Tag: writing

Churches

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?

3 Poems in a Minor Key

An envelope locked out of sight,

buttercups giggling in the fields –

and then a pink fog rolls over the view.

It is all so dreamy.

Don’t bring a mirror here.

 

Gloomy, graceful ghosts

lounge under the beach umbrella.

They are nudists.

They are like frosted glass.

No sunburns will befall them

as they get drunk

and carouse on the beach where they

washed ashore.

 

Welcome to the Life Center

With sparkly resources to help you warm winter.

Are you a cartwheel?

A suspicious glance?

A still wind?

We can help you get back to work.

We offer many courses:

Earth Spinning

Bone Knitting

Light Painting –

and certifications in

Prebirth Fantasy,

Pain Sculpture

Freeway Fashion.

Visit us today in the building of roses,

at the corner of Air and Fire.

Anorexia

A forbidden food is silly

but demonic and understandable

on a Tuesday when you clock in

(If people can turn clock into a verb for such

nefarious purposes, they need to stay away from my sofa and window.)

and you feel five feet wide and are at least 1.

Chocolate bars are exotic and exciting. Do not listen to

the pizza. He will charm you out of your 2s and into 10s.

Eat your salad.

It wants to die,

is dying,

wants you to follow along.

Ignore the demeaning soda. It hates you.

Your teeth whither.

Why are all the women in bigger sizes so much smaller than you?

Your bones shrink at the reproach.

The Scent Radius of a Rose as a Unit of Measurement

The scent radius of a rose as a unit of measurement.

My smile weighs too much,

crumbles off my face.

I’m sick of fried hair and unstoppable worry.

My secrets hate me and my eyes betray me.

On the beaches are boxes of life

watching the great red shipping containers float on the  horizon.

Simply put

I have no allies I have not bought

And I drink old snow.

Innocence Threatened – Xhosa/Afrikaans Project

Poem in the original English, followed by translations to Xhosa and Afrikaans and back.

Blue light chases me.

My soul is cold,

spirit still dreaming.

In a meadow I roll down the hillocks

over and over,

my little sear suckered skirt frilly

over my still narrow hips.

A movie an angel might wish to watch

or a pederast.

 

Translation and edit:

In the meadow I roll down the hillock

my short skirt ruffled.

On my stretching back now,

a starlet with one hell of a fan.