Tag Archives: poem

amenamair

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Armenian, Lilith, Poetry, sonnet, Translation

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Far more nervous for nightfall than I’ve been
for a while. Gloaming, some call it. The time

when paths open. — If I could leave my skin,
walk soft there, I would. I can’t. That sublime

skill is beyond me. The most that I do
is wait down by the crossroads for her guide.

Amenamair: a name the ancients knew.
The All-Mother. In last night’s dusk I spied

in the willow where her queer owl singsonged.
I have never been this close to an owl

before or had such a song burn in me:
“Amenamair. I have longed. I have longed.”

I long to leave my skin. I long to prowl.
I long to be your song in that dark tree.

Note:
Just as Odin, in Norse lore, is called the All-Father, one of the many names of Lilith, in Armenian (the ancient language that I keep going back to), is Amenamair (Ամենամայր), the All-Mother.

puckered

27 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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For so long masturbating and sick drunk
was what I did. I might look like jailbait,

but my stink was just like how the damned stunk:
shame-faced and aroused. Once, when I was eight

and you ten, your mother undressed us, laid
us down belly to belly. “I’m swollen,

babies, drink up mama’s milk.” Her milkmaid
nipples dribbled as she stroked your hymen,

puckered my ass. — What’s a freak and bar fly
when you’re ten? Now I find that what I yearn

for I must drink to smother. Far better
to cum by myself than to be ruled by

chaos because part of me wants to burn
every time that I hear: “come in, mother.”

prurient

18 Thursday Apr 2019

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Fleshlight. Teledildonics. HiTechPorn.
Pity unloved sex toys. Lost anal beads

in the sock drawer. A vibrator forlorn
and cracked. We all have lascivious needs.

We all have prurient interests. But butt
plugs and cock rings sauced with crusted up lube;

broke-ass nipple clamps; someone’s well-loved smut
discarded — they’re all my pathos. FuckCube

busted. Sybian broke. I know the dismay
of a Ben Wa ball torn from its playmate.

I’m still sentimental for your clit rings,
for all childish things that you put away.

Suffering Sappho, save me from straight hate
that schemes against us, your divine blessings.

translating lorca

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, Spanish, Translation

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“VERDE, QUE TE QUIERO, VERDE.”
“Skebgezo, gmenwénmen, skebgezo.”
“Green, I want you, green.”
Potawatomi is an oral language meaning that it has only been until (relatively) recently that a dictionary using English has been made available to people like me who just want to learn the language because it sounds beautiful. To complicate things there are both Southern and Northern dialects that have their own vocabulary. I live in the north but my on-line language classes are from a southern band (Citizen Nation) who, logically, use southern terms. Today I am struggling over how to say green in Potawatomi in the context of the first line of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, Romance Sonambulo. “Verde, que te quiero, verde.” In Potawatomi the world is broken up into things that are animate (all that which is living, all which is spiritual, etc.) and inanimate (man-made things, etc.) The green that Lorca addresses (verde) embodies both hopeful and thwarted desire. I’ve always seen it as something otherworldly and alive. Animate green. One Potawatomi word-list I found on-line from Wisconsin says that green is, “eshkebok.” I liked that, since I could rhyme it with sleepwalk which plays nicely with the title of Lorca’s poem (Ballad of the Sleepwalker). However a different word list (this one from Oklahoma) says that green is, “skebgezo.” Perhaps it’s that regional difference I don’t really understand yet? Perhaps one is animate and the other not? I don’t know. The frustration of learning by oneself is that there is no one to correct my errors as I go along. Que te quiero (how I want you) is easier since I could find the actual phrase in Potawatomi in several sources. It is: “gmenwénmen.” I’m not at a place in my studies where I can keep translating the poem but one day I will. One day I will translate all of Lorca’s work and a brand new world will open up, just like that. I am endlessly excited to see a new world.

ndekwem

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Dreams are coming fast these days. It started

with two — “wasabzo o seksi” — deer eyes

 

shining in the dark. Antlers caked with blood.

In the dark, underneath, curved hips and thighs

 

announce something else. I can’t even say,

“Ndekwem,” my Sister, but I need to.

 

You—whose daughters are lost, who men betray,

who I don’t understand—I’ll wait for you

 

by the tree that bears your name. Dreams of two

eyes, moon-mad bright, means that you’re drawing near—

 

In the dark, underneath all the abuse

and fear, I wish that I could talk. To do

 

something useful. Deer that is not a deer

at long last let me be of some damn use.

