The Medina

I will be loving you for always

He told her

the night he left Chefchaouen.

Her cumin skin couldn't

hold him—

His blue-white eyes had gone.

Her long dark hair hang

hurting

tangled among the Mosques

as her dusty feet start

stumbling—

stepping out her loss.

My heart could love here for all days

he had told her

behind tawny stalls and spice

but his foreign hands left

all the same—

his souvenir, her sacrifice.

Sphinx

 

" There are many kinds of eyes-

even the sphinx has eyes.

 

And so there are many kinds of truth.

And so, there is no truth. "





Gypsies

North wind and
dark chocolate—
            Gypsies on the river.
 
Lamb bones
and candle wicks.
The young ones turn—
            A whisper.
 
Olives rot—
no teeth to bite.
Weathering  
in empty jars of saffron.
 
Market chimes
and tamarisk
            Child come,
Let me read your palm.
 
Imagination is
paying attention—
lead belly freckles
aside.

For on mint

they lay like spoons,
what on parsley,
lay like knives.

Nietzsche's History Of an Error

             I.      The true world- He lives in it, he is it. Sensible. Simple. Persuasive.

 

          II.      Promised for the sage, the pious, the sinner who repents. It becomes female- It becomes Christian.

 

       III.      Unpromisable. The very thought of it a consolation. At bottom, the old sun. Seen through the mist, elusive and pale.

 

       IV.      Unattained and unknown. Gray morning. The first yawn of reason- The cockcrow of positivism.

 

          V.      No longer good for anything- Useless and refuted. Bright day; breakfast- Plato’s embarrassed blush and the return of bon sens.

 

       VI.      The true world, abolished. Fell twisted with apparent. End of the longest error. Noon’s briefest shadow, a moment.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

 

 

Untitled

Carry your wife

across the threshold – 

Force-feed her

milk and Foie Gras.

Coddle her

in cloves and honey –

       

Give her time to thaw.

Wrap her gifts

in fine French tarragon –

Keep her drunk

on Bombay gin.

Watch her dewy

belly bloat –

       

Help peel away her skin.

Wash her hair

with knots of ginger –

Don’t tell her

where she lives.

Board her doors

With snakes and chives –

       

Don’t let her feel the wind. 

Ⅲ

There will be a day for us

    much later,

when we pass on

the street as strangers.

You will fumble

with some nothing

in your pocket

and I will cross

the street,

as if I hadn’t

seen you.

Her

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her copper eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of almond skin.

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her stranded

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass.

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes,

to paint her white teeth silver.

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

This is the final draft of Her. I edited it down under the advisement of my poetry workshop professor, however I kind of miss some of the omitted lines....Thoughts on which version is stronger? 

Her (Original)

Her mouth is like my Mother’s

but not as coarse as she might

like for it to seem. I watch her

features soften, her lips to silk,

her voice to cream

Her leather-saddled hips

shift gently beneath her shift,

and her almond eyes

like avocado pits, sit nestled in

her cheek of milky skin

She paints a bee-sting red

on her honey-nectar lips

that leaves her lonely

kiss, on the rim of every

wine glass

She smells of orange peels

and ginger, of basil and vanilla

She smokes two packs a day

of fancy foreign cigarettes

in hopes one night they’ll kill her

She moves like she knows

I’m watching, like she knows

how much noise she makes

as her black pumps praise

her gait, with a Click-Clack

across the floor –

And suddenly, I’m caught,

tangled in her hair. That

milk chocolate mahogany

sits scalloped and unaware

of my helpless imagination,

and slowing circulation,

as I desperately whisper

my lustful prayers.

Athens

As if we were just

old friends you'd ask,

            How are you baby?

and I would reply,

            It won't stop raining.

You'd want to know,

if time ever mends?

and I'd tell you,

that time alone

brought Babylon

to her knees.

Then you'd ask if maybe,

I missed the fever

that came with the North wind?

and although I've missed it greatly,

I'll answer plainly,

that I no longer care

for such silly sins. 

Ⅱ

I should have run from you

he said.

I should have run.

But you’ll die in this world

she said.

Stuck in those sheets for days.

And I’ll be the one who finds you.

Such plans have Gods

of their own- 

Holiday Office Party

There’s a run

in her stocking

already, a spider

web ribbed and torn.

Her hair hangs

in mousy straggles,

a mealy nest of yarn.

