Wedding of My Dreams

If I could have the wedding of my dreams,
I would wear, as my veil,
A piece of sky,
And hold in my hand,
Orange blossoms.
Stand on the shoulders
Of a poppy field,
And stare into your eyes.

Above our heads, would fly
A string of colorful kites
A choir of birds, and stars.
Planets would peer over
Bricks of fog and atmosphere.
And my body,
Perfumed with lavender,
Would erupt in joy.

I would carry in my suit pocket,
One half of the moon,
And in my lapel,
A bulb of Spring.
In my waistcoat,
A grain of sand,
And in my shirt,
A silver dream.
 
And after we exchange words of vows,
Birds will chirp in wooden nests,
Tides will froth on empty shores.
Forests will bend. 
Olives, on trees, will turn to oil. 
Winds will pirouette on the pale horizon
In water tutus and satin shoes.
And the sun will blaze in gold.

Sounds of trumpets will vibrate
Through airless bones of polished brass.
Orchids, wearing silk frocks,
Will unfurl their pink petals.
Oceans will whisper celebratory greetings,
Mazel tov, Mazel tov!
And clouds, with feather headdresses,
will burst into rain,
wash away the color of dusk,
and awaken from Winter’s sleep.

Sun salutation

I stared at the sun yesterday -
Fixated in the direction of a burning circle,
light curling out like tempura flakes.
My pupils dilated,
to allow more than one million waves of ultra-violets 
squeeze into my lenses.

Tears oozed out.

Maps of stars and moth-eaten clouds 
dissolved against my eyelids.

My corneas sizzled 
from third degree burns.

I thought of you, Bella,
and Grandfather's roof;
And the mornings we would gather by the old milkman
eat mint leaves from the garden,
and say prayers to the Sun.
You would say,
Grant him, O Sun God,
The strength of tolerance,
the light of life, and happiness.

Twenty years have passed.
Yet,
I continue to wait
for answers to those prayers.

On the train

I.

 

Facing South, on a North-bound train,

From Trenton Center to New York City,

I notice, from my carriage window,

The world slipping away.

 

Power lines, overhead,

Crisscrossing, zigzagging,

Spindling, quivering,

Twirling effortlessly in black shawls –

On which pigeons

Are lost in love,

And rivers

Are saying prayers.

 

Trees, at a distance, dead

From Winter’s rebuke,

Are merely sketches of cracked branches

On which once

Autumn was asleep

And leaves

Choked on laughter.

 

Grasses, by the mouths of lakes,

Are silent, under clouds

The color of aluminum nuggets –

Packing bags, saying goodbye,

Journeying into the deepest mantle,

To perish and to die.

 

The sun, to my right,

Is a satin haze,

Clipped to the sky

That shares its postal address

With the perimeter of our galaxy.

 

Cars, on the highway,

Zipping, screeching,

Moaning, breaking,

Trundling on wheels

Older than Pearl Harbor,

Some red with blush,

Some white as fear,

Some,

The color of sunrise.

 

You, to my left,

Reading Sappho’s Ode,

Were once a friend,

Who loved

The names of my fingers,

The wrinkles on my tongue,

The wheezes of my breaths,

Till your mother died,

And you,

Addicted to heroin,

Raped my only sister.

Macabre

I.

While you were brewing my café au lait,
At Gregory's, last Saturday evening,
I noticed the veins on your bare forearms -
Thick, like water snakes, yet slender,
like lotus stems,  
Bluer than a morning sky -
Slithering and branching under your skin,
the color of caladium leaves.

Perhaps you stare at them every night,
or trace out their shapes when you bathe,
after a long day at work -
Aromas of coffee beans curling over your eyes,
the sounds of running water filling your house,
sloshing over your belly,
purling down your legs.
Maybe you notice them rise
at the end of irregular heartbeats,
blood gushing out of your fluttering valves,
and speak in foreign accents unknown to you;
tales from Bohemia and Czechoslovakia.

On your veins, you carry
the weight of the world,
and fragments of your mother's blood. 
So strong and masculine,
I turn manic with greed,
dismay, and anger -
and bury into my eyes
bulbs of sunlight, and thorns,
the shape of thunder,
so I may blind myself.

Liberate a libel.

In another world,
I would treat you with a kiss.
But today my tongue is a scepter of flames,
Restless, homeless, and black.

Thought Experiment

In cosmology, we believe
In the existence of a uni-verse –
An all-encompassing ecosystem sustaining life,  
Black holes, planetary motions,
angry bursts of meteors,
Interstellar clouds, hydrogen, and helium.

But what if, beyond our sight,
Exists a panoply of poly-verse?
Where micro- universes mesh together at invisible horizons,
Communicate in verse,
Sing songs, work on compositions together,
Draw circles with protractors
Create rhythms, syncopate? 
 

What if, in the poly-verse,

There are gardens growing flowers,
Butterflies making love,
Rivers gurgling, children playing catch.
What if, instead of shade,
There are trees producing light,
Birds eating stars,
And junipers climbing walls?
What if, instead of curved,
The rainbows are squared,
The atmosphere is teal,
And Wordsworth is awake?
 

Such a poly­-verse would be a creation of magic,

With the privilege of speech,
A collection of tunnels and tubing with which
Practices of tolerance
Can populate our speckle of the uni-verse –
Earth, smaller than a grain of rice,
on which man perpetuates hate,
Separates by sex,
And stands on the brink of derisive quakes.

Perhaps the magnitude of a poly-versal macrocosm,

Its redefined perimeters of infinity’s dimensions,
The intangible geography of vast expanses,
Can provide perspective
And teach us humility,
Ligate our differences, glue together our frays,
And expand limitations bottlenecking our lives.  

So I invite you today to this experiment of thought,

The existence of a poly­-verse
Beyond the hills of Mars,
Over the carnival of moons,
And a marathon of stars,
Where harmonies are mute,
Comets taste sweet,
And clouds shaped like flutes
Walk away in silence.

On Allen Ginsberg's Poetry

It may be the case that my generation
believes

in tumultuous celebration of Ginsberg’s poetry;

Cuing unflinchingly

a curtain-call to action,

an eruptive demise of blind tradition,

and audible roars of self-activism.

Perhaps even the generations

sleeping in graves

under cherry trees and magnolia leaves,

believe the same;

As they rinse through revelations

and pathological formularies

of his anti-militarism, counterculture, and

anti-bifurcation of sexual dichotomies –

Granting him

an unconventional status -

not unlike Hollywood beauties -

That has impregnated cults,

sprouted schools of thought,

and catalyzed mechanics

of the naked body.

I do not,

however,
feel my generation

nor the ones

under this universe.

I was reading the poem

New York to San Fran

featured in the February edition of Poetry magazine

during my train ride to Philadelphia

past Monday evening,

and what I felt

was neither arousal nor incitement.

 

On the contrary,

I was swiveling in confusion,

feeling amply homosexual, and caught

in states of hypnosis and hysteria –

A suspended mind, undulating

between tunnels of absolute vacuum

and an explosive crash of all the five senses.

I felt afloat, as if pinned to an air molecule,

between a marble floor and a marmalade sky,

with clouds breaking into sweat and thunder,

windows crashing into symphonic screams,

wooden tables bleeding at their ankles,

winds gushing in kicks and chortles.

I felt paralyzed

by the power of imagery.

I felt humbled by the sounds of Om.

I experienced simultaneously,

emptiness and totality,

suffused adequately with noxious verbiage -

Moans of hydrangeas,

orgasms of pansies,

bursts of poppies and purple periwinkles.

I felt ignited by allusions

to Strauss and Brahms and Beethoven,

and deaths at Wars across gouging oceans.

I felt hypnotized  –

Frozen and speechless, the way I was

by Magritte’s masterpiece from 1938,

Time Transfixed.

Upon reaching 30th Street Station,

I folded my magazine,

rode up the rows of gray escalators,

tapped on a pillar and sang a song.

Feeling volatile -

Like a pinafore of butterflies

like a crinoline of reveries

like an orchestra of sounds in gyrating orbits.

 

Ginsberg did to me

What Summer does to the water lilies–

Stupefy, mesmerize, and hallucinate.

Not roused to action, not incited to violate,

but pushed to the tip of wonder and awe,

Lidocaine-d, anesthetized, and ultimately

set free.

 

My DNA test

If you perform a DNA test
to understand better
my genealogy
you will find as my mother
poetry
and my father
acryclic.

For, I am constructed
of origami and rhyme;
and each cell in my body
is an unknown color,
speaking
in a stranger's voice -
Stitching together an aging fetus;
a mosaic
of multiple identities.

Populating my chromosomes
are brushstrokes and homonyms,
phonetics and similes,
and a galaxy of metaphors;
Giving me a definition
without gender or a race -
An olive skin,
eyes
the color of November leaves
desires diffuse as the morning mist
and a future
buried in art.

On Broadway and Other Details

I.

When you sang on stage,
Cynthia White,
I stared at your neck;
Noticing
your vocal cords rise and fall
like tides
on a full moon night.

Your voice itself
so moist and soft,
they nourished my ears
and soothed my mind.
And washed my body
in ripples of sound,
dissolving out of sight.

II.

At the Accounting workshop,
last Monday night,
you wore a necklace
with shiny beads
the color of boiling milk -
Round and smooth like marbles
onto which the ceiling lights
reflected.

I wanted
so desperately
to grab it from your neck
and put it around my own,
paint my eye lids
dark burgundy,
and my lips,
a grassy green,
wear a dress
of Chantilly lace
and dance a mazurka
to the anthem of winds
bellowing outside our window.

Instead,
I punched numbers
into a mechanical calculator
and took interview notes
in my yellow Moleskine,
bowing to the needs
of professional demands -
To make businesses thrive
across numerous generations
and build
a perfect world.

III.

In the cafeteria
on Washington Street,
you adjusted your glasses,
cleared your throat,
craned your neck
over a cup of Joe,
and asked in a whisper -
Are you in love with me?

I said,
No,
staring at a bunch of pink anemones
seated in a vase
at the center of our table.

You said,
Really?
Oh.
Okay.
I thought you were.

Shame flooded your cheeks,
and knelt over your eyes.
And we lowered our heads
rattled our spoons,
watched the streams
of morning sunlight
peering through tops
of honeylocust branches -
while the speakers overhead
played on repeat
Donna Summer's
Love you Baby.

Observations

I.

Your eyes, John Kuzma