Blogs

I complain of your smell, like phlegm,
and the humid cough from between lips,
but I reek like corpse, socks, and it
all collects between my rubbing thighs.
Oh yes -- I am a man -- I am allowed
to exude like the backfire of a Packard
or the great green billows of some stout
Cuban stogie rolled tight by hand.

purple irises
dying in a vase
shriveling to black
bowing over losing
petals onto the
black enameled table

sunflowers in a
vase on a black enamel

purple irises
dying in a vase
shriveling to black
bowing over losing
petals onto the
black enameled table

sunflowers in a
vase on a black enamel
table, nodding to the
shiny top, raining
yellow powder pollen
in semicircular spray.

roses turning purple
from red and moist
drying to sharper spines
leaves falling to swim
in the water in the vase
remove flowers, remove

rotting baby's breathe
tie a bit of twine at the
base of the stem and hang
them up alongside all the
red roses frozen in long
testimony of love lost
table, nodding to the
shiny top, raining
yellow powder pollen
in semicircular spray.

roses turning purple
from red and moist
drying to sharper spines
leaves falling to swim
in the water in the vase
remove flowers, remove

rotting baby's breathe
tie a bit of twine at the
base of the stem and hang
them up alongside all the
red roses frozen in long
testimony of love lost

A native dance,
Saved for those of
Divine lineage.
Succession of movements
Owing gratitude to
The oldest nation,
The first people.
Eight owing their lineage
To Africa:
Four men, four women.
Glistening bodies
Rippling torsos
Chiseled into slate.
Orange and blue full pant.
Adorned: shells and beads.
Nappy hair, braided hair
Whipping and arching.
Bandoleers of shells across
Broad chests, full breasts.
Drums.
Flailing, bounding
Jumping --
The pounding of drums,
Like an exaggerated
Heartbeat, a basic
Hypnotic pounding.
Dancing prancing
Arms flailing up,
Around, down.
Stepping hard with
Full thighs and
Tensed feet.
Gyration and pelvic thrusts.
Arms pitching,
Beat driving,
Sweat dripping.
Synchronized movement.
A dance of hot foot.
Bounding, thrashing,
Arms propelling in
Circles -- around,
As though the air
Would give flight.
Showing reverence to
The blood flowing within
Those honored and
Revered.

I sit hypnotized by the soft hiss and blow
Of my breath as I look past the pressure
Of my mask.

Man-eaters pass:
Larger, drabber, more oppressive
Than on the aerated surface.

Yet, the great column of water above
Places me in the snug warmth
Of a mother's womb.

Reassured in this salty bath
Of aquamarine and the fluttering silver
Of slender eyeless fish
and brown drab eels,
Foraging under great shelves
of cragged coral.

Neutral buoyancy.
Mastering the physics of the deep,
The breath of depth;
The most delicious air
Fills my lungs to saturation.
The seduction of the underworld
Glides in a reality unreal,
Disorienting to this surface-dweller:
An absence of gravity, a magnified
Presence.

Never wanting to come off
I take hit after hit;
The narcosis of this depth
Is frightening, addictive.
Bubbled mercury rises as I blow
Hard into my second stage.
I grip my jaw into the salty
Spongy rubber mouth-piece,
Shutting eyes tight,
Shaking off the numbing
Water.

The glowing face of a gauge
Announces that the end is coming.
I will rise soon, making sure
I can see the mirrored bubbles
Pass my ascent.

As I look up light glimmers through
The great water separating me
From the sky.

Pale lips flutter alight,
Mouthing phantom praise, saxophone coos.

she reclines by my side
under our sun, on her towel.
long limbs and nut brown skin.
hair like the mane of a lion.
in the sun buffeted by winds

winds the isles rarely see.
it is all anyone talks about,
these winds, the cold air,
their jackets and sweaters.

i press lotion into the skin
of her back. we laugh and speak
like blue bloods, jaws clenched,
reading from a book of fiction.
reading aloud for the sun, for
the wind, for each other, such
friends. such friendship to read
and sun, to bronze and feel
the cote d'azur on our flanks
in waikiki.

the book speaks french, the book
speaks english, and the words are
poetic, the words are absurd.
the novel calls itself surreal,

but it is self consciously erotic like
"the rose pulsates," "the skin is
nut brown," "the lover parts the
knees," "the smooth skin gives way
to fingers." out loud these words
are spoken and we laugh bright sunny
laughter.

Laughing at the absurdity of the erotic,
the protagonist taking many
lovers and weeping, always weeping,
for the sadness wells and pulsates
like her rose, like her chest, like
the surf lapping so near our
bare toes.

the air tastes especially
salty. i smell like a coconut.
she is so natural under the sun.

we laugh to ourselves that the
text is so hot we must swim.
we tip toe into the cold water
refreshed by the winds, these
uncommon winds, in hawaii.

slowly we enter. on tippy toes
en pointe like dancers. so slowly
making a quick dip agonizing, feeling
the sand give way to my feet. pulling
in tummies and wishing the winds to
cease and the water to turn bath like.

i am taller than she but she has the
leg advantage. water laps her hips.
stalemate. a count to three and away
to the bright orange windsock off shore.
swimming our heads bob, out further to
just before.

"this is where i stop, this is where
my fear of sharks begins. this is the
point past which i will be eaten alive."

we turn back, she sprints. i wallow
in the chop, having come from washington
days before. from the winter. her nut
brown skin, my pale white dough broiling.
i move my body through the saltiness, see
clarity when i open my eyes, feel my hair
wave like weeds across my forehead.

pulling myself from the water, i check
my bad washington knees -- they are strong
again. encore. il fait froid! mais non,
il fait beau -- it is always wonderful here.

this morning i made
a sacrifice to the gods
the discman to the tile
floors by my feet in the
john, and it might have
well broken for the hold
button that saves the batts
broke and now the discs
are always spinning
discs are moving, rumbling
through their little sambas
until the record stops whirring
and the music stops purring

the evening passed on my dry elbows, before a dead fire, next to a monitor playing reruns of the x-files. before the lcd playing the words of a former mistress, a milky little doll with a blunt bob, rosebud breasts, and a penchant for wearing dkny under the hawaiian sun. or showing off a tummy above hiphuggers and below a jogbra, black.

her words on the screen. x-sender. x-reply. x-header. she at work, me putting off the rower. the words. "how can you remember all of this?" she asks, "or a you making it up as you go along?"

a warm call under a warm feather duvet worn like a lover a full half hour before the alarm sounds its ghastly racket. a portable phone flexing its 900MHz across the thousands of kilometers spanning the skin of my duvet, the space of air to the base, and the grand land of the New World, the Peaceful Sea, and a POTS, copper wire, fibre optics, satellite, spread spectrum, repeaters, switching, bandwidth, international subset, substrate, irradiating the rubbery leather of the Sperm hunting the giant giant prehensile squid. where the pipe is laid, where the optics chirp their handshake, their telephony, their protocol, their laser beam words. enough to convey softness the same way it was harsh before, the way it conveys sadness and apology the same way it was hurt before. complaining about the static. complaining about the clicks of the rushing pod of porpoise and the moaning of the migrating humpback as it tries to sing us back to sweet sleep.

easter. on the phone with m, and it was not great for her: tiles, barracks, linoleum, beer, bbq, schofield, military, comingling, easter is made for the east coast, even the mid-atlantic. i look at the picture of me in Paris when I was mid-twenty, 1990. even then i knew that for me, europe was hollow alone. i saw the sites like i was preparing my life as a tour guide for her, for she. for the partner who would like to travel with me, to allow me to show her the paris jewish ghetto, the little gay neighborhood, shakespeare & co. the evening light, the wine, the bastille and its opera house. people on the rue, on the walks, crowded in pens of cafe tables. le louvre. the centre george pompidou. even lyons, cherbourg, around and about. the buzzing enduros and our buzzing, our own humming. paris not as a romantic destination but as a place to be, as a place to enjoy to just enjoy each other. no real sight seeing for us! now, its all about being there together not sigh seeing, not walking our feet off, not climbing the radio tower just to see the grim tops of the low low old town-cum-city. no, instant intimites, with friends from Uni and the night clubs costing US$30 for the unsuspecting. the turn of her hip, the way paris invites a woman to walk, a woman to dance, the way she eats her strawberry or touches the silk scarf around her neck. the way she touches me, each other, kissing like school kids along the seine as the voyeuristic dinner show barges barrage us with spotlights, illuminating out expert hands. our knowing touches. this is the paris for which i was prepping, the paris exposed in trite editorials in the new yorker, the same paris eaten in gulps by hemingway. not the ruined paris -- we shall ignore her ripped tights and smudged lipstick -- but the youthful daring city, ripe and flush, breathing heavy with a bountiful chest and apple ass.