence. I have outlived myself by gossiping About me in the third person to a Blank blue hotel wall while My lover fetched coffee and I fingered the Bible In the bedside drawer.
This day is a thin-lipped woman in a gray office This day is homeless sleeps on grates in filthy tarp This day sidles up on needle thin heels grasps a lower lip in its white teeth clucks over the economy shakes its red nailed fist at the flock of children crossing against the light This day's morning wiggled my hips This day wags my tongue This day outlines me in red and gutters in its blue cup This day truckles and bows stands meek wears religion and polyester This day scrubs me white divests my vespers This day pines on the vine This day drives my sight like an x-ray betrays every motive strangles every votive grace This day spends too much mends too little This day will sigh its frayed red breath into night
The white fur of the stars, the Great Bear Dispenses her dark and fiercely burns, Crouches and wheels in the vast air, Rousts the cub I am. I would learn From her stark face which Fate stares And sparks the challenge to earn My life which barks from its black lair And waits silver and sure, yet unconfirmed. Oh Goddess I take the gauntlet, life's dare And all its death: I'll not squander this turn Of the wheel mewling soft and scared, Unsprung from the seed, undiscerned, Closeted inside my flimsy skin. I'll be The huntress with courage hot in me.
Women are rising at dawn with breasts full of milk. Women are waving batons at crossroads. Women are paving streets, building bridges, adding figures. Women are giving praise in the direction of the sun. Women are eating eggplant for lunch. Women are learning the synergy between waxing the floor and polishing the moon They are placating the dead. They are growing honeysuckle and making drums. Some, today, are buying tampons. A woman is not a cog in the machine. Every woman is a seed.
I. This, then, is the story: Once I read comic books. Once I parroted the Catholic mass In the dark of bedtime with my sister, The soft guts of Italian bread As the host. I was the priest. Once I slipped like a flying fish Out of the bath and wet foot-printed All over the house shrieking, "I am God! God doesn't wear any clothes!" I was six years old. My mother was alarmed with me. I refused to let the dentist look in my mouth. I had the best vocabulary in my class But did my math homework in invisible ink. Once I was a tomboy for a week. I pitched a softball game and climbed The pet tree we called George. I sailed to Africa on a blue sleeping bag Draped over the stairs. II. This is also the story: There was no one disappointment. All I know is I stopped Reading comic books and the kids Took shots at my chest in dodge ball, Positive I had tissues in my bra. Once I went to sleep early every night. Asleep, I could fly. I flew to London and danced on The hands of Big Ben. Then, I had a dream. A snake crawled up my thigh and bit Deep inside until the blood came. I stood in a river of blood with A single curled oak leaf at my feet. III. Once, I loved a man Who looked like King Arthur. The moon shining into his room at night Made a blue web over the bed. I called him the dreamkeeper. We knit our skins together like The covers of a well-worn book. I don't know what happened. A slow-cooking anger, then He went blank and addled as the wind. I learned so many stories, Like bridges, like medicine; I spoke My exoskeleton to the world. IV. This should have been a dream, But it wasn't. I was pregnant. I was seasick Walking underwater through the day. Every story I knew Died in my mouth when he said, "You know what to do." I'll tell you what I did. I went to the doctor's office. There was a machine there. It looked like a snake. It crawled up my thigh And bit me deep inside Until the blood came. V. Now, I am a roman candle pasted to its own spark. But your story slips into My mouth like a virus. I have dreams that I am a spider That my life's web is needlepoint Seen from the back, All snarls and knots. This is the story: Men overexposed me Like film; I burnt white to the edges. I could not rely on my skin, believe my own mouth or trust my hands, punished for their skill, cured of clutching. Now my eyes frame you free of their history. Tell me a story. Let there be lightning which strikes a tower. And I will speak a story right now Of someone who was unhooked from the light.
Let us go then, you and I When the moon is high in the sky Like an eye wide with delight. Let us walk upon white shores Buffeted by restless seas, Waves which flood you With an overwhelming question. Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the men are talking low Of the women who come and go. The phosphorescent coral lights A question to the blank sky. And indeed there will be time To create a boneshell cage A house for your hunger to Greet the hunger that you meet. In the room the men are talking low Of the women who come and go. And indeed there will be time To urge you, urge you to dare, But time, also, to see you Knot your fists in your hair... In a minute there is time For the essence of possibility To vanish in an instant. Oh, I have known them all already, known them all-- The mendicant beachcombers cursing The reticence of the lip of shore And the sheer thrust of coursing wave both. And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- Eyes that let me see to the prurient bottom, bare (but beneath the moon, glazing over with a hard stare!) Is it the memory of his fright Which calls forth all my spite? And how should I begin? And why should I presume? Shall I say I have been In the bowels of convention And watched pride choke on its own desire? I am the song which answers itself, Borne lightly on the swallowing sea. You sleep so peacefully! Should I, heeding Poseidon, Elucidate and then impersonate the crisis? I am a priestess; the greatness of the matter: There is never a seizure of momentum When fear clutches at my ribs and then folds up. It is worth it to say I bear witness, I believe Though they have all said, "Finally, you know, this is meaningless." I am no Ophelia Though they would have me be. I've been to the nunnery; Rutted and worshipped at the altar of Love, Always with courage to play the fool. I grow young...I grow young... I shall reinvent the world with my tongue. Darling, grow your hair past your shoulders Or shave it all. Each cherry after cherry and then eat a plum. Wear trousers slit to show beneath A crescent of naked peachflesh. When I sing, my voice marries the air Which is to say, If some thread of melody carries and reaches, Quickens you on the narrow strip of this beach, Darling, I am always singing. Listen.
