Sonnet LIX: Nixy

Born guilty, made from time's incipience
to serve as Nature's balance, I breathe free
and empty darkness, pulling down to dense
oblivion the fools I draw to me.

My cold charisma pulls them in; I turn
them into monsters who have gilt and shame
to rival mine, but who cannot discern
the Truth, the Way, the Secrets, or the Name.

My guilt is on me; shame is on me, too,
and endless suffering to me is sent
for what I am compelled to be and do:
I make no choice and yet feel punishment.

I can't complain, though: I enjoy my lust,
and Nature is by definition just.

Sonnet LVIII: Super Lame

It's rare that I don't scold myself or preach:
I did that badly; that was wrong... I'm proud
to an extent that I can speak aloud
my failings anywhere my voice will reach,
but when those people--and I will not teach
you all their names--agree with me and cloud
my true confessing words before the crowd,
I'm angry to the point that brooks no speech.

I think that it's because I know they're glad
of opportunities to give offense;
they're waiting for the chance to hand me shame,
to tell me that I'm wrong or that I 'm bad.
To me, at least, such people make no sense.
They're just pathetic, and that's SUPER LAME.

Ballade: What I Did This Summer

Early today, the lesson that I learned
was that the people who are most inclined
toward thinking well of me, if they discerned
the actuality within my mind,
would be disgusted, so I am resigned
never again, for fear of being spurned,
to reveal any of my secret heart,
to reveal any hopes; I am confined
by my own self, secluded and apart.

To My Husband

Lately, the mornings that I wake
safely and pleased with pride to break
fast with the day have been increased
threefold. I think that I’m released
by your concern and for your sake.
I believe that this lack of ache
may be the nearest thing I make
to the unfailing love that ceased,
and I accept.
I am at peace with gold opaque
veiling the red of pain. Remake
colorless, tasteless cake at least
into a bread that has no yeast,
and I accept.

Sonnet LVII: Second Place is First Loser

My fingers (limp, forgotten, open wide)
on broken Eden generously pour
from heaven myrrh and honey to each side.
Throughout the world beneath me, with a roar
of desperate desire, the people reach
for Sky, to drink and drown in all that falls
from my unheeded hands, but all their speech
is far-off babbling to my ears, their calls
a clamor, for a hundred thousand times
too small are they for me to heed their noise.
I look above me, whence are poured the limes
and honeyed lemons of the gods (whose poise
does not allow their ears to hear my name),
a million times too large to know my shame.

Change

Each infant that comes
squalling into this world
does so by dragging to the ground
an ancient wonder.
Thus life is nothing
but a series of deaths,
as the old good passes
and makes way for the new good.
You will never hear the same song twice;
all things are merely instantaneous,
whether meticulously planned
or spontaneous and instinctive.

Troubadour Songs II: For Parted Lovers

When writing things I know must not be written,
I hide them where no one will think to look:
in public, on the internet, with kitten-
soft metaphors that cleanse and hide my bitten
hands under verbage. No less certain book
was ever made; no more effective mitten
clothed any celebrating hand that shook.

I write of every time that, tried and bitter,
I learned again the lesson of my life:
to give up hope, for all the dreams that flitter
between my hands are gilded air and glitter,
for daydreams only. I became a wife;
I will become a mother, then a quitter
of heaven with the bottle or the knife.

My love song is the sad remainder lying
in shreds from when I last was taught to play
this game by the official rules. I'm trying
to treat you lovingly, to hide my crying
and bouts of crazy laughter, to give way
to you. I'm fond of you. You're kind, and tying
myself to you again is all I may.

Shall I lament stylistically your leaving?
It seems to be the custom. You'll return,
however, so what sense is there in grieving?
I am indifferent. There is no thieving,
small archer who can make me feel the burn
of passion for a thought that isn't weaving
through the abstractions I desire to learn.

