Category Archives: sonnet

nox diva

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

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I am the mildest of creatures, spell-bound,
gossamer, a thorn jutting. The nox diva

inside the mushrooms growing on the mound
where I buried you. First there is nausea,
sweats, my gut turning. Then you open up

inside my skull-bone; a whiskey cactus,
melting. A mushroom is like a polyp;

I’ve found both on you. I turn, like Horace,
into your well-mannered court slave. Ghost slave.

Slave of a ghost. Each time you slide into
my mouth you leave part of yourself behind.

One day I’ll consume you all. Then your grave
will stand empty. I can’t let go of you,

no-no, even if I was so inclined.

* * *

Notes:

Nox diva is my attempt at translating the phrase “night goddess” into Latin.

Horace was one of Rome’s greatest poets, one whom the English poet John Dryden dismissed as “a well-mannered court slave.”

like cherry blossoms swift we fall

19 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

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like cherry blossoms swift we fall

If she dies? She has her hand on the hilt,
aware of herself; aware of what she
must not do, not yet. Nothing has been split
out of her, yet. She knows of the red sea
and the purple stars. Her father told her
about the witch-queens; how that long ago
one of them helped save the world. Her mother
taught her the “Way of the Sword,” Bushido
and how death in war is the greatest gift
any samurai could hope for. What’s death
next to letting down your mother? Afraid
does not work here. “Like cherry-blossoms, swift
we fall,” the poem goes. With a deep breath,
she took a step forward and drew her blade.

* * *

Note:

Bushido, “the way of the warrior,” is a feudal Japanese word for the samurai’s code of ethics. It has been compared to the Western concept of chivalry. As a philosophy, it stresses loyalty, martial arts and that death in battle is the greatest gift a warrior might receive.

clavicle

19 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Humor, Poetry, sonnet

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I, too, fear ankles; the easiest part
of the leg to dismantle with a kick.
Once I placed the ankles of my sweetheart
around my shoulders. A monster will trick
you by grabbing your ankles as it lurks
under the bed when what it really wants
is your warm heart. “Bipedal” only works
if your ankles work. Once, at a seance,
I saw poor old Death totally freakout
when the damned tried to cling on her ankles
and plead. Brilliant. As if that ever worked.
“But that’s not what I want to talk about.
Today’s lecture shall be on clavicles,”
said the old collarbone doctor and smirked.

one-girl outlaw

18 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

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spirit daughter of oya

spirit daughter of oya

* * *

I’ve seen willowy women before but
she was different. More barky with green sap.
There is a tale of a female bandit,
our one-girl outlaw, who had the mishap
to see Oya (she of the black horse tail
and the swirling skirts that cause hurricanes)
undressing. Oya is more than female,
more than male. She is both, neither. She trains
Yoruba women in the art of war.
Some say Oya turned the one-girl outlaw
into a tree, which I doubt, since others
say the girl died in Lokoja’s bazaar
due to a hex. I’ve been to Lokoja,
that makes sense. It’s a city of horrors.

* * *

Notes:

Lokoja is located in central Nigeria, a port city on the Niger river.

Oya is a West African goddess of war, cemetery gates and personification of the Niger River.

what i saw

18 Monday Feb 2013

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Was there blood. I didn’t know what I saw.
My breath gurgled down deep inside my chest.

I saw — what. First time you unclasped your bra
for me, your nephew, I saw your right breast,

upturned, beads of sweat dripping down. First time
you pulled your jeans around your knees I saw

your tight parted curls that tasted of thyme,
amber and lust under my tongue. Cat’s paw

tattoo, clit ring, missing toe. I saw all
of this. But now blood. Everywhere on me.

My blood. “What happened?” I whispered. But you
silenced me with your lips. My breath: a small

rusty gasp. “I am here to set you free,
naughty boy,” she said. “My foolish nephew.”

gran tabú

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by in Erotic, Lilith, Poetry, sonnet, video

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I knew you way back when you had owl feet
and dry breasts. Then you married that bastard

Adam and it all went to hell. Discreet
sex while you were married was fun. I heard

what they said about you. It’s like when they
go on about Yeshua; they’re clueless,
aren’t they? fucking clueless. You’re made from clay?
my ass. Only mud pies come from that mess.
Mud pies and goleems. Liliti, you flew
to the Red Sea to get away. You knew
they would never leave a howling taboo

alone. Gran tabú: like when you told me

about Adam, the pig, getting ready

to cum all over his “little wifey.”

* * *

nothing worries the dead

16 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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Tell me. You have gone to where I cannot

follow, not yet. Tell me, are there grackles?
I love their iridescent black, their squat
bodies, their ill natures. Their song rankles
and cracks but they do not fear me when I
am near. Are there meadows where the streams glide?
where the moon shines on the hill, the firefly

and the ladybug? Did you have a guide
to get you there? Dante did. Yes, I know

I ask so much. Worried, I guess. We said
it would be all different, like a mellow
groove-in; that nothing can worry the dead.

Tell me, are you still waking up nervous?

Are there still wretched nights and loneliness?

the things that still haunt me

16 Saturday Feb 2013

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for Nadia Anjuman, ‘Asma’ bint Marwan, Pat Lowther, Delmira Agustini, Ayat al-Ghermezi, Ayman Udas, Susana Chavez, Isabella Morra and all other poets and writers murdered by their husbands, their communities, their family and kin.

Her poems? I will never know them,
though they are the ones I most need.
— Jane Hirshfield, “The Poet”

We sit out in the dirt before the gates
of the kingdom of drudgery. We want

to get in. Believe me, there are worse fates
than soul-crushing work. The things that still haunt
me starved me. Now my body is wasted.

At least my body is still mine. Secrets
only bring me grief, like my arms, scalded
from the splattering cooking oil. Prophets
remind us of death and rebirth, as if.

Go read Nadia Anjuman’s poem,
“I wail.” Wail: she was killed for that. Dreaming

still kills; still grinds us down over a whiff
from where our poets hang. How to condemn
this? I want poetry that does something.

unfit

16 Saturday Feb 2013

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They say that the cruel one must now depart
at dawn. Come back to bed, love. I’ve been cruel
but not like that. I am shallow. My heart
knows that it will be judged by the jackal
headed god Anubis one day. “Unfit;”
I am sure that will be what I am told.
“Unfit” gets you consumed by vile Ammit,
the soul-eater. Tomorrow I’ll be cold
as a crypt. Tonight, though, I burn. Stay here.
They say you can’t get to heaven depraved.
What’s a bruise? a bite? I’ll mark your flesh mine.
And then what comes between us I will smear
across your face. I don’t care to be saved.
Damnation is also an act divine.

* * *

Note:

Anibus is the jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion.

Ammit is a funerary deity, a female demon in ancient Egypt; part lion, part hippopotamus and part crocodile. Her titles included, “Devourer of the Dead,” “Eater of Hearts” and “Great of Death.” Her job was eating souls judged by Anibus as corrupt.

all for naught

16 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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It’s not the need that I find bewitching,
anyone can be a junkie. It’s when
the need no longer works. Upon rising,
finding that one needs to feed yet again.
Finding that the need has not abated.
That the old shit just doesn’t work today.
That is panic. Everything you snorted,
consumed, and (the Devil will have her say)
infested, but all for naught. That is work.
That is irony. Of course the fallen
appear pleasing when we tell our story,
we are clueless. We’ve don’t know that berserk
rage when it fails. Talk about damnation:
stuck at romanticizing the junkie.