Author Archives: babylon crashing

honeyed

10 Friday Jul 2015

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I loved that smile-scar of her C-section;
and yes, that boast of hers — that she once bucked

some guy out of bed when she came, that none
could hold her hips still — was all true. I sucked,

hard. My fingers went deep, and then curved up.
She was far above me as I knelt down

in her mom’s trailer. She ran, like syrup,
honeyed. It was noon but her Sear’s nightgown

was wet where my mouth had been. Her tattoo
shivered. Her nails dug in. She screamed. This bruise

is from then. The TV was on. I pried
my hand free. Her baby, somehow, slept through

it in the next room. Suddenly the news
said that Ella Fitzgerald had just died.

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train ride to lake orta: first glimpse of the lake

11 Thursday Jun 2015

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The lands between Milan and Lake Orta
starts off flat and drab; Milanese suburbs slowly turning into
farmland that holds little interest to the eye. It is at the village
of Novara that the first hint of the far-flung snow-tipped Alps
appear: misty, purple-white, a dramatic contrast to the cultivated
Italian lowlands.

Slowly the train ascends through the
grassy, vine-covered hills, whose walls close in so close that it
appears that we are traveling through a green tunnel. Then, suddenly,
the riotous, hilly landscape suddenly opens wide and falls away, the
last hill marked with a lone tower, a watch-post to warn against
armies of some long ago age that made their slow way up the valley
that the train now hurtles out of and there, below the tracks, lays
the deep alpine basin of the lake, whose sides are formed by forested
sharp cliffs and steep slopes that go right down to the water’s edge.

From where I sit I can’t see what lays
ahead of us, though I’m captivated by the sight of the distant
southern shore, where towers and domes and Moorish spires of the
village, San Maurizio D’opaglio, rise, all pink and orange and
yellow, sprouting up here and there between the endless waves of
chestnuts, walnuts and larch. Higher up along the towering granite
cliffs ancient villas can be seen; outposts of Medieval wealth where
the Milanese princes and bishops escaped the heat of the summer to
hide in their cool eyries.

booze blood words

16 Saturday May 2015

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Liquid devils; it’s not other people
that I’m morbidly sick over, it’s what

they do. No. I mean, when I say, “devil,”
I mean, “words in a text;” and “liquid”? Blood.

Booze. All that I put in me. This is me:
after the shift I’m left with ugly shoes,

aching lack and words. Without dowry,
all my touchables go untouched. This booze.

This blood. These words. I bite my lip. I think
I’m a bitter deity, since I don’t

even get the chance to tell you about
who died at work, that I’m wearing your pink

boy-briefs, or that nothing (booze, blood, words) won’t
let me unread what fills me now: pure doubt.

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quote unquote

14 Thursday May 2015

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What’s scariest isn’t break up, isn’t change, isn’t even the adventure — it’s the long moment that you know you’ll have to suffer through before the terrible thing happens — before Vishnu shoots the arrow, before the flood crashes against the Ark, before you take that step and everything — someone, please, stop me — happens.

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quote unquote

14 Thursday May 2015

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You said abundance would not harm me,
but none of your songs could stop

the god-awful fullness of the moon.
Even the plague ended in feast,

birds chirping fat and happy
in their nests. I tried other oceans,

climbed a volcano to look inside
the earth, walked to the edge

of the sinkhole that swallowed a city.
My freedom only made me more afraid.

I’m not sure there is any world
but this one, and the mango’s sweetness

is terrible to me. Some days the fire is a mirror.
Some days I can bear the stillness of elk

when I surprise them in the alder.
Yesterday I cleaned bones out of the boat

and met a child on the shore. He made a gun
out of his hand. No one taught him this.

He raised his arm, fingers leveled
at my heart. You said I could contain it,

this gift. The boy told me I could keep
the boat. The bones were his.

Traci Brimhall, “envoi”

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LOVE SONG WITH WITCHES

13 Wednesday May 2015

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babylon-crashing:

I.

Sleepless, magic night

your fingers and legs spread wide

exploring new worlds.

II.

There is no sin, just

a dark forest first

came the drum, da-da,

and then came the song.

III.

At fourteen I talked to ghosts with
black mud,

bud and cheap blood running in the
acid.

There was a glamour but I did not understand

anything that they were trying to say.

IV.

If you must belong to a tribe, come. No

one has loved you with lips and
fingers, laid

with you until the moon’s day-face
faded

with the dawn. None have brought you
lover’s gifts.

We are a tribe of never-was. We are

a tribe of all of us that might have
been.

V.

Hear me. This is no gift. Here be
witches,

vhukneri. This is your clitoris,

tslik. This is my tongue, lezu. They
call

this witchcraft, kakhardut’yun. A
shaman

must ride a long-tongued ghost to learn
all her

occult secrets. You, blood heart, must
ride me.

VI.

To be a corpse bride, to find a long
dead

lover, to have your crazy hair caught
up

in the air, saints preserve, in a
forest

first came the drum, then the song, for
I am

singing, I am drumming. No one hears
me.

VII.

At the crossroads you shall find all:
this song,

hashish cakes and shadows. Ride me, I
am

your drum, singing your way back home.
I am

a hard ride. Together we will go far.

><><><><

NOTE:

The foreign words I use are Armenian:

ՎՀՈՒԿՆԵՐԻ (vhukneri) =
witches.

ԾԼԻԿ (tslik) = clitoris.

ԼԵԶՈՒ (lezu) = tongue.

ԿԱԽԱՐԴՈՒԹՅՈՒՆ
(kakhardut’yun) = witchcraft.