So I suppose I want you to be happy.
I know you love as deeply as you can.
I have no feelings, and I squash the sappy,
clichéd, faux sentiments expressed by yappy,
too-old-ish girls and men who call the span
across the hands a mile. You say these flappy
things much more earnestly than any man.

Some say that I am cold, some that I'm driven,
and some that I'm too passionate to live.

Troubadour Songs I: Alba

Hey, get up, stupid fuck. Are you awake?
Get out of here right this minute, or I'll take
my fist to that window. I swear I'll shove it
straight through. The birds began to sing and shake
the branches long ago; their noises make
me flood with rage. The night is gone--you love it,
but I've not slept, nor have I had a break.
Already darkness lifts: the road, the lake,
the trees grow from invisible to take
the forms of shadows. It's for your own sake
that I must rescue you from those who covet
all your virtue--or the appearance of it.

You're not even supposed to be here now.
This idea was so stupid. I bow
to your good sense. And if you don't hustle,
we're all gonna get our asses kicked--ow!--
and I'll hold you responsible. Allow
me to say: It won't be my fault! I rustle
these shades to warn you, just exactly how
you told me. This is risky and lowbrow.
If you don't care about yourself, you cow,
then think of me, with both hands on the plow,
and think of him--his grace, his airs, his muscle,
and of his shame in the ensuing tussle.

I can hear the flame-wheeled chariot rend
the sky as Aurora broaches its end,
echoing through the earth with ringing thunder
like the boots of legions, or like the blend
of softening carpets and the slight bend
of a jealous woman's footfalls to sunder.
I'll go along with you, although you tend
toward eternal punishment; I'm your friend,
your servant, your right hand, sworn to defend,
but I'd rather you had the sense to spend
eternity in that far place of wonder.
So wake up. Or this will be your last blunder.

Camping

Living outside
has given me an appreciation
of many things,
including our until-now mysterious (to me)
cultural bias
against rain and rainy days

though personally,
it's not the rain so much as the mud.

Warm Veneer

What's real in us is void, and the warm
veneer of porcelain covering the face
cracks easily, abandoning its form
and falling back inside us, out of grace,
into the void. If you catch a glimpse
of your reflection in a mirror, and
see rosy cheeks and hair that curls and crimps--
the very paints that vivify the bland
and vapid faces gracing all of your
acquaintance--do not be alarmed, for all
is as it must be; for if any store
his face intact 'til other faces fail,
he wins the world and all he sees therein.
Do not allow the anger growing just
beneath the mask to burst and break the skin.
Each tiny crack is a defeat that must
sting dryly to remind you that you've failed;
a fault laid out before your enemy;
the invitation to a feast; a jailed,
unransomed vassal. Do not ever be
convinced to leave that mask; but neither, like
a fool, believe the lie that painted shields
are made of honest human feeling. Strike
decisively and rarely. Weakness yields,
unhesitating, to the flagrant pride
of one who sweetly smiles and won't confess,
who knows the truth: that what is real inside
him is the anger and the emptiness.

Story of My Life

She says, “Hold me,” and I hold her,
and her arms wrap around me like tentacles,
like the coils of a python, and I can’t breathe.

She is crying, and I have no mercy,
can’t summon the mildest twinge of sympathy.
Is she really upset?

A sad person doesn’t squeeze and threaten;
a sad person doesn’t run to my arms
or call me at half past midnight.

She is crying, and I have no mercy,
unable to believe that this is anything but a stunt,
with no faith in anything but the chime of history.

I cannot breathe. I cannot love her.
She runs her fingers over my skin,
looking for an entrance to my soul,

looking for a way in so she can insert her feelers,
suck the energy from my soul,
tear my self-respect from me in tiny, precise pulls.

I have no mercy. This is why I hate people;
this is why I fear promises.
They are cages; they are chains.

But how can I turn a suffering person away?
I am impelled to caress her, impelled to say comforting words,
to rape myself like this every time she comes to me.

I mustn’t turn away when she pets my hair.
I mustn’t close my eyes briefly in pain when she tells me
she’ll cure me of my fear of commitment.

