There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield,  pretty
as you please

She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair

She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves

Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood,  going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.

When I was a child, the hallways stretched for miles
Mahogany and ceramic floors, polished bookcases
A mansion for fictional paperbacks
All neatly tucked under fluorescent lighting

The librarian would wait behind her desk
She reigned silent
besides the tapping of her fingertip to her glasses
I can’t remember her ever looking happy

Until the day I noticed the chirping
Sang somewhere between the realistic & historical fiction,
a bird cage sat next to the woman’s desk
It was an unexpected visit

I should have brought a better dressed book to check out
Mine was bound by yellowing pages
But I met the canary and heard her song
As I watched the librarian smile

Dear Vamika,
of a long and a
short
time away. Of the
future, when
your ******* are fuller
and you can finally speak
French fluently.

I hope you are a woman.

I know you
have not changed the world.
I didn’t write you that way.
I’m still
not writing you that way.
For my cheap gel pen
has none of that spark
of Fitzgerald’s and Nabokov’s,
who could bewitch the imagination with
such timeless giants
as ****** and Daisy.

So remember:
you’ll be brilliant
but absent
from any history books.
But still.
You are enough, exquisitely enough,
for the literature
I inhabit.

Hence, I fill pages with your inky
outlines, shade in the spaces
slowly
with hopes and wishes and poetry and dreams.
For you, of you.
I note
all that you are
composed of, so that
even the marginalia
laughs out your lipstick,
your clothes drawers,
your reading habits.

I am writing you as a woman.

I am writing you
as Music. Here is your laughter,
a little smokier now,
unspooling like a work of
Debussy’s. Here are your
fingers, lighter now, like meringues
or dandelions, as they dance
on your silver flute,
better, better, better than ever,
in shiny theatres far
grander than you imagined.
And here are your tiny
scrawled music notes, that with a few touched
keys, echo as tumbling stars
in the ears of thousands
and then plenty.

I hope you are a woman.
So play, compose, laugh and sing; be
Music ‘til your dying day.

I am writing you
as Ambition. It is calmer
than the fire that currently
singes my hands. Yet it’s still as
constant
as the flame you
light, every night before bed,
in front of the Goddess Durga
you pray to.
Your heart still
salivates for hard-boiled
surprises, for lucky pennies
found on pavements, for the
metallic sweetness of, yes,
success.

I hope you are a woman.
So strive, and strive again,
‘til you’re nothing but ash.

I am writing you, too,
as Success.
Surprise!
Those words unhooked
from the crevices of your mind,
are now bound in
paperbacks.
You are a poet, sleeker than
the 17-year-old fledgling
in her dim bedroom.
You are a journalist,
pouring morning stories
like hot tea, and sighing
with honey glee at
your name in
print.
You are a writer;
you fill even more pages, and
you now have a
gleaming, expensive
pen.

I hope you are a woman.
So write, ‘til you have lost
all breath.

I am writing you
as Compassion. How could I not
let you share words (your  personal magic) with
countless sparking children?
And not fill your hands with
gifts of maths, English,
science and art that you can
give and give and
give to them?
An education is as precious and
priceless as Picasso, you say.
A human right, all the same.
A human right.

I hope you are a woman.
So be kind. That’s it.
Always.
I have not forgotten  
to write you as
Justice.
Go out and support,
wave flags and placards,
sign petitions, join many
campaigns, scream out ‘til
your throat can’t bear such
honesty, such
indignation.
Keep fighting.
Never stop. The world is unfixable,
imperfect and
unhappy.
Help it.

I hope you fight for other women.
I hope you fight for other humans.

I am also writing you
as Resilience. So you’re able
to face yourself in that
mirror, even though
your stomach has a stubborn bulge, still,
and you haven’t yet learned
to smile at your nose.
Still.
And I’m reminding you that you do,
yes, you do,
have the strength to cry alone, then
get over it,
to have panic attacks, then
get over it,
to pick yourself up from
life’s many disintegrations and
start again.
You can. You’ve already done it.
I hope you always will.

