Tag: writing

Church

Church of memoir

of discovery

of chants.

Cloistered in my name are ten lives

I did not live

in favor of a sublime 11th.

What is better than best?

What can joy can be discarded for ecstasy?

The taste of salt lines my mouth

when I look back.

 

 

translated to Xhosa, Afrikaans, and back

Church of Love

 

I find joy

while I lay cloistered in my ten lives.

Auroras swirl beyond my reach.

They will not live.

There is a reason I am so inordinately fond of 11.

What is better than a lot?

 

Why have I ignored peace?

 

It tasted of salt in my mouth.

Power lines guiding me back home.

 

 

Church of Love

Separate the gaiety from the joy.

Lonely in my ten lives,

they live,

it is as though they live without me.

How do I dispose of gaiety?

Of me?

End of Time

I wear a necklace of thirst.

My forehead is emblazoned with

The idea is in the umbilical cord.

My shoes light up.

I cannot walk without marching,

Dance without dreaming,

Scream without reading.

I carry a satchel of books.

The first one reads,

In the aftermath are bunnies and prose.

The second reads,

Math is Armageddon.

The third reads,

Armageddon was yesterday. The aftermath

Is bunnies and prose.

Burning Suburbia

Blue light is not chasing

my soul.

Shades of slate and gun metal pursue me

in a way the other women wrapped in their profiles and friends

would understand more than they want to believe.

 

Our spirits dream while we say,

How much? That’s too much.

I have to have her there by 3.

We need to get away. It is never just us.

 

In the suburbs I drive over hillock after hillock

again and again,

for bread and milk,

my fingers searching beneath my skirt for something so dirty it is clean,

so corrupt as to be pure.

Shades of Blue

So many shades of blue,

No Blue

Circumference Blue

Film Strip Friday Blue.

I wore a flimsy film strip to the Blue Ball.

Cobalt courted me.

Yellow felt alienated.

Yellow did not go.

Green was the doorman.

My friendship with Sky and Navy and Aquamarine

Has taught me how to talk with my eyes.

Nothing is louder than blue eyes,

Staring at me from the corner with the

Blossoming wallflowers,

Saying,

Dance with me.