Tag: poetry

how to love a god:

i. 
stay away from him. legends
are never boys. gods
were never people. gods
do not love.

ii. 
despise him. who does he
think he is? the proud jaw,
those seaborne arms,
fleeting sparrow-feet
planted on the earth as if
the world belonged to him?

iii. 
watch. the quick turn of
mouth, the gold of his hair backlit
against the sun shining like a halo.
if you get too close he’ll burn you
to ash. if you get too close
he’ll destroy you.

iv. 
watch him watch you.

v. 
when he kisses you back
hold your breath. do not breathe.
you are only a small and foolish boy
chasing the tail of a meteor
destined for the heavens. if
you breathe, you will burn.

vi. 
making love to him feels
like building a home, doesn’t it?
here, the oars of his shoulders.
here, the temple of his thighs.
here, his mouth whispering
your name in worship.

vii. 
when the war comes
watch his laughter grow cold and
his hands tender themselves red.
that is a statue in your bed.
that is a man turned to stone
from ten thousand stares.

viii. 
you put on his clothes on
to save him from himself.  
you put his clothes on
to spend your last breath
inside him again.

ix.
you know what will happen
and you do it anyway.
you burn because this is what
it means to love. this is what
it means to fly.

x.
recall the tale of Icarus.
choose to be Icarus.

no, i don’t remember when your name was the only sound
my mouth could pronounce, when my limbs held
the love of only you. i don’t know how
you saw me the first time, or held me.
but i think whatever connects us
is cosmic. i think the stars will return you to me.
no, i don’t know where you are now, exactly,
or what is in your mind. maybe you are screaming,
maybe you are weeping, maybe you are
cursing at me. but i lean my head upon your
shoulder cautiously, like a mouse ready to flee
and, without looking down,
you tilt your chin slightly
so my head is nestled gently on your jaw
and that is how i know some part
of you still loves me.
for now, this is enough.
for now, my heart is calm.

women and men, they remember war so differently.

1971

my father says, we fled to burma and lived in roofless shacks. nothing but the tattered clothes on our backs. the thieves took everything we had. once i went out foraging with my brother to find crabs and a tribe of cannibals chased us until our feet bled. when we returned to our land at last, we found ruins, endless devastation. but at least we were home. those were months of shivering pain and exhaustion but i suppose now they only make for a good story. 

1949

my grandmother says, i was too young to remember but my sister-in-law told me how it was (my mother did not speak of it.) all the houses they burnt were nothing to the women they broke. and it was the same in ‘71. what is it about chaos that makes beasts out of men. what is it about fear that leaves us all bleeding.

1944

my grandfather says, i trained as a soldier for six months. lived in grim barracks in kolkata and bowed to british officers. there was a man who said he would take me to america after the war. i said no, because i had a family to care for, and i quit the army before i ever fought. at the time, i felt i had lost something. but now here i am, in america, after all these years. my pain became a prophecy.

1979

my mother says nothing. she has never seen a war of the kind that ravages lands and homes and seas. but her silence speaks, in tongues only women understand. or perhaps only daughters desperate for the love of their mothers. her silence says, i have been fighting a war since the day i was born. it says, i am so tired of the violence i cannot unlive. it says, my heart became a battlefield when i started losing my mother. it says, soon your heart will go the same way.

Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities
who am ageless and half-grown
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon’s new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

when they told her her story was written in the stars,
she went to the heavens and crushed each one with her bare hands,
stars have no power over her,
the night sky is hers now,
and she will carve it with constellations of her own.

If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.

If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.

If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.

If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me.