I used to be growing up. Now I'm dying she said Just as if her round basin hat wasn't lavender. I used to be growing up she said though She has yet to raise orchids or learn the tango Though there is Paris and comparative literature I'm dying she said As if we'd never yelled at each other And made peace over lasagna. As if the mirror could refuse or thwart her. As if she was not water and death Was not the breast stroke. I used to be growing up she said as if Letting go each day did not Stitch us to the wind mote by mote. As if it might not be nice to go Shuck this flesh suit and Slide oily past the boiling stars Becoming at last one necessary spark. I'm dying she said Though death is a convection and We unformed are waiting to rise.
When I scraped off my parents who had Hardened around me like a scab, I became a single woman. I became a single woman by Eating dinner in the graveyard, A tree doubling as my spine. Through plumage: dying my hair purple And doing my nails blue. By eating my heart raw, nights when That mean, orange-haired lover played guitar. I became single by attending My friends' weddings in a Tuxedo and black sequined bustier. By not shaving my legs for six years and Wearing fishnet stockings. I became single by stomping on Myself with the unerring grace of A flamenco dancer; By flexing my scar tissue at parties As if I was double-jointed. By having days when my skin is Rice paper and I fold myself up Like an origami bird. I spread eagle alone in bed Make angels in the white flannel sheets. I am not separate from anything. And I stay single; I sprint to my car in storms Cuss my wet socks and sing Ella Fitzgerald loud, The window cracked, rain in my ear.
The text of my life is annotated by Grocery lists on the desk, On the floor of the car, Washed and wadded up in pockets. Wherever I've been, wherever I am, Lists and lists stuck in jackets Drizzling from my purse to Skitter across parking lots and Race newspapers across the street. They stir the air, they say: My nourishment depends On fire or time combining Ambitious mixtures. The lumps of sticky notes Which sift together Make a mood mélange: potato chips chocolate Dr. Pepper period is coming: hormonal fracas of craving the 4 food groups: sweet, salty, crunchy, caffeine onion garlic sherry ginger problem solving: release tension by chopping lots of broccoli, then stir fry red peppers fresh mozzarella foccacia homesickness: I want my mother to be like this bread soft in my hands When under duress, I bake bread all night. I recite ingredients and procedure, yeast flour knead oh please please something must rise When calm, I cook soup stock, Use fresh rosemary. I mutter happily with pepper-pot mouth: Lentils, parsley, shallots. At work, I dream during deadlines. Suspicious scribble lurks in report margins: Acorn squash. Cinnamon. Sage. On weekends I hide in the kitchen, Unplug the phone. I sing in full flavor with tasty tongue: Tortellini, samosas, pierogies. When partnered, I dip strawberries, bake brownies. Notes greasing the bottom of my journal say: Sugar. Vanilla. Butterscotch. When single, I dine on chips and refried beans or Invent fried plantain burritos. Notes garnishing the fridge say: Cilantro. Anchovies. Gorgonzola. After mingling in this soup, all I ask is To be poured down Kali's warm gullet Spicy and tender. Let me be perfectly done.
Callipygian women, my pigeons, Your physique speaks of industry. You walk down the street and the air Skirls like a delighted calliope. Callipygian women, doves Flutter in the delicate calabooses Of your ribcages; You carry your hips like Basketfuls of mangoes to market On a tropical July day, captivating. Callipygian women, be unabashed Over the calabashes of your curves. They hold calypso in their strokes, Oh birds of Paradise, Oh phoenixes rising. Who can calibrate the effect on the heart When callipygian women undulate through a Bright sea of trees in the park, And onlookers fall apart, And reconstruct their calendars? I'll allow no calumny of callipygian women. Like Caliban, they are slaves to a higher art. They are the calyx which circles Appreciation of abundance; Dormant, but precise as calculus. Calendulas in a garden of daisies. Oh, life. Oh, all things circular And wavy, cyclic and intrinsic. For they will not be slats in a fence. They will not be ironing boards, Or mere slips of girls, or chits. They will not be honeys or twits. The cry goes out for spirals, For the world turning in a gyre. Callipygian women, the calipers.
