Saturday, September 27, 2008

Hold your breath for five full years

This is a crazy monasticism imposed,
here the caves are caked with paintings,
fingers in silhouette,
red ochre smudges,
yellow clay.
The oil lamp burns the walls, soot stains snake up to the ceiling.

In this room, my one desk,
my soft sheaves of paper,
rustling with ancient words,
I sit. And stare.
At the words I've written over and over again.
Filling books. And shelves of books. And great libraries or so I'm told.
I've been waking up to the same rough-hewn door,
the walls that creep in towards my bed a little every night, while I sleep.
I have no window. No hint of dangerously fresh air corrupts my innocence.

I slap the walls to hear the sounds rollick for a few around the room,
and to feel the dull pain playing in my fingers and on my palms.
To shake and shudder my being.
Cold air is now blowing from the tunnels beyond. The moving shadows tweak my curiosity for a second.
I take a deep breath, smile, pick up my quill,
And write that word, again, again, and again,
My penance to a blind God.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

For President Palin

Focus of the ear on egrets and 'negritude',
I am the last Alaskan.

Folding chair under my arm, salty deodorizer, Ford and ham; I am Alaskan.

I am mayor
I am mother
I am the book burner

I will die here
Inside your raw fish
With my fist-full of God socks