The Poetry Marathon

from the window, where i lived tonight at,

i’ve mashed eggshells for the orange plant,

lit the rose candle, and grateful that today

there is no garbage truck, to remind me of a

past life. of orderly hours, although, there’s

the man with balding mullet and no shame in fearfully

tight, underwear. smoking his breakfast cigar,

signaling that repetition found its way, even relentless

hinting at the mundane. i’ve become german, in habits

such as staring into places and eyes without any reason,

or remorse, only fun. but the girl right across my flat, put her silver

Bose headphones on, sitting on the ledge, flirting with death,

although, from that floor, if she fell, may only break a bone or two.

at that age, i liked to imagine i was brave in lieu

of all the experiences i had yet to encounter. her scowl is in sync

with the rain and car tires fusion. the elderly lady

hides behind her lace curtain, diagonal and above, observing me,

from invisibility. but from where the light strikes, i know her shadow well,

and i wonder if i should give her the show she seeks or return to bed?

a city that kept a girl, i knew,

we shared the same name, which berlin says

once again, at this time, almost new.

i have been invited. but will i find her standing

cigarette in hand, in love, with the same man?

trusting pills, but not intuition, following ego and hedonism,

breeding obsession, praying for money, and

finally, bowing down in tearful submission. the dream

stays still in berlin, not breathing or moving, tacked

in congealed delirium, called living in the moment.

from the intestine, time never passes, a döner

can be eaten within the spasm of a denial, and

a genau is more than necessary. peter pan made

here his heaven but for me, i choose to leave

the place of the fools. i’ve replaced shields to

skin, still wary of the land of discarded visions, yet ready,

to join in the final requiem for the girl, whose giggles,

i may have forgot.

centered in the sun,

yet whiter than a snow-filled

cloud, washed in suds of

silver clementine. masquerades her

smile as privilege;

a woman, one never wants

to be. perished is a goddess,

a tilted nose to scoff this, wearing

her shroud amongst guests

that are living. in whose room,

she waits, pending.

a recipe passed on from my mother’s bhabi and the spirits she hears.

which i’ve never seen and neither the bear that raised her when she

was dropped head first into the forrest: get a group of virginal orphans

right before the new moon in the month of 11th, make them drink milk

of an ox that has been brewed with the final hairs of baby monkeys,

rubbed in turmeric, and make them recite all 99 and the last secret name

of God in a full circle, and make no mistakes, nothing can be too ripe,

and said fast. bring in fish that used to walk the planet before losing

their feet to fins, and release them onto the saltiest waterfall with

a survival kit of coconut pomade, indian gooseberry and a half kilo

of your ancestral gold–or two matronly cows and a bearded goat.

if you don’t get a spouse within day 40, change your name under a

morning glory and pray for god to forgive everything you’ve shattered

or about to do and even your existence and you’re sure

to find someone that will pick you, and finally you,  to marry

water slaps featherless bottoms, tiny mammals chewing on pine cones

predators not learning how to swim or hunt, are they waiting to be eaten?

bigger versions, still no fur, elders paddle with long limbs, looking at the ones

at shore, maybe floating to lure food. they have no greeting or signs, do

they see us as we are here, living with our children and lovers, calling permission,

two, three, six times? to the wind and dirt, each of us knowing our turn,

should we pass the message and go closer to smell with a hello?

space, maybe’s a dumping ground for all the people we could be, a tunnel with hard liquor and cheeseballs. if you give me a moment, i may conjure my third eye, to pray that metaphysical taut gods from the New Age show me a parallel universe into the life of alternatives that we didn’t have courage for

and maybe those choices found their destiny and are gluten-free. but that’s a cowards tale of longing and stringing along a fiddle to possibilities that we fumble for in our guts. when all that’s there if you scrape the spiritual, membrane lining is rose confetti from 2010 and all them green jelly beans that festered into yarn.

yet, i’d like to believe that our helios found a way to blossom up there, even if gods down here tell us to be scared, and fidget with bibles on productivity and you-can-do-attitude and bless me, but let’s call a pleated, multi-sensory, like me, spirit and She/He/Them, and my concubines agreed, it’s a happier life as an alien.

i wish you were here,

so i could tell you to bring milk, full cream.

i can’t drink tea without it.

how could i, sip just ruby, hot water

by itself.

any more than i can live

by myself.

i tortured a love by dividing it into two,

through metal picks, sharp threads, gummy sheets, curved scissors–any weapon that i choose

they fought to become uniform,

across my forehead, inching toward the other once again, thick with want, lusting forlorn

until i pulled them from the middle,

as always, guarding that they were apart, cleaned sharp, never allowing myself to be unbridled.

but, i removed all the women before me

whose names were drawn, by a deep hand, in the dark furrow where hung my history.

now, i cooed to them, to grow,

and they are stubborn, deafened and indifferent with my worries for tomorrow.

you did this to yourself,

so they have selected to fall away one by one, through suicide and swore, until nothing is left.

there is always that cat and a cat that grins. i know where i take my purrs,

on realities much different than yours; i find that i cannot get along with

anyone that’s not mad and bluffs on where they are going,

when they don’t even know, where they are at.

me, i don’t care much to please, but it is charming that life

is nonsensical, a rainbow-felt nap that you can leave.

unless you are between lazy and fun, and there are no gnats,

that share with you, space in trees. i despise all their flitting,

and questions, especially when they’ve lost themselves to stress;

why not just be in the sun and decide upon waking, what’s best?

in the cracks of my skin, spiders heave deeply and pretend to lay waste. sensing on

scattered feet, me asleep, they filter through all that kills me. by finding footing on

roots and sweat, wetting themselves on my anxiety, whistling come now, come to

this mark, that’s been spot, for nervous fingers to scratch its reach

to the bone of my body.

they are raised as protectors of allah’s loves and missions, as for the Prophet in the cave.

and that’s why a tarantula and its cousins have been saved; however, with that many eyes,

who was there to see the bargain that they made. for spinning a net and playing fantasy,

i don’t think that they’ve done anything for free.

so when i awake, i hold my mind. with earplugs to hear the beats of my heart: ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-

boom, boom-boom, and that there are some deaths not held against scales, while others howl in my head.

but when i caught the many legs of an acquaintance, trying to pass, an uninvited brother, i took him to

the ground, while the angels looked the other way, and even though He saw, there was no guilt in my

tears as he shivered and curled under. i cannot carry the favors of another, and trust more longer.