She holds a roll

of fat (born,

They say, from beer)

that boils over

her waistline,

and pools 

beneath her rear

They snicker

in the corner

at her affinity

for liquor,

and speculate

the current state

of her tired,

lackluster liver.

She sees this,

she hears them.

She bristles

against their caw

and sitting alone

by the punch bowl,

wraps her lips

around her straw.

This was a poem in response to a challenge: 

Write a poem about December that uses the words run, boiling, ribbed, straggles, and spiderweb. Do not use the words holiday, snow, cold, tree, or winter. It must start with the word right and end with the word straw. The original draft adhered to all the requirements but as editing took its tole, I squeaked out of the mold :) 

Love Poem

Her aura

cleaves to him

as he spreads himself

across her smile.

Iced coffee and pheromones

seep between their teeth,

as they feed each other

back pocket promises like

condensed milk,

Until a creamy fungus

grows between them ­–

            A casual compulsion. 

Fracaso

She walks her dog in a public park

across the street from her community college

every Thursday after class lets out.

Today she miscalculates the weather

and wears jeans too dense for the humid air.

The ions on her skin are upset about it.

They push and shove and swell against each other,

expanding their angry heat. Felt fibers hook barbs

in the back of her thighs and press pools

of perspiration into the mouths of her sticky pores.

She hauls her protest back to the parking lot

and praises whatever power left it empty.

Lazy fingers of sweat have already coiled

their way up her torso and hang thick around her neck.

As if the pants were poison, desperately she peels them

away from her damp skin, and sits in her driver’s seat

naked and nervous from the waist down.

She drives a winding road home and sings radio tunes

to the dog, as torrents of tepid air fan her flustered flesh.

Until half way home, she sees in the road

a tuft of fractured wings. She jerks the wheel

and checks the mirror, in hopes she did not hit it.

She sees the body, still alive in the street –

It’s presence so tired and timid.

Her heartstrings cry out, they petition and pray.

So she rolls her eyes, and heaves a great sigh,

and pulls a U-turn in a stranger’s driveway.

Still panting and pant-less, she parks her Chevy

across the street from the dying fowl.

She looks at the creature, and she looks at her legs,

and she looks at her jeans – still damp and discarded

and inside-out, on the floor of her passenger’s seat.

She shakes her head and grits her teeth and begins

to coax the pants back onto her body.

The fabric is heavy, it spits and refuses. It bunches

and chokes, and puffs out it’s belly.

She’s parked out front of an Indian woman’s

yard and the owner watches from her lawn,

as this young woman, sweating and cursing,

tries to put her pants back on.

The buttons are not quite fastened, and her belt hangs far

from it’s loop, when she flings her car door open,

to save the dying goose.  But just as her feet swing out past the threshold,

a shiny new Prius hums up the road.

The driver is cautious and sees her parked to the side,

so slowly drifts sideways (as not to collide).

And as if in slow motion, she watches him inch closer

to the mangled game, she’s so desperate to save.

And finally they meet, as tires sew feathers to tar,

and she knows in that instant, the bird might have lived,

had she chosen (anywhere) elsewhere to park her car.

Fig

A violet Geode,

crystalline.

Puffs out its chest,

swollen to a proud bloat.

Lifts itself

to a palm.

Brown sugar

bruises

call forth

clammy beads of yolk.

Sovereign sap

exalted

on the alter

between mouth and nose.

That marbled pearl of nectar

proclaims itself ambrosia

before it bows

from the teeth,

swan-like.

A mecca

from lip to chin.

Forked

Rattling off again

shivering against its fellows,

            a leaning claw.

Arthritic metal fingers

knotted from overuse,

That brittle trident,

            a monkey’s paw.

A daily spade

sterling-faced, forlorn. 

A love child;

Spoon and Spear reborn. 

God Is A Woman

God is a woman

and She lives at the Motel 6.

She’s your waitress

and She’s a bitch.

She’s the hole in your sweater,

the knot in your greasy hair.

She’s the bed the seasons sleep in,

the tripping down the stairs.

She knows your favorite porn star,

She goes with her to work-  

She is that certain sadness

sitting in her smirk.

She’s a wax sun,

the last call,

a Chinese finger trap,

God is a woman

and She was dead

before the Cadillac. 

Listen...

"Both my Grandmothers left my Grandfathers, and my Mother left my Father, and I've never loved a man as much as he loved me.  A man will never leave you unless he's screwing someone else. -You can count on that sugar. But a woman, Ahhh, a woman will leave you to be alone. A woman will leave for herself. To find something, to shake something, to splash life in her face like brisk water. A woman will travel and test and fail and get back up to claim her self. But a man will never leave a home-cooked meal and once-a-week nookie, unless a warm pair of slippers are waiting for him, under other family-room's arm chair."

