Tag: writing

History of War

The wars have been incorporated into this paper-

history,

The man with an impenetrable black jacket

stitching the paper,

approves,

and a new sheet is slaughtered by little boys.

Some grow up a mile.

Some grow up.

In the footnotes,

the great wars of citrus end

as a subsidiary at a small level of heart.

Circulatory virus,

change and kill.

This is so much war and it is controversial.

Only mid-minute meals.

 

 

Thanks for reading guys. This poem was produced by first writing one poem, then running it back and forth through Google Translate in the Xhosa language of South Africa, and then editing and revising my results.

Earth and Water

Obese clouds

in shades of sweat pant gray and

office tile white

promise rain to my dry, dry Earth.

The ants have been doing their rain dance for days,

twigs like tiny stilts the building blocks to their effigies.

I have been wrapping rainbows around my wrists,

sculpting the scavenging ground into beautiful lakes to

attract the clouds,

tell them there is room enough on this gregarious field

for earth and water.

I wait every night for the sea to spit my husband out,

undigested and handsome.

I like to straddle the dry lake bed,

the navy sea,

and wait for gifts from ether and water.

In My Golden Cage

The doctor takes an x-ray

of a balloon,

finds bone tumors.

Illness permeates the party.

I dance in a bird cage.

The door is open,

but I can’t get out.

Depictions of parrots on the wall,

the sordid light on repeat.

Masses of bodies,

shivering to a twisted music.

I give my teeth to a nun.

Salvation waits in the curvature

of this cornerless room.

My breathing wet,

I wring out my words.

Lost,

broken,

Brave,

malfeasance,

mirror.

In my golden cage I know nothing,

dream of silver silence.