Tag Archives: poem

wet charcoal

04 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Feminism, Poetry, sonnet

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Don’t get cocky — Everything can get blown
apart. There’s no help the way I’m wired.

Vast sky: I am small. Mother, Maiden, Crone:
be with me as I drift — I’m still tired.

My name sounds rough in your tongue. This slashed bole
of a stump means that there’s no way I can

cling tight, I’ll just leave smears like wet charcoal.
I’ve read the Bible, Torah and Koran:

all man-made laws that restrict my sisters
restrict me — When they came for the sissies

and the butches I was high strung enough
to stand my ground, though there are some horrors

you can’t beat — how do I love these slashes
or find a name that doesn’t sound rough —

honeyed

10 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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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.

booze blood words

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Poetry, sonnet

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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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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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self-portrait [nude]

13 Wednesday May 2015

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ghostsista:

In the photograph, I stand
naked, my back to the camera,
peering in through the window
of the bar at the the older
women, their gaze direct and
unafraid, the ones who’ve been
to the gym, their breasts more
muscle than fat, thick, butch
waists, their arms massive, thighs
with sinews bigger than my
head; but no, there is no bar,
no window, just a blank wall
and me, standing naked.

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quote unquote

13 Wednesday May 2015

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Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Frank O’Hara

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13 Wednesday May 2015

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Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse
  unreturn’d love,
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain
  one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)

Walt Whitman

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the kingdom that wind scorns

18 Saturday Apr 2015

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afterlife in polaroids

I.

There’s a pink motel 

somewhere for me. I 

can’t wait to go haunt 

it.  When I’m dead. I will 

be. Giant pink
eerie lips 

that make soft num-

num sounds.  It
is said 

a pound of flesh will get 

you a lot
less than it did

in your parent’s day.  

II.

I’ve
read there is no kissing in hell. 

III.

It’s a shame lips 

don’t survive. Bones 

become the playhouse 

of ghosts; after 

scavengers discard 

them, worms
bask 

in them, a kingdom 

that the wind scorns.

IV.

What if it all came down 

to this?
subdued spots 

where I could paint your 

toes?  A calm sink to
spit 

into?  Our bodies behind 

closed pink doors.
Crude 

motel shadows at bath. 

Relaxed and wild with
it 

we start, we end our days 

as a mirror image.

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quote unquote

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Armenia, Feminism, quote unquote

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Salome dances her dance of the seven veils,
The men all eye her like wolves on the hunt, this beautiful girl
finally undressing for them. Finally they can see her
exactly as they want to.
The first veil drops.

In 2007, Kim Kardashian’s ex-boyfriend
released their sex tape against her will.
Kim Kardashian, rather than hide in shame
Used the publicity to promote her own career.
Salome moves like a dream half-remembered.
Salome dances like a siren song. All the men ache
to see the hot sugar of her hip bones.
The second veil drops.
In 2014, Kim Kardashian walks down the aisle
As the whole world watches. If only all of us
were so successful in our revenge.
If only all of us stood in our Louboutin heels
on the backs of the men who betray us,
surveying the world we created for ourselves.

The third veil drops.

Kim Kardashian knows exactly what you think of her.
She presses the cloth tighter against her skin
Her smile is a promise she never intends to keep

We can almost see all of her.
Salome shows us her body
but never her eyes.
The fourth veil is dropping.
The four things most recently tweeted at Kim Kardashian were
@KimKardashian Suck My Dick
@Kim Kardashian Can I Meet Kanye?
@KimKardashian Please Fuck Me
@KimKardashian I Love You. I Love You.

Women are told to keep their legs shut.
Women are told to keep their mouths shut.
Some women are kept silent for so long,
They become experts in the silent theft of power.
The fifth veil has dropped.
Kim Kardashian made $12 million dollars this year
Yesterday, uncountable men in their miserable jobs,
told their miserable friends that Kim was a “dumb whore”
Kim Kardashian will never learn their names.

Clementine von Radics (via clementinevonradics)

seen on rebloggy.com/kim kardashian

(via oduor-oduku)

O hell yes! There is very little
positive representation of Armenian women on the web and in the
media. If you scratch the surface, up and beyond historic poets and
artists, you will read about the ones we’ve lost, like Zaruhi Petrosyan, silenced
through domestic violence; and yet Armenian feminism and LGBT rights are alive and well in Yerevan and Gyumri. 

Always these are who I call
heroes.