Denise Riley, "No"

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

NO

All the towels are red
the navy towel and the black
blood-soaked
and the white dress has slipped
to the bloodied floor.

This one you lose you could not love.
You were deceived, your flat blood knew
to open its bright and factual eye.
This that you leak you never grew.

The officer is at the scarlet door.
Here is his evidence. Some body lied.
That body's mine but I am it.
I am it and I have lied.


DENISE RILEY

Aftershocks // Kelly Tsai.

[acreofbones.livejournal.com]

Aftershocks.

the week the tsunami hit
i started reading the Bible again
for the first time
since I was five years old

God and all of his double-dealing and covenants
pimping out Sarah and setting up Eve

if you dare to reach Him
believe me
God will cut you down to size

and maybe that was Him
striking His fist into the earth
and rolling back the waves

one reckless
rude unrelenting
morning

looking through the newspaper
with its colorful graphs
and technical estimations
of earthquakes and aftershocks

all i could think of
is that every little thing affects
each other

and i hope
that i never have to know that kind of fear
that i can choose to disimagine
the ocean filling my lungs

i was in manila and then taipei
a few thousand miles away
but the e-mails poured in anyway
terrified that Asia is as small
as it looks in the textbooks
one unified mass

so cried CNN, the Associated Press,
Reuters, and the BBC
so cried the Red Cross
and nations across the world
glaring at each other
to up the ante
to loosen their purse strings

i turn on the morning radio
and there is so much laughter
the mouths are huge
monstrous

as prayers and exhausted sighs of relief
sounded from every phone call,
every family member:
i am alive
i survived
i can hear you

a sober vision

as i close Bible pages
take it by the spine
and throw it against the wall

it breaks open
leaves trembling like lips

i don’t understand you God
but i do understand that
it’s not your fault 

Kelly Tsai.

Strawberry by Paisley Reckdal

[myselftheliar.livejournal.com]

Strawberry

I am going to fail.
I'm going to fail cartilage and plastic, camera and arrow.
I'm going to fail binoculars and conjugations,
all the accompanying musics: I am failing,
I must fail, I can fail, I have failed
the way some women throw themselves
into lover's arms or out trains,
fingers crossed and skirts billowing
behind them. I'm going to fail
the way strawberry plants fail,
have dug down hard to fail, shooting
brown runners out into silt, into dry gray beds,
into tissue and rock. I'm going to fail
the way their several hundred hearts below surface
have failed, thick, soft stumps desiccating
to tumors; the way roots wizen in the cold
and cloud black, knotty as spark plugs, cystic
synapses. I'm going to fail light and stars and tears.
I'm going to fail the way cowards only wish they could fail,
the way the brave refuse to fail or the vain fear to,
believing that to stray even once from perfection
is to be permanently cast out, Wandering Jew
of failure, Adam of failure, Sita of failure; that's the way
I'm going to fail, bud and creosote and cloud.
I'm failing pet and parent. I'm failing the food
in strangers' stomachs, the slender inchoate rings
of distant planets. I'm going to fail these words
and the next and the next. I'm going to fail them,
I'm going to fail her-- trust me, I've already failed him--
and the possibility of a we is going to sink me
like a bad boat. I'm going to fail the way
this strawberry plant has failed, alive without bud,
without fruit, without tenderness, hugging itself
to privation and ridiculous want.
I'm going to fail simply by standing in front of you,
waving my arms in your face as if hailing a taxi:
I'm here, I'm here, please don't forget me,
though you already have, I smell it, even cloaked
with soil, sending out my slender fingers for you,
sending out all my hair and tongue and brain.
I'm going to fail you
just as you're going to fail me,
urging yourself further down to sediment
and the tiny, trickling filaments of damp;
thirsty, thirsty, desperate to drown
if even for a little while, if even for once:
to succumb, to be destroyed,
to die completely, to fail the way I've failed
in every particular sense of myself,
in every new and beautiful light.

twelve love words and two words of despair after pablo neruda

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Daphne Gottlieb

I want to do with you
what george washington did
to the cherry tree

Tao Te Ching

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

from TAO TE CHING

11

Thirty spokes join one hub.
The wheel's use comes from emptiness.

Clay is fired to make a pot.
The pot's use comes from emptiness.

Windows and doors are cut to make a room.
The room's use comes from emptiness.

Therefore,
           Having leads to profit,
           Not having leads to use.


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