I don’t run away, but I have no mercy;
I simply grow colder and colder
and pray she will cease to need me.

Sonnet LVI

That old-ish man whose voice was cracked like clay
said frankly that he liked the way I smelled
and asked if I had maybe bathed today,
disturbing reservations that I held.

And then he started in on how I looked
just like a high school girl, which, to be fair,
is something I have heard before, and crooked
his finger luridly and sniffed my hair.

But when I caught a whiff of what he'd drunk,
my brain went off and added up the sum:
tomorrow, if he's worked out of his funk,
when he wakes up, he's gonna feel real dumb.

And my compassion's tender to the touch:
I think that I did not dislike him much.

Sonnet LV: Spelling Error

It is a single, small mistake, uncrowned
yet obvious; it doesn't seem so much
a hurried misprint as it does the clutch
of ignorance upon a lazy ground.
I fear the guilty do not fear the sound
of judgment over every subtle touch.
What shame to live in squalid lodgings such
that ignorance is shameless and renowned.

I feel no flush of ugly, self-smug pride
at seeing on another's roof this blight;
it brings to mind instead all of my own
uncharted, inmost shame, which has not died
though I have suffered lifetimes--as is right--
both in the public forums and alone.

Sonnet LIV

At times, I'm overcome, and to resist
the world's unspeakable vulgarity
becomes too much, as though I saw the gist
of all that Is in piercing clarity.

I wake in morning's cold austerity
with paling resolution: I conclude
that sleep, like humankind's sincerity,
will never be enough to cure my mood.

I see the end of all things; we've accrued
humiliation only. We invoke
our passions and our efforts, but, reviewed,
they're nothing but the Instigator's joke.

We wish that people cared for us, but none
of us can really care for anyone.

Sonnet Cycle: Genbu Kaiden

[Because I am a huge geek. :D ]

Woman

So you’re gone at last, completely beyond the stars, beyond my reach, in your father’s homeland, neatly untucked in bed, rewriting speech you believe you should have given. Even if our souls are driven to madness from the parting slap, I’m pushing you across the gap, burning down the bridge that spanned it. I’ve found the reason I was born, and though it hurts to see you scorn (for you cannot understand it) the only gift that I can give, please keep your body whole; please live.

Emptiness

Many times, the spears of hated opponents pierced in fierce attack; childhood games have not created the scars upon my arms and back, yet my swift and icy arrows fail to hit their marks. The narrows of mountains thwart me. I am last among a class of heroes cast towering above the cattle, and all my childhood enemies who fled when I began to tease failed to ready me for battle against an army that has wrecked the stars I’m dying to protect.

Wall

Thundering, divine, infernal, outgoing as the wintered earth, I take hold of what’s eternal while comprehending all its worth. Thus, the words that never sounded from the stone came forth. They bounded along the mountains, down the path of destiny and silent wrath. Never will I speak, but listen to whispers from the lips of those who trust in me, whose spears and bows can’t without me hold the glisten of starlight, and, without a word, I know that all I say is heard.

Encampment

With no starlight, silent, freezing, I waited while the heavens shook like a baby, crying, wheezing, a helpless maiden in a book, something lacking any power, locked alone inside my tower—although I was below the ground. I knew that I would not be found, but you found me. Now I’m learning to try to be of use to you; I’m still a nuisance. Take me to my protective shell; I’m turning too slowly into something old enough to stand against the cold.

Dipper

Do not think I’ll hear your reason; you’re slavering on stardom now. Your behavior then was treason; you have no claim upon my vow. If it is my whim to save you, you are saved; the grace I gave you was mine to offer you or not. Your cries are nothing; you have bought nothing of me. I remember my younger sister hungry, cold—and she was only five years old. I don’t want to be a member of any people who would hurl those insults at a boy and girl.