I know that you are a woman.
So never give up, as
cliché as it sounds. Go ahead and
die trying.

Now, as the cadenza
of this rather sentimental piece,
which I’ve spun as
sweet
as stolen sugar
and the romantic comedies at which
you secretly weep,
I am writing you as
Tenderness.
See, I decided that Love and
Romance are but
bombs. And you and I both
believe in non-violence.
Therefore, you are
a hugger now, with lips
which kiss your husband,
scold your children
and sing
lullabies to the whole silly lot of them.
Your heart is always
swimming
with a good bit of warm wine,  so don’t
question its fullness.
Take care of yourself.

This.
This, above, is all I hope for you
to stay and have and be
until the symphony’s final note, your
final breath.

You are a woman.
Flawed, intelligent, beautiful, cracked, strong, kind, stubborn, soft, honest.
Real.

You are a woman.
So stay like this,
but be just a little more wiser, a little more grown
each passing year.

A woman.
Vamika, that’s all I ever want you to be.

But Yevtushenko...

                      A tribute to Penguin paperbacks

When they
Someday
Take us away
For reading
For thinking
For writing

Those Penguin paperbacks all tattered and taped
Discovered when they empty our pockets
          Will
Be used against us in their courts of law

But Yevtushenko might corrupt our jailers

Her world was golden
her world was sleek
Designed for the brave
Any second minute, day or week.
She waited and she waited
For that special moment to come
She had read in her paperbacks
What thoughts to think overcome.
Petals began to fall on her in disgust
The Magnolia had worked this one out.
Leaves encircled her feet, leaving dust
a lonely image, imprint of her shadow.
Hope began to question itself in her heart
Should she stay or should she go.
I suppose a little longer just to play the part
of an excited young lady, would not matter.
She started to whisper to herself,
words of encouragement, so as not to cry.
The Magnolia shed its tears hours ago.
She could hear footsteps, nearer they came
This could be him, the love of her future life
But she had only got herself to blame.
It was a milkman delivering orange juice
"Not much call for the white stuff nowadays" he said
"I'll soon be out of a job" he chuckled.
His words went in and straight out of her head
She half smiled and looked beyond in hope.
Looking at her watch, at last she saw sense.
The Magnolia had thrown caution to the wind
a long time ago, but sent its emotion to line her path.
If it could hug it would have done I imagine.
She went home, he appeared, late, to a wilted leaf.

I found it while unpacking boxes of old books in the basement.
It slipped out of a Spanish to English
dictionary that I probably smuggled out
of a middle school library ten years ago
and haven't opened since.

I knew what it was, of course-
whole years were spent with bad posture
listening to substitute teachers and CCD carpool-drivers
lecture about the bold beauty and senseless frailty
that was youth.
Their bodies were at once tense and earnest.
Their voices were at once condescending and pleading as
they sang deeply of the space we blindly occupied and
they fiercely missed.

My understanding of youth was a
sepia-streak stumble through tall reeds below an open
sky; taking clumsy steps on sea-cut feet
and one day regretting not passing enough
notes kept folded in pockets or taking
enough pictures of the faces whom I ran beside.

Youth, obviously, is subjective-
It can be teased up or sculpted-in tight
in relation to circumstance.
In my own mind youth is a cool breeze,  glory days thing- like prom night or my first kiss.
Really each took place years ago but, since they didn’t
carry the weight or sheen I was told they should,
I still sit tight and wait for them.

They will find me eventually.
They’ll arrive a loud booming from a furious sky that births open-prairie rainfall that quiets my
teenage sadness as I sit shotgun
in some boy’s pickup and we race
a  cornfield to the Wyoming border.

The fact that I’m in my twenties is irrelevant.
The fact that I live in New England, where corn is imported and gas is expensive, is not worth noting.