"People like to say Men are Dogs.  I wish they were. A dog can give you the most honest love you will ever know.  Its not about the wag-tail welcome home they give you every day. Its when you wake up breathless at 3:47 in the morning, and they wake up too. Just to press a wet nose against your cheek and stretch themselves into you.  Never underestimate the warmth of a cold nose."

"If you wake suddenly from a dream that seems like it could have been real, it was. Perception is the only reality. If you believe it, it exists.  Write down every dream you have, be a lucid dreamer, don't come back until you want to. If you can dream of waking from a dream, perhaps you are dreaming still. Write about your dreams until you could close your eyes and walk through them again; until you cant distinguish them from memory. Let the ideas and visions and desires melt together and over flow onto the floor."

"Someone once told me that poetry should be felt upon the pulses, but I can always feel it stick to my ribcage. If it's good poetry, I can feel it trickle down my spine or creep up my neck; raising goosebumps in its wake. You should feel the way writing can throb inside of you like a pulsing, stubbed toe. Promise me you'll find the way it buffets against your chest, and takes you on a spinning tour of Yourself. "

"Remember sweetheart, Yesterday is forever gone and Tomorrow will never be. Revel in Today, because that's all you got sugar."

Once upon a time, 

sweeter than we knew, 

the world was Ours. 

Index

Aphrodisiacs and Afghans, Bollywood and Blow, Cleavage and Chloroform, Diesel and DJs, Einstein and Eyelashes, Fingernails and Fillings, Garter snakes and Guard rails, Hubcaps and Hellos, India ink and Inch worms, Jabberwockies and Jasmine, Kilos and Kebabs, Limeade and Light years, Molasses and Mugshots, Narcissists and Narcs, Oracles and Orgasms, Panties and Paychecks, Quickies and Quebec, Refunds and Revolvers, Stains and Stalemates, Tongues and Tapers, Uvulas and U-turns, Velvet and Vendors, Wheelchairs and Weed, Xerox and Xanax, Yesteryear and You...

Self Portrait of San Diego

How many times has the summer stuck to the back of your thighs 

as you peeled them away from your leather bucket seats,

Clung to you 

with it’s skipping rocks and carpenter bees

and there’s too many dandelions on the lawn. 

How many times has the citrus sucking sunshine 

drifted through your rose-gold Aviators

and touched the crispy skin around the corners of your eyes,

made it crinkle when you laughed. 

Count the times you padded barefoot into the Dairy-mart

just for the AC and the way the linoleum tiles 

felt on your feet

And add that to the number of nights

the whole town smelled like honeysuckle.

Divide by the amount of your pores the humidity clogged, 

And tell me how long it took you 

to kneel in the baby’s breath

to beg for more.  

Yesterday

is only memory.

Tomorrow 

is merely imagination.

Today

is all you have.

Dear Ilana,

Your toes are cold in just slippers

as you stand outside and watch

the ardent orange tongues,

lap up your tangibility. 

They squirm through crevices in your floorboards 

and kiss your clothes to ash. 

They kneed and scream and crack. 

You know you lost. 

Before you can stop it, 

The North Wind cups the fleeting embers in his palm 

and tosses them
into the molasses sky. 

He whips them around tall buildings 

and lets them settle on street signs. 

He nestles ash in old, abandoned, pizza boxes 

and in the fur behind the ear of a stranger's cat. 

And you still standing there, shivering.

with bleach in your diet coke 

and rocks in your pockets.

and I'm scared. 

I wish I were there,

to wash that shirt

you've had on for days,

To braid your hair 

and fix your make-up.

To make sure your still real.

To make sure you don't burst into dust,

and join the fragments of your 

favorite Bob Marley poster

between the cracks of worn-out cobble stones. 

I Am

I am from a big red door

that could have been bigger.

I am from the dust bunny colony

under my bed.

I am from chipped nail polish 

and hastily crimped hair.

From the nine O'clock curfew,

From the first-born throne.

The tripping, wandering, hands-out-in-the-dark, throne. 

I am from the tall grass. 

The kind that has no paths waded through it yet. 

I am from the lost, the loud, the longing.

Knots

I can hear your thunderous eyelashes
pummel that strip of purple above your cheek.

