nox diva

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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.”

one more reason george lucas does not deserve your money

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female rebel never to be 1

female rebel never to be 2

female rebel never to be 3

Three rebels that didn’t make the cut.

* * *

In the first movie none of the heroes had skin darker than goat’s milk and there was only one token female, but she needed saving (which is odd, since Princess Leia, being Luke’s twin, theoretically could have saved herself if she had wanted to “trust her feelings.”) In the second movie it turns out there is only one black man in the entire universe … and he’s a con man. In the third movie there are some women with no speaking lines that appear in the beginning of the movie but they’re answering telephones in the background (making them more or less intergalactic secretaries, you’ve come a long way, baby). Women do not fly spaceships in the Star Wars universe. They don’t get glowing swords or have heroic music played in the background as they blow things up. Space … it’s a man’s place.

Except that this wasn’t always true. It might have taken George Lucas three films to get there but there were three female rebel pilots in the last of the movies, which were cut in the last minute. Huh.

You can say the movies reflected 1970s thinking, if you want to. You can say they helped expand the science fiction genre and gave children in China jobs by cranking out all the plastic crap Lucas sold (I’m not joking here, if you bought a toy in the 1970s with “made in China” on the back it came from a sweatshop) but selling Star Wars to Disney for $4 billion dollars? That’s just obscene.

like cherry blossoms swift we fall

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.