So when, in the basement among the books I've hoarded and arranged around me like armor,
I saw my golden-ticket youth slip
out between pages and waft slowly down, I let it  hit the ground.
I could have crushed it with a sneakered sole
like a cigarette or crumbled it into nothing with shaking fingers.
I could have let it careen down between damp paperbacks to
the box’s bottom and know for certain it
would never reemerge.

But, surprisingly, I didn’t want to.
It was light and lovely in a way I would have never guessed.
It wasn’t as sticky as I thought it’d be.
In fact, as I flipped my hair forward and
double-no-triple knotted the bouncy, silky strings
(Strings that felt more like existing than regretting)
at the nape of my neck- a smile so severe I thought I'd crack found it's way to me.

My youth will never be something I flip through
like a catalogue and miss and cry out for. I will never
be haunted by it nor will I conjure it
around a fire while trying to make a point.
I won’t tell ghost stories about my youth
to bored kids because I am not going to let it die.

I saw it today. For the first time I could touch
it and smell it and I realized it didn’t have to be
the sarcophagus of who I was,
but instead could serve as the shifting
and stretching prologue to who I will be.

I’ll let it hang loose and light from my neck.
Its colors will fade in the sun and its beads will
probably warp as it trapezes altitudes and climates.
It will dull and tarnish.
It won’t stay pretty but neither will I.

I’ll gladly sacrifice any lace and filtered polaroid memories
and oft-repeared stories of my youth; kept behind glass and propped up among rags at a museum exhibit,
for the low belly excitement of closing my eyes today and not knowing what I'll see when I open them tomorrow.

Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll probably overanalyze everything
Because she’ll never understand
That people aren’t paperbacks
She’ll search for plot in your veins
And make metaphors of your broken heart
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll fold your corners
And crumple your pages
She’ll make notes in your margins
And she’ll probably bend your spine back
Just a little too far
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll get too excited for the ******
And she’ll skip some words (or pages)
When she’s sleepy she’ll skim
And lose her place
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because she’ll fall in love with
Last chapters and final words
Do not fall in love with a girl who reads
Because the ending will always be her favorite part.

I remember the days of raisin boxes and paperbacks,
when it felt like the worst thing in the world to be climbing barefoot up a mound of dirt in the rain because you wanted a friend.
I couldn’t watch movies, talk about cigarettes, or listen to operas,
but I was all right when I saw my mother pouring out my father’s bottles into the bushes.
I looked at the round tummy in the mirror and wondered if it was okay.
It wasn’t. I was eleven years old when I learned how to **** it in.

-

The first came in middle school. I had a dream that I kissed a boy while on an exercise machine.
It was real life when he took my hand in the backseat of his mother’s SUV. I closed my bedroom door and danced.
I still think of him when I hear that stupid song.

The second time, I was fourteen. I met a different boy who peeled away my skin as if he were unwrapping a Christmas present.
And the present? Just another pair of socks. Throw them in the drawer with the others. Shut it tight.
I’m still missing a lot of skin.

And then, there is you.
You know the story. Five, four, three, two, one, happy new year. I kissed you.
Remember when you noticed my wrists? Remember when you didn’t believe my excuses? Remember afterwards, when you pretended to forget all about it because you were scared, scared of the kinds of girls who hid secrets under their sleeves?
I went to all of your basketball games. I hate basketball. We watched movies that you projected onto your basement wall. Your attempts to disguise your impatience as admiration were poorly executed.
Maybe our first kiss shouldn’t have occurred in a count-down. It made everything else that happened feel that much more inevitable.

-

I take stock of myself. Three hearts, like an octopus, and too much blood. I am saving it, I am saving it for the person who offers me something other than the dusty space under the bed.
I never want to be like my mother, and there is a certain kind of power in this. The power of - of what, turning inward?
I am learning. I am learning to stop looking behind me in fear of pursuit. Let them come and let them drape me in meaningless velvet. I will not be deterred.
Look for me, up in the constellations. I am a passing comet; it’s impossible to predict if I am destined for destruction or for greatness.