Danger (2)

If two things against each other are weighed, the heavy one will sink. If two plants grow, one will smother the other, stealing food and drink from its roots. And if a mother bears two sons, the older brother wins favor at his father’s whim, although his brother is to him like a mirror to a mirror. As worthy as I know your cause to be, I choose to follow laws that return the star that’s dearer. Thus I, the second, go to lengths to let the first surpass my strengths.

Ox

Once—I don’t remember, really—I may have asked how life was grown. I am no inept or silly stargazer; I have built my own empire on my back, the smelly streets its lowest floor, my belly and thighs its bricks and nails. I rule these countless insects—each a tool—and I feel no shame in saying that I do not rule over kings. And I, who ponder all these things, cannot see myself obeying commands of someone hardly set, who cannot rule her body yet.

Danger (1)

I was taught a song, a bother upon my lips, before my birth from the mouths of my grandfather and his grandfather, and the girth, weight, and shape of it is killing, tearing trees from roots and willing the water from the sea; it bars the earth’s embracing of the stars. I continue though I’m dying; I sing though what is mine must die. I sing to tell my heart goodbye. My reflection falters, trying to stop my dazzling sacrifice; my swollen throat is too precise.

Sonnet LIII

The most delicious cup of tea that I ever drank was wetter than all the rain that made a sea of Saint Petersburg--much better than any Earl Grey I had drunk before. The rain had cleansed the gunk from the windows, and the brightly lit café was dry. I lightly stretched out my limbs. The hostel closed, and the train would not come early, and the rain was pouring. Surly baristas clattered cups. I dozed, dreamt of Moscow, città bella, where I left my black umbrella.

Sonnet LII: Foreigner

There is such shame in every word I read,
in every image, each recorded sound.
The others do not understand my need
to wallow in the beauty that I've found,

or if they do, the thought is dipped and drowned
in the deep ugliness that makes its base.
I see it, too--I see it wrap around
the edges, blunting them, smearing the face,

and muddying the paint. And then this place
embarrasses me with its blatant sin,
which isn't mine except I choose to chase
a language not inborn, a foreign skin.

Why couldn't I have loved something innate
instead of pointless daydreams and self-hate?

Blood Show

today a book asked me
what does it mean to be American
and all I could think about
was marching on for hours
looking for the entrance to the Moskovskii Zoopark
watching skinny Russians eat pounds and pounds of ice cream
walking for miles, all over the city, in their high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes

and not having any place to sit down
it was a sci-fi world of cement
and there was a blister on my heel

when I took off my shoe
which was pink and had a bow on it
blood spilled out
dripping in little drops onto the sidewalk
and I realized
my foot is bleeding

which reminded me of Cinderella's sisters
and of the Little Mermaid
and appealed to my sense of pride

because feet only bleed if they're sensitive.

how do they walk so far
in more brutal shoes than mine
and never even wince?

Return to a Theme from My Youth

Yellow dandelions and tiny purple flowers--
whose name I do not, of course, know--
have been sprinkled over a green, green lawn.
In the midst of a construction project,
surrounded by gravel and bits of glass,
a small magnolia tree is blooming.
In my ear--and should I really be listening
to my iPod all the time?--Avril Lavigne's voice
sounds exhausted, which is really worrying.
These are all little, common things--
the grass needs mowing;
suddenly, people are outside;
breezes merge with gales--
but to me, they are signposts
of the passage of time:
valuable, important to mark.
Each change is heartbreakingly gorgeous
and beautifully sad;
the Sublime, I find, is in the apple blossom
as completely as in the Great Divide.

Sonnet LI: On Love

A pool in the savanna, black and wet:
here the thirsty people stare in wonder.
Crocodiles wait calmly for our blunder,
the sharp mosquitoes buzz around and fret,
and unseen, tiny creatures dream they met
in our blood and tore our throats asunder.
Drink or not: in either case, the plunder
of living flesh is offered with regret.
But thirst torments the reason: will the sticks
pierce through us as we drink? The water, cool
and very bitter, is entrapped in eye,
esophagus, and stomach with the flicks
of feeble hand because there is no pool
that's clean enough, and either way, we die.