"Litany" Poem--April 2010

Key West, Florida, 1995

Blue striped geckos lose their tails independently wiggling bodies,

tree frogs in the deep dark well at the end of Passover lane,

browned grass baked dead by the sun's relentless attention,

an uncompromising lover. We want green, how it withers &

shrivels & dies, three times over & sticky anemones

beneath the pier, urchins & sea cows in clouds of purple ink.

Portuguese Man-Of-War float far out barracudas & clownfish & brain coral.

The cemetery across the street we play in

forts constructed on headstones stomping carelessly unaware of death,

instinctively we shy away from small graves.

& how we adore big fat drops of water,

running down soggy streets to jump in puddles

feeling wet & cool on our feet, thinking the whole world lives,

barefoot & sweating & half-clothed & wild.

& coconuts split open by machete

white & bitter, milk not milk to us

but the ocean which surrounds us--

keeps us here, thick mangroves imprison us,

one highway stretches down to this place,

heaven, where tourists flock rejoicing in white sand,

lemon sharks lay close to shore,

Cuba ninety miles by raft.

Rejects, idealists,

junkies, wanderers,

settling here with tattoos

& tie dyed t-shirts, scarred arms

& long hair & towels for clothes,

my father & our house with screens

& mismatched wood, my mother, her guitar

our home, is no home for children & young minds,

we watch the island beyond our latched wooden gate,

keeping them out, and us in, laying beneath slow moving fans,

taking refuge in the scent of jasmine the curl of bougainvillea

& the yellow center of frangipani--the softness of hibiscus petals.

2010, March 7

Hi Everybody--

I probably need to change the title of this blog, but I've been taking various poetry courses for the last year and a half, and wanted to share some of my recent works. I haven't had time to blog recently, but wanted a place in which to publicly share my work.

I hope you enjoy,

feedback is much appreciated.

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1. Lottery

(An experimental prose poem, commenting on life in California)

The woman at the bus stop with a guitar poking out of a brown paper bag, clutched tightly, frantically waiting. The man who can't stop tapping his toes on the train, all the way from Oakland to San Francisco. That crazy question, where do you see yourself in ten years? asked gently, winding along the California coast, fruitlessly searching for lighthouses, far out to sea, a barge from China, packed with some mystery good, something we all need a little more of. CAUTION, blaring in yellow, people have fallen from these cliffs, people have drowned in this ocean. This ocean which offers neatly ordered rolling spraying ocean, protected spaces for blubbery sea lions who have long since left this grainy beach. In a smoggy shop full of men with dim lights and brightly colored lottery tickets, the bus smells like mothballs and marijuana, the fat happy baby kicks his feet and gurgles, content to squirm on his mother's lap. The teenagers, playing and fighting and flirting like puppies, why you in my mother fucking mouth, spat out in the beginning stages of flowing rushing gushing hormones. Again, a question, what do you call home? A question no one knows how to articulate. A place, how location does not leave us, even when everything else does, how our bones remember spaces and the time we spent in said places, the time we spent away from them, the people in these spaces/places blurring and fading and changing in our unreliable minds and memories of our minds, the place/space seared into the make up of our faces and hands, tucked behind our ears, underneath our nails and behind our wobbly knees.

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2. Fall's Fall

(My attempt at a Shakespearean Sonnet, much of which is slant rhyme)

Through the passing of a life from fall's fall

to the growing of fleshy orange pumpkins

the curling of a sunflower's round ball

weaving a new found founding function

the cucumbers fat and tubular and green

squash green and hard and squash yellowing

the coarseness of a bloom the delicate sheen

unraveling as winter's cool shelling

breathing frost and cold into tangles of earth

earth's smooth silence and stoic waiting

spreading out and over the tired birth

this place of growth and slow moving baiting

sparrows peck at the topsoil wiggle worms

all in the hopes of watering new germs

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3. Spain, 2007

(Free verse, memories of my first trip to Spain, specifically the tiny charming town of Gomez)

The little town of Gomez boasts

round juicy peaches, endless cornfields,

stray dogs and restaurants-

pitchers of dark red Sangria,

wedges of oranges & lemon floating on its surface,

set next to platters of fresh dripping vegetables,

golden olive oil pooling around the edges of mouths.

We eat dinner on the patio,

whole shrimp resembling ancient sea creatures-

rolled about in garlic and parsley, soaked and grilled,

the lights of Barcelona barely visible

in the murky purple distance.

Beneath, on la calle,

matriarchs and patriarchs sit in flowered lawn chairs,

or on their front stoops-languid, careless,

confident in their position in this world,

smoking cigars, chattering, gossiping, quietly, steadily.

Night after night, dark eyed dark haired children

chase and tease each other, pulling hair, laughing.

Babies with pierced earls are gently held by wrinkled hands,

kissed & cuddled & admired & adored.

The soft buzz of Catalunya is muted by a stirring wind,

lifting the dry Mediterranean air onto exposed necks,

tunneling through sticky shirts and shorts,

Gomez exhaling as cool air hits

warm, pumping bodies.