When you met Ravi Shankar I'm sure You heard drumbeats sneaking into his shoes. George Harrison, of course, had cymbals stuck Like coins in his trouser pockets. And you induced lightning. And you ate a mean lentil dal. And streets were paved with marshmallow. Peter, did you show them your inner peace Rising up like melon seeds? Did they see Your favorite willow tree who looked Like a straw-haired lady? Peter, you brought your two dimensions To them and they folded you up like An origami bull and forever after The west wind had a different flavor.
Astrally, you haunt the circus. Do you see me waving from the erratic carousel, Tinny music on my lips? I would know your spirit anywhere, The chocolate-liqueur smell of your aura Like sweet tobacco. Dear ghost you have passed through me In ecstatic heartbeats and Amber beads filled my palms and We took gulps of summer air when the Girls are wearing peach on peach. I was eleven when you died and I know When a precise shard of your soul Flew into my keeping. Corinthian man, dissolute, Deconstruct me. Let the tawny invade us, finger and hair. In your new life, you might be Serenading under a senorita's window. Pick me up at eight for a tango on the town, Wearing the boldest silver buckles in your shoes.
A is for adder, asp, and ache. A is for abstract and absurd. A is the alibi of altruism, The almanac of ambition, A is an Amazon. A should be pan-fried in an adobe, under an azure sky. Love your A's. Play with them. Teach them games. E is the sound of incipient ideas. E is for epiphany and echo. E is for eureka, effrontery, effluvium. E is Promethean, shaking its E fist. E is for elipsis... Also for epilogue: E is for evolution. Love your E's. Take them to excess. I is inebriated with itself. In America, I is its own poem. I is for the Immaculate Conception I is for the Inquisition. I is for Idolatry. Love the incubus of your I into submission For every I was born in innocence. Teach your I the lotus position. O is the cipher of desire: round shocked mouth long moan. O is for October and a witch's eye O is oblation and waiting to die. O is for obelisk which glorifies. O is the glue of love. Love your O's. Notice them. Stroke them. Bask and soak in them. Treat your O's like warm rolls. Butter them and eat them whole. U is ubiquitous. U is for ungulate. U is for horseshoe. U is the barnyard vowel, the circus vowel, The prostitute of the alphabet, With the communal values. Love your U's: amuse them. Teach them to write haiku. Buy them smell-good shampoo.
I. Desire Love can and should be had just for the asking. In Buddhist monasteries, there is a rule: If two monks pass one another in the hall, And one calls out a greeting, The other must answer, "Hello!" without thinking. The moon is an unleavened flour girl In need of my transformative fire. II. Affection Under the moon's tutelage, I have learned to consume steak Instead of women. I am a tantric lover dressed in white Who can go and go and go all night. I tend the night-blooming jasmine. I live in a cottage with the village witch. I repair her busted plumbing. Every night she becomes a wolf Together we roam the forest Lovers rush through the trees To run their fingers through our fur. III. Knowledge Love is a question, not an answer. I have a pocketful of keys Forged from Love's silver bullets and Humbly I approach the moon's door.
If I could bleed like a straight line into the Horizon which blinks into swallowing dark If I could accept if I could open my arms Wide if I could stand unflinching If I could unclench fit in my own pocket If I could pay attention If needs didn't cram my throat with Fistfuls of choked air If I could stay breathless In the bare jugular dark If needs could be struck like flint Flaming put to use If I could step into the ventricular sun Recast my shadow If I could eat my past Furrow it for planting If I could ease the urgent now Into this heart so long untenanted If I could mentor my kaleidoscope eye Leave what I see unresolved If I could run away like rain Vanish into a plinth of ether If my smile was not too torn to wear
The only reliable fact is that I saw Him risen. One might say I was a repentant prostitute But that smacks of editorial license. Simple: I knew a Vegetal God when I saw one. Afterwards he rose like bread and Showed himself to me. Let me tell you about the miracle of The loaves and the fishes. He gave the lepers salmon. The fishermen, trout. The rich merchants, carp. Only the children wanted white bread. The water-into-wine wedding miracle was different. Only wine like red water, maple leaf-stained. Let me tell you about the devils cast out. One gloved himself in a butcher's flesh; He sent me presents of bloody meat. One became a baker and supplied my evening rye. One was a tax collector who requested The payment of my tears in a blue bottle. One a social worker, one an addict; The 7th devil migrated to the roots of my hair. What I learned concerned language And paying close attention. I still announce resurrection when I see it.