I’ll wait at the sunset for the sound of your voice.

Self,
centered,
watching the world burn.
This calm is maintained by
expelling air in between each blink.
Glass is far in sight,
glasses cracked
and not foreseen,
because I'm not a seer.
Blanketed in ignorance,
wrapped: up tight.
Shelf this selfishness, I'm told.
So I consider this advice.
Rearranging the paperbacks.
Misplacing the first editions.
All the math in the world; variables
do not ease understanding
of long division.
So I'm left not right,
have never been alright,
and that is why being centered
is crucial for survival.
That is why becoming adaptable
isn't laughable
while watching the world burn.
It's having a cold disposition
to withstand the heat.

In Waterstones
Sighing at the bestsellers
opaque at the corner of my right
eye two ladies late in life
are centre stage amid the table
paperbacks.

“Are you following me?” the taller bellows
brimmed headscarf towering over her NHS bespectacled
sister of afternoons and shopping mornings
continuing a conversation that has obviously
followed them their entire friendship
seeming the matriarch of the pair, she is circumspect
in her contrariness.

Whatever entitles her to this
Guardianship of self-importance
Her being a lighthouse rising above the mists
condensing off beaten shards of rock
is subdued by her companions’ pithy response
“no-you know I have no interest in Autobiographies.”

Maggie was my mother, my emotional mother.
She came into my life when I was in third grade.
She and her husband, Floyd, lived in the apartment
on the third floor of our house. My biological
mother was too depressed to be my emotional mother.
She spent every afternoon taking a nap from 1 to
4:30 and watched TV by herself in the living room
from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., then went upstairs to her own
bedroom and read detective paperbacks until about
3 a.m. So Maggie always fixed breakfast--two poached
eggs, grits, and two toasted and buttered slices of
wholewheat bread--for me every morning as I grew up.
Maggie also washed my ***** clothes, spanked me
when I need a spanking, and hugged me when I
needed a huge. I have never forgotten the time when
Maggie (I have no memory of my biological mother
ever being in my bedroom when I was in it) brought
me lunch when I was sick in bed with a cold, along with
an ice-cold bottle of Squirt. I remember loving the taste
of Squirt, which, for some unknown reason, I had never
tasted it before, nor was I ever going to taste it again.
Many, many times I would go up to the apartment around
dinner time when Floyd had gotten home from working
at the Santa Fe shops, knock on their door, and invariably
Maggie would say "Come in," even as she was cooking
dinner for Floyd and herself, because she knew it was
Tod. I sat with Floyd at their small kitchen table and
talked to him about, among other things, who we each
thought was the better center fielder, Willie Mays or
Mickey Mantle. I felt at home with Maggie and Floyd.
The two took my two sisters and me on occasion to
the drive-in to see a movie in their old car. What fun!
Maggie, a Black who had grown up in racist southern
Texas, was illiterate, but I was not conscious of it when
I was so young, and when I got older and knew Maggie
couldn't read or write, it didn't matter to me at all.
Maggie could love! That was the important thing.
I always felt loved when I was with Maggie. And Floyd,
even though he thought Mays was better than Mantle,
remained my friend for along time after Maggie had
passed away.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

palms are masks
that cover nothing
fingers, frustrated fishermen
combing dark waters, searching
for the uninhabited isle.

the tree stump pitifully trying
to grow,
melody of the typewriter,
the letter opener's song,
withered daisy in a plastic display,
hidden bookworm art
carved into dusty paperbacks,
overgrown, abandoned houses:
sleeping animal,
dormant jungle.

wet asphalt puddles of fallen sky

dead butterfly

blind blue eyes;

tragic, difficult, poetic
         you are

poetically
(unplayed piano furniture)







          useless.

