I drag my tongue
Across effervescent speech
And trail its indentation
Onto the page.
Combinations of genres
Of subjects
Of lands,
And the spices
Brought by camel caravan
Spark in my tummy
And send up an urge
To devour the whole
Rosetta Stone in one splurge.
Doors hang more clearly than shame.
They were our first loin clothes
and our first captors.
When did nature become
this external?
…
I rely on the night,
Which leads me outward
into the forest.
Felling the moss lined ground
under our feet
I and other women
dance naked around logs.
God is not unhappy.
He sends down to us
the lighting of fireflies
so we can see more clearly.
It was not He who said
our bodies are our secrets.
Who would want his own creations
to be ashamed?
…
It was man who handed woman
the first apricot leaf.
He hid his woman from God,
for he thought
whomever could create
such blisses as full bloomed breasts
and round ready hips,
must be lustful.
Man’s fault was in
lust’s creation.
The flag doesn’t hang
On Sundays,
But on every other day
The girls wear their crosses, their veils…
And boys their yarmulkes, their turbans…
This separation of church and state-
Where church can impose upon state
But no religious organization
Can be touched by the power
Of government-
Is a problem.
The warring exists on all levels.
Within one country,
Every party is against the next.
Even where there is but one party,
Harmony flees the corruption.
Nations pin themselves
In war.
Then there are the states
Who fight other countries,
Because the preachers and the imams
The rabbis and the shamans
Don’t preach about
A world of people.
There is a race of humans,
The human race,
But it’s been divided
By a tonation
So insignificant that
Genes do not even store a record.
Why is this,
The last information
We know of ourselves?
It comes to us when the problem
Has already developed,
And nobody will take the time
To slow down
And listen to one another.
The indentured scribes
Who place their calligraphy nubs
To the parchment-like
Walls of my mind
Reach out
With their crooked and stained fingers
And attach firmly
To the stem of my brain.
In a painful cascade
Of ink,
The virus they write
Finds itself
In control of thought.
My body functions,
But separate, very separate,
From my mind.
Resting above the paper
In a grip every teacher would approve,
My pen and hand
Await their command.
The line is gummed up,
However,
The virus
Oozes thick black ink
From the nervous system.
What comes through
Is but a senseless signal.
The hand is no mind.
It cannot stop
The jerking of a feverish brain.
Out flow words
Of nonsensical derivation.
Cross-outs ought to follow,
Even the whole page tossed out,
But a sickly wax,
Blind belief in each word,
Prevents me
From seeing and amending
The mess.
I’m not convinced that God is in the clouds.
It’s awfully cold up there.
But if you find him riding cumulus nimbus,
Mercy me, for disbelieving.
I only know how most people get
Once they are all ashiver.
That spirit
Whom our prayers harass,
I think I have a pretty good idea
As to where he is hiding.
The God I know climbs trees.
He takes baths in rainforest wells,
And eats of nature’s plump offerings.
It’s always warm around him.
Imagine him tan
And sunning on the beach,
For warmth creates forgiveness
And charity.
What, you don’t believe me?
You believe your God
Sits on a golden throne all day
Developing throne-sores
And leg stiffness?
I can’t imagine that.
If I were a person
From a frozen country
I would, perhaps,
Look up when I thank God.
Because the snow and sun,
Are livelihood.
