Monday, February 28, 2011

Calligraphy Under the Cover of Night: Conversations





Calligraphy Under the Cover of Night


Of God you ask me?
Oh jaan I thought you knew by now.
Anarchy begins in the loins
they say:
I clamp palms in an unholy embrace
with men sculpted from shattered mirrors and
torn sheets of music.
If gluttony is sin, then I guess I am going to Hell
because I am shrouded by their veils
of rolled back eyes, taut skin, and twisted fingers
I have written psalms
to the waves of his breath with my smeared mascara
if God is your verse, then I sink into skin.
Would you still want me then?

You scribed psalms in the
neon ink of mascara,
a mascara of infinite sand his wavy breath trod upon,
sand that like chamber music flows out of
my hand,
this room,
and symphonic coronation.
Or did you trace into the sand?
The poetry of anarchy begins in the flower,
some miles away from the
beach.

Flower:
that intersection of lines, that could be you or me
infinite variations on geometry called adam, hebrew for
man,
first man,
add an ah of surprise for earth, dirt, almost
dust before springtime,
adama,
be my knife and peel for monosyllabic blood
dam,
dom is silence, and when we stand still for the dead.
Etymology’s poem forgot Eve in the beginning,
left to evolutionary silence,
until this eve:
pick a nocturnal flower.

Forgive me
but a jungle bear is in no need
of holy words
folded into יברעמה לתוכה
I watch you on your knees
pilgrimage to an oasis
called Jerusalem
whispers whispers
I watch your childhood
bent over your Abba’s withering
books. Fingers trace stories
of people who read grains of sand
and could tell you where to look for water.
I could never draw your words in sand
but I beg for answers instead:
where are those verdant lands
your God promised you?
How could you believe
when I am here
sitting in dried weeds
and burnt out cigarettes
waiting for the words
I love you
to tumble from his lips
didn’t your God create the world
in six days? Six days:
the days of a woman’s cycle
my lips are sealed as I dream
iron red dreams
blood damned between thighs
I have found your nocturnal flower
tucked in the folds of my sister’s blanket.
Tia Eva, yo llora para usted.

Six days. And on the seventh he dreamed,
if a god can dream:
be buried under laughter
and colors he’d never imagined.
If gods can imagine.
On the first day a grain of sand created God,
who looked in the mirror—a grain of sand—
and created all the other grains of sand.
On the second day a grain of sand created God,
who looked in the mirror—glass rubbed from sand—
and created all the other grains of sand.

On the third day...
You ask where is the milk and honey,
and the twinkle in my eye when I catch a springtime orchard,
under quivering, revolutionary colors of peels?
Arched within a sandy wind, somewhere,
perhaps still in Egypt.

Will you spend your afternoons pacing the Sahara
in pursuit of Paradise?

Wedding
The anatomy of Paradise will reveal itself in echoes
as passing thunders chart gods,
the valley rewords the tambourines of women
on their way,
and women
passing under the clean cloth of sky,
corners upheld by four erect spines, from which
flutter outward the white pages.

woman veiled,
man sings
woman unveiled,

shattered glass ribs reveal black ink below,
adventurous.

(and all that comes after)
Now a window
sees a garden,
on the sill whistle outward pale pages called
dove.
ink nears,
dove rises to the roof:
the house a voice box in soprano.

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