Sleek dark hair
Highlights of auburn, color of fall
Stern lips
A look of austerity in the dark russet eye
Skin lighter than my own
The smaller wrist
Large eyes
Faint deepening crow's feet
Nursing knowledge
Small, short, slight, petite, and strong
Maternal vanguard
Matriarchal
Beautiful and earthly
Scorpionic elusiveness
Her unused canvas
Frequent Homegoods purchased
Shifts decor in the livingroom like a Feng Shui practitioner
Laughs at the absurdity of modern horror movies
Smells like bath wash and too much perfume
Smells of my childhood
Smells of my innocence
Paperbacks of Hugo and Austen in boxes in the basement
Paperbacks of The Symposium and a biography of Marx in the basement
Secretly likes to cook
Culinary explorer
Gastronomically open
Culinary door opener
Very little circle of friends
Outspoken
Austerity on the small mouth
Austerity in the small mouth
Conviction in her voice
Soft graphite in her voice
Has a lisp sometimes
The slight overbite(?)
Immigrant parent
Unnaturalized citizen
Reminds me of fall
Reminds me of everything
Reminds me of very little at once
Life-teacher, one of many
Protective
Over-protective
Pushy
The way her hand moves on her tablet
The way her voice sounded during a lecture when I was a child
The way she used to hug
Closet full of shoes and clothes she rummages through when she's going out
Meticulous cleaner
The way her voice sounded when she tried to make sense of me
The way her voice sounds
...

Through the coffee steam your eyes were so clear they almost broke me in half.
I took a long selfish look as I told the side of your head about my mother.
You holding your gaze on my windshield
watching the wet lights blur one mile at a time.
Through the curls of your hair I heard you whisper that you didn’t want to leave.
Didn’t want to add your shoe size
to the prints leading away from the kid who’d see the inside of a coffin
long before he ever saw his family again.

I pulled over to force your hand through my sternum, pierced
each finger with a ragged heart tendril
built in the image of winter trees seeded far from the water line.
In this way, information is filtered.
Even with a cup tied to another cup by taut string,
you still don’t get a clear sound.

I shook my head, thinking of reasons to say your name. A taste like dusty paperbacks
flecked in cane sugar.
You got the boring name because your parents birthed you full of splendor,
knew you would never need the extra flourish of a conversation starting nametag.
The kind of person who deserves someone that will die of malnourishment if your plane ever goes down.

You’ve gotten soft old man,
You are no conqueror.
Will never drown out the roar in her 5 a.m.  mind,
can do nothing to comfort the black eyes
and longneck bottles left wandering her past,
with your piecemeal shards of charm and wit.

Part of your winter still clings to my dashboard and frosts my knuckles
each time my eyes close driving home, dreaming about painting red flags green.
Even after I watched the last drag curl out of your lungs,
you never tasted like smoke,
so I filled my lacerations with your nicotine
to hide inside your numbness,
while our bare skin rolled across sheets
looking for new cold
knowing this is not true sacrifice,
but perhaps my final squander.

I feel my heart
pressed in my stomach,
a tiny pebble
wishing to be big.
I count my shins,
apple caught in my throat.

A great wall of
early morning
covers my ears,
ties my hands over my eyes,
                                                           makes my ribs shrug.

The place between your lips,
a wandering perch for
emaciated sounds.
A fingerprint under your nose
shapely and styled,
too purposeful.

I can draw
stories on my thighs
under rusty Wednesdays
and paperbacks.

                                                    ­        A misunderstanding of eyelids,
overly trusting,
a turquoise thunder.
None of my fingers match,
making a path from my heels
to the crease behind your knee.
I’ve forgotten how to make tea.

Sodium Jack, Jack came to the suspicion of magic and alchemy,
Barbie has just needs for a revolver in the bullying face of the laughter
of the yellow color is yellow, and it is yellow,
like wheat from Example *******,
man's face is white and fair of hair
to the body of a bird from the raw material
of the View of Mango. Sleek, 18 years old, in the dark;
When a baby cries, the beds are in the ******,
and the nose, the skin, he seeks to make the industry
a **** the girl, the horse, and sore throat
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English, Famagusta!