 

NOTE:

Violence against Indigenous women is at an epidemic level. According to armingsisters, “It is estimated that 1 in 3 Indigenous women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. However, a study done by Amnesty International found that 90% of all Indigenous women have experienced sexual assault.”

Organizations such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA have made it their mission to find the staggering numbers who go missing across the United States and Canada each year. I say this because I want you to understand why I am (slowly) learning Neshnabé (Potawatomi language). I live near two sovereign Potawatomi tribes in West Michigan, Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band (near Gun Lake) and ‎Pokagon Band (near Dowagiac). To understand a problem you first have to be able to understand the language that it is spoken in and I do not think English will be the tool to help fight against domestic violence.

The words that I use in the poem are Potawatomi.  “Ndekwem,” means, “my sister,” and, “wasabzo o seksi,” talks about deer eyes (seksi) shining in the dark. I might be a slow student but I am confident that once I understand then I too can, “be of some damn use.”

wet with spots

21 Thursday Mar 2019

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On the playground kids sang, “girls with glasses
love it in their asses,” while sugar cubes

melted on our tongues. We’d skipped our classes
to hide under the jungle-gym. Your pubes

poked out from either side of your panties
wet with spots blossoming in the cotton.

When the acid hit us our high school sleaze
cranked to eleven. Some say that children

should be obscene and not heard. “¡Dámelo
por culo!” Your glasses slipped to your nose

as I buried myself balls-deep. My, O!
your, ¡Ai! Back before we learned of sorrow

and our beastly bent acid-fueled shadows
fused. Back when your afro glowed all halo.

name

15 Friday Mar 2019

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So much ego wrapped up in minimal
space, those vain names. I’m strapped in strapless flame,

split to the hip, one of those criminal
little black dresses whose name you can’t name

but crave all the same. “Unsung,/ well-hung: come
hither, as/ in, slither and cum.” I know

why you feed on praise, need praise, any crumb
tossed your way. Your plain name, your low-down woe

at not being a god, the way you dress
your pride. One day, when you crave more than bliss,

come slink with me. We’ll prowl wearing glamour-
cut cloth. Instead of arrogance we’ll bless

our souls. Nameless. Simple. If you knew this
you would. But you don’t. Not now. Not ever.

NOTE:
According to Buddhism the Second of the Four Noble Truths is that suffering is caused by selfish craving and personal desire.

cum mum

13 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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Legs in the air after chemo. Truck seat
as pink as the cracks in your missing breast.

Back then our Lover’s Lane was the short street
near school. Adults were callous and depressed,

except you, except: “not there, pet, my ass …
put it there.” In the distance the school bell

rang as you came, as I flunked out of class —
as your muscle phat squeezed my cock farewell.

“Call me yummy mummy. Call me your cum
mum.” That was snark but I didn’t know snark

then — just plain child’s play and being wanted.
Plain as Big-O, Big-C, finding freedom

in who you fuck far too late. Plain as dark
in hurt flesh, brittle bones, corrupted blood.

coup d’etat

03 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Poetry, self-portrait, sonnet

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That’s the knife called: She Slits Open.
Once I sang that I’d slice open my gut,

reach in and drag out loops of intestine
if it ever got that bad. Before smut

and my sonnets I lived in Las Vegas,
crossroad of ghosts. I carried her with me

all the time: at the Shrine of the Goddess,
in class, at the gym. I was one sissy

hellbent on going out like Mishima.
Honor is queer, though: once it got that bad

only survival could prove them all wrong —
prove my fey soul is strong — Cosmic Vulva

strong — strong as the ghosts calling me comrade.
Stronger than this old belly-slitting song.

NOTE:
Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author and literary luminary, obsessed with beauty, homoeroticism and death. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his secret militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage and tried to persuade the soldiers there to join in overthrowing the new pacifist government in a coup d’etat. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed seppuku, ritual suicide by cutting open his belly.

She Slits Open

hoarfrost

25 Monday Feb 2019

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After school the god Frost loves us naked —
loves how we kiss, our blood filled with fire-juice

flames. With our snowsuits peeled down, your rosebud
peeled wide, with your lewd laugh, the one you use

when you’re on the edge, with the fogged-up glass,
Mad Bad Winter watching, with your groan, “nein,

nicht mein arse,” but it’s often in your ass,
often in your mom’s shed filled with old pine

smoke as you stare without blinking. Gods lost
still love us, love our fire-juice, love the shock

of flame. Frost loves us even though my cum
doesn’t splatter plumbed, feathered, like hoarfrost

on glass. — That’s why it stares as we walk,
hand in hand, through dingy sleet and dusky slum.