Their echo tags along behind you as you drive
past fleeting lines on the freeway.

But it's her you mourn for,
as you struggle through a knot in my hair.

A sticky smile trickles down your chin
and I can tell you found something familiar.

Your eyes tug at my sleeve,
begging to drop it into my lap.

But that intimate hum we used to keep in our throats
slithered away through the grass

        A long time ago.

So I shake my head slowly, and you know.
She will always be your last.

Remember When We Were Strangers?

I was wearing stale cream lace

that used to be white,

drinking watered-down baileys

with too much ice.

My neck was wrapped in pearls

when I told you;

"Maybe later I'll show you my tattoos"

So you grabbed my wrist

a little too tight,

and let me waste your time.

You swept me to the dance floor

and guided me through

the choreography of our vibes.

You asked me to take my make-up off

and shimmy across your center fold.

So I looked you up

and lay you down 

and happily obliged.

Dear Girl,

Sweet creature,
your wasting away.

Did you sleep?
Or did you die then?
Did you sink into his heart?
or dissolve completely?

Rejected, you are caught;
tangled in his hair.

And although grief
has unlocked your throat,
you are no louder than
the milky chatter of pearls.

So let Karma twist your body
however he likes,

May his greedy blue eyes
     protect you.

*

Born of the earth;
He is a feast for the human soul.

His father is a velvet fungus,
who invented the cult of domesticity.

His mother is pregnant
with crisp autumn nights,
and speaks to him in
the language of the
sun and the moon.

He lives in ancient waters,
with the singing oracles
of passion, pain and pleasure.

He drives the heartland express
and his air freshener smells like musk.

He collects squished whispers from your ceilings,
and feeds them to you until Sunday morning
comes to take him back.

J.B.

“Just like sparrows,

you'll never see one dead.

Must be millions of them,

but you'll hardly ever see one dead.”

    “What happens to them?”

“They get over it.”

    “Over what?”

“Over being there.”

Fly Paper

Tears as shallow as temptation.

Intent as thick as moonlight.

Thoughts as clear as rose water.

Mind as thin as butterfly wings.

Can't do anything but stay.

A million miles above the ground;

I am your flashing lights.

Shangri-La

The day the starfish were high,

we were swimming towards the sun

and nirvana was only a stroke away.

We carried stories in our stomaches 

and let them bubble up from our throats 

until we could see them wrap around

the waists of street venders.

The merry-go-round music tangled in my hair

but I never wanted to shake it out.

Your breath was in my lungs 

when the citrus-sucking sunshine

made your heart skip a beat. 

Our feet burned black on the board walk

when we walked too far,

looking for where the ocean herself was born.

When the mermaids called our names,

we waded through tide pools,

let seaweed grow around our ankles,

and promised never to uproot them. 

And finally the seagulls brought us 

aphrodisiacs from the Gods 

so we climbed the lightning bolts

and became a new constellation. 

Maybe

Someone once told me that
poetry should be felt upon the pulses.

It's the fly you want
trapped in your head.

It's the cool calm that rains down
As dusk falls onto your shoulders.

It's a blitz.
A black box.
A cellar door.
It's wooing the muse.

Blitz

Words skinned and numbed

by too many bricks, 

slip out past your hollow tounge 

and through your silk teeth.

Your words fall to the earth like milk;

creamy and assuring. 

They flow over sticky cobblestones 

and gather in puddles around my feet. 

Gently, they wind around my ankles 

and slip through my belt loops.

Until they are snaked around my waist

and teething on my lips. 

Your words smell like you: 

The sweet saline scent of tears. 

They tug at my eyelids

until I sleep,

and stick to the inside of my skull

so I can enjoy them later. 

When Was The Last Time You Danced?

The last time I danced

I couldnt remember the steps.

I was too busy leaking injustice from my pours 

and looking for something to burn. 

Your hands were on my hips 

as we failed in style,

like tired machines. 

You held me close 

and whispered gently, 

"In the sleep of death, 

  you may find dreams."

You

We've been up

and we've been down.

Down is defiantly better.

You've picked me up, 

you've kicked me around.

My butterflies never went away.

We learned to speak to each other,

but we forgot it all.

Our best times never had words.

Sometimes we get by

but mostly we fall.

Let me on this sinking ship. 

Carmen

Why is he kissing that girl?

The one with the peppermint hair

and apple-dipped nails.

Doesn't he know

her eyes are too sweet?

and her lips will go sour

when she feels the heat,

of another flame tugging her sleeve?