She told me often when I was six, seven eight,nine and even ten that she used to read books, newspapers, journals (probably even shampoo labels), anything at all, every morning as she carries a breathing lump in her tummy—me. Growing up into a pensive, serious child,  my compounding curiosity was indulged with her providing a plethora of books. From giant, intimidating encyclopedias (I could barely understand but read on,still) to old, dusty fiction paperbacks to her interest in Greek mythology, she never ran out of things to tell me. How she told in a week the story of Goldilocks earning the rage of the three bears  and how I memorized it by ear when I was three or four, recited it in front of a throng of older kids in school. How her eyes glistened at that moment (I could not tell) but in retelling everything, her voice glows with just a bit of pride. She fed me fairy tales and in soaking in their magic, I found a dreamer in myself. I've always been a little different from other kids. A little too curious, precocious, mature, head in the clouds which I have maintained until now. She excitedly told me the story of how Thumbelina in her smallness had a larger than life adventure. How the last pig survived the wolf's bullying through his cleverness. How red riding hood looked dainty and pretty in her red cape. Or how tasty looking  her presents to grandma were. She read them all—every night—tirelessly as I held the warm milk I hated with all my naive heart at that time. I started writing for the school paper, eventually as a news and features writer. I did a lot of spoken poetry, orations, storytelling and speeches (mostly in school and some events) .Mom was in front row seats in all the writing and literary competitions I went to. And together with dad, they shut off the doubtful voices in my head real good.

I stopped writing in high school—when I was twelve. And for a long time, I wandered aimlessly with myself. To make matters worse, I was plagued with nightmares and an extreme sleep paralysis condition that heightened my fears. I often seriously thought I would die in my sleep. I totally got wrapped by my problems and forgot about writing and never got the chance to ask mom how she felt about that. But life paced itself differently when I was fifteen. One crazy dream and an insight in the shower later  and I began writing again. It was like I came from the bottom of a dry, dark well and someone wedged me with a rope back into light. I never looked back down the well, ever.

In all this history and flair for the literary, I go back to the fondness of the days and nights when mom was also my favorite storyteller who somehow put me in this direction, unknowingly. Now that I think about it, I always had an affinity with words. Like birds with the wind, like painters with their brushes. It comes as natural as breathing for me—maybe I should feel happy about that. Behind that deep connection was my mom and her stories that awakened my inner dreamer. One day, I hope to stack all the poems and stories, all the words I have ever written (good or bad) and hand it to her. Just like how she handed me this dream. I'd like to tell her I never stopped writing and probably never will. And in the very first page of that compilation, signed with my slanted signature are the words—*
I OWE IT ALL TO YOU, MOM, THANKS!

-Alex

what am I supposed to do?
I’m high on ativan
but that’s a secret
and it’s not the kind of person
I am anyway;
I promise, sometimes in life, there are acceptable exceptions --
a big fat scary monster has swallowed me up
whole
and I feel like Pinocchio
in the musky dark,
in the stomach of terror;

did you know
I bought 3 books today,
they’re classics
and were on sale,
"how perfect," I thought, "something to read on the plane; something to read over and over again for a whole year abroad."
but my suitcase is empty
apart from the three paperbacks,
intimidating me
and I’d honestly rather die and never hear anyone talk ever again than pack for a whole year

this is a poem of fear
but that’s a secret, though I’m sure
the consumed ativan
clearly gave that away;
— I’m moving
to the complete opposite end of
the world —

Through wooded fog
fades the day, abandoned to the grey,
lost road, lost home - belonging to no one

Pictures found upon a mantle, dust and charcoal,
photos framed in rusty metal,
sepia shadows, a broken mirror

Collections of rocks and bones,
letters and sealing wax,
china cups, stained and cracked

Musty pages of paperbacks,
remnants of a life long ago.
Memories, pressed flowers of fading bells,
little relics, loved
so well

2002
Dearest Klara,
  hope you enjoy
the poems as you dream to write
      one poem
happy birthday*


There are still many books as though
   parliament. A miscalculation based on coordinates
in a wry scene.

