a lone student raises
a hand after I ask
a heavy question
I call upon the hand
every time as if
it signals something
to be chased
“can I use the bathroom?”
is always the question
sometimes it’s pleasing
merely to see a hand raised
in a sea of blank faces
and lo, I call upon the raised hand
and will continue to call upon it
until one day the student
will not ask to be excused
but will stun us all
(tranliteration/translation in comments)
могу сказать что
у меня волосы оттенка милой кукурузы.
хочу сказать что
у меня голоса оттенка молнии и грома.
стихи, вот,
они – мой дом.
больше чем всё,
мой рот – мой народ.
но я слышу что
у кого-то есть языки грозные, грузные,
кому-то границы кажутся дружные,
кто-то без печалей видет гробы грустные,
кто?
вы
это можете описать?
а кто скажет:
–я вижу,
и
мне не кажется,
и
да, у меня язык,
и
здесь не будет шёпота
?
хочу стать Ахматовой, когда меня спросят:
–Это вы можете описать?
хочу сказать:
–Могу.
She said, “You’ve reached Tricia”
I thought “Obviously not”.
Unless she’s one of those people
who often refer to themselves
in Third Person, in which case
I probably wouldn’t want to
talk to her anyway. So as soon
as she said, “Please leave–”
I did.
Her Poem
I am not sure
that I can write
her poem.
I have waited
in this chair
for hours,
like a cat
in tall fescue,
waiting to pounce.
I shall rise now
and go outside
to watch the hummingbirds
be chased away
from the two feeders,
except for the small female.
I imagine her as I stand
on the porch to have been
poetry the last time I saw her.
She wore a dress
bedecked with flowers,
red and purple, mostly.
I remember I said:
“You look lovely
in that dress.”
“Only lovely?”
She asked.
She caught me off guard.
I regret not telling her
she was beautiful.
I thought it best to speak
less at the time,
even though my feelings
begged me otherwise.
Rum runner, rum runner, runaway rum.
Julia says there’s Daddy and his wife, Mommy.
More again! More again!
Sarah decrees and Peepaw pops
up and down in the pool
never in the same place
neither of them losing momentum.
It’s too far to walk yet again
to toilets at the clubhouse.
It’s okay Mommy says.
Sarah squats, peeing honestly
through a swimsuit silhouetted
against ocean on a beach
where unkindness is a crime.
Oh, Donald,
if you hadn’t been too rich
to raise your own kids
you would have had golden showers
more than you can imagine.
The Diary of Alice
19 June
The farther away you get from me the closer we become.
in the soft blackness of the night
heavily veiled in mystery
the remembrance garden deep in my heart
there is so much to feel
perhaps prayer is like that
the seething inside
too full of living to be written down
It’s wanting keeps us going
like a wrong key turning round and round in a lock
It’s all the unwordable things one wants
and having nothing happen
Life is full of opposite contraries
the freedom of memory and imagining
a longing to know and understand
so that nothing is lost
that makes the skin of you
feel like something namelessly exquisite
there is a lonely, blue brooding over everything
always unfolding, never in a hurry
I am circled by trees
moss, very deep and silent
the creatures are all folded down in sleep
the holy ones
guarding their precious secrets
a sky quivering with movement
glimpses of the between places
~ Cento of lines taken from Hundreds and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr, p. 75, 78, 81, 84, 91, 103, 116, 117, 121, 127, 138, 152, 158, 165, 174, 179, 181, 183, 184, 201,206, 222, 239
Be mindful
of where
you feel it–
flow
in a direction
that doesn’t
slam
down
or break
out.
Bring up too much
slack and it may trip
it all up.
Gabriel, my nephew, is 15 months old.
In 459 days, this life is all he has known.
In 4 weeks he went from mostly crawling
To almost running. When he sees me,
He stands up and walks forward, expecting
To be the world in my arms. This is what
he’s learned. When you cage children,
what do you expect to teach them?
Twisted. Disfigured.
Bruised by the fall,
struck and rolled,
a fortunate taste.
Delicious.
