Category: Poems & poem-like things

Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Excuse Slip

It will not always wait for you,
it will not always seem
inexhaustible—

It will not, for it cannot,
offer only oranges and wine,
mutton or sweets from the depths
of its frayed gunny sack—

It will not always countenance
retreat, deferment, time-outs, pleas
for one more, refusal to engage—

And it will not grow
any leaner, any fatter, any
kinder, any darker from the tithe
of your particular suffering—

For what is the nature of life
but this grand indifference which all
are equally apportioned—

And what is the nature of becoming
if not the always-coming-back
into the body and what
it must finally learn—

For why should the road be
half-trodden, why should the song
be partially unbreathed—

Even the half-ruined
barrels by the wayside
can open their mouths
to collect the rain—

 

In response to Via Negativa: Burden.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Postcard: Elephant Breeding Show, Thailand

“…That Beloved has gone completely Wild— He has poured Himself into me!” ~ Hafiz

From four months of travel in southeast Asia
with her boyfriend, one of my daughters
has brought back beads and woven scarves;

books, a granary god hewn from a small block
of darkened wood; and a few postcards from Thailand—
One shows gold-filigreed Wat Phra Singh temple

in Chiang Mai, ancient capital of the northern kingdom,
where they’d gone to see thousands of glowing lanterns
bobbing like celestial jellyfish in the sky during Loi

Krathong; the second, two little boys in saffron robes
adorning a buddha’s image with flower garlands; and last,
two elephants in an elephant breeding show, their rippling

flanks painted with scarlet, gold, and green scrolls,
red-pantalooned handler crouched underneath the canvas tent
formed by the female’s outspread body, another handler

holding her lowered head… I’ve read somewhere
that the elephant is among only six or seven
animals the world over, holding the distinction

of having the largest genitals (surprisingly,
the barnacle tops the list, with penis length
the equivalent of 240 feet in human measurement).

The postcard has no other caption or explanation,
no notes, no narrative, not even names for the two
at the center of this larger-than-life display

of heated encounter. I wonder about the sounds
they make, the length of his and her arousal, the smell
and quickness of release, and whether or not they

mind the ring of voyeurs gathered around:
snapping Instagrams as the slick grey muscle
stiffens and thrusts, recording videos to upload

on YouTube even before they’ve returned
to their hotels— Our youngest girl, pre-teen,
budding feminist schooled in cell division

and meiosis, thinks this picture is practically rape
(three males— elephant, two native handlers, who knows
how many spectators), and depicts the female’s abuse.

She cannot wrap her mind around this evidence
there are apparently carnivals built around the fact
of large animal coitus; but sees, intuitively,

the connection to shows like “The Bachelor”…
As for me, it is the chalked scrolls of heraldic
gold and red that fix my eye: how the female’s,

in the picture, hold their color and bold shape, while
the male’s are already a muddy run of dirty green
where the forefeet rasp across her rendered back.

 

In response to thus: come and drink your fill.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Episode

This entry is part 25 of 29 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2012-13

He wrote of his commute home from the city on Valentine’s day— In the train station, men and women all rushing to dinner, to the movies, to that rendezvouz with a lover— Rushing unmindful into heartbreak, heartache, all the buds of pleasure or anticipation quivering like tiny asterisks of Gypsophila paniculata and their not-quite shadows against pale grey walls, moving filigree of arms looped around massed bouquets of flowers— Ruffled lilies, darkly gleaming roses, anthuriums raising turgid centers like batons— And there on the station platform, a young man fallen forward on his belly, in the throes of a seizure— Torso stiff, arms and legs flailing, throat constricting, mouth foaming, eyes rolled back as if in rapture— Seizing and seizing, while the faces of that horde of strangers and lovers opened in confused speech and hands wildly gestured– And all the beautiful flowers wrapped in cellophane and ribbons, those astonishing, jeweled colors, trembling as if in sympathy— And as the medics came and lifted, the train doors closing and opening, closing and opening, and the people passing in and out of the vestibule again—

~ With thanks to Wilfredo Pascual

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Mouth Stories

This entry is part 24 of 29 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2012-13

She was but the daughter of a farmer who owned a small
tract of land, a hat with a brim, one good white suit—

And he was the son of a man he knew only by name and the long
stub of ash before it fell from the cigarette into the tray—

And she on the other hand was a child when her mother expired
in that unfortunate flowering of war, when a soldier ran

a bayonet through her brother’s heart— There in the field,
that wound pried open in the shape of a gaping mouth—

Even now, they recount how long lines of men walked
south and farther south in the heat— For days

furtive foraging in paddies for snails and frogs,
for draughts of water thickened with mud— For days

their hands, roped and stacked behind their heads—
Pliable like leaves and tender, the shoots

you couldn’t guess you could mash with your teeth
and hold like a shield against the roof of your mouth.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Invitation to the mouth.