Two bookshelves creating a labyrinth, enough that you
are alike. Juxtaposed to scent are many words
and the day is almost done. Ignore fragments once,
but never overdo. I can outlast moonlight’s procession
into a dark cathedral by the window.

On this side – reason; the other, hesitance.
This is no heist. This is what belongingness refutes.
What willingness bandages. The absence of sentries
  made for easy rapture. You slid your hand into the dusty
fort and in between them, the paperbacks ached.
  “I will do it.” and after that, cursed at the farce.

Slid into your bag – you, surrounded by the tense air
of silence. A dilettante at being a fugitive. What is it that
you stole?
   Your body, elsewhere. Flailing. Failing. There are still
many marvels in the scene, but says precision is key.
Cuts as if contravention. This was as calm as painting a child
  in his early years, the hue of anomaly.

Quiet in amplitudes doles out a mystified sense of completion.
I can hear an ajar mouth unwind a soft humming.
   It was time to go – tomorrow when we rise with no memory,
  it will be all but one and the same fault together with many others,
     as if your face that day and your image now
          compels me the cold of a foreign city. Riddance.

Your childhood plaything
Became your clone  

You traded crayons for
Your mother’s lipstick

Children’s fairy tales for
****** romance paperbacks

Your room’s rose wallpaper is
Canopied with Audrey Hepburn posters

At night, you braided your hair
For those sophisticated waves

You ****** on lemons
To perfect your pout, and

Brushed with baking soda
To bleach your teeth

Your envy: the doll’s porcelain skin—
Not too unlike the seat cover

You clutched after meals,
To keep the spirit clean.

Melting to my seat
Staring at a screen
Brain cells exploding in misery
Prefer to set this building of articles on fire
Are actual paperbacks even read?
Obsolete weapon in the war of cyber knowledge
Forced to memorize words,
Lines of straight and curved little designs
That are supposedly the key
To intellectual increase.
So, please gently place the grenade
Upon my head,
As to not alter their silence.

What if I was waldo?
You would search page after page
Studying a painted picture
To find where I stand
Who would notice my stripes?
And trace their finger to meet bones
Or would you be that intolerable Attention Deficit Disordered kid
Who threw the paperbacks towards the wall
Because you couldn’t find me?
Do I still bother you, long after the freedoms of childhood are over?
If you found me on one page, who would quit
Who would keep searching?
Would you find my red shaggy cap
And throw in the towel
End that game of monopoly
Because it has already taken up much too much of your week
And your time
Who would stare.
Let the people and places blend into one
As if we were all waldo
Trying to be found

Lovely thoughts are shackles.
They invoke what even the microscope
omits from the commentary
Well-prepared cups of tea on Sunday afternoons
The dragging of fountain pens retracing ornate loops.

Each a relief from the threat of whatever crisis interred
by the quiet of a room
The practical, the indulgent, without progression.

The contemporary pastoral
is to be found
Amongst old boxes
of  boy's adventure paperbacks
and girl's glitterworn and broken hairbrushes
Shooting the mind off to tragedies
whirring still away at even further distances.

Memories, like sentiments
when copacetic
Provoking always the invasive link
the dependent, the pathetic.

A picture of a doomed ship in storm
Hung on the red carpeted wall of a restaurant

A jar of olives
left untouched
for decorative purposes
in the old grain store
which now serves unfiltered coffee
and plays loud but pleasing music
'til 6 p.m.

What I have spoken of are McGuffins.
The mind distracts.
Yes, the mind encounters,
we discover, we make lists.
But if you can remember
minutiae, try then to remember
History is the repetition of revelations.
The reel does not cut off.

In short,
don't congratulate
Yourself about life
until you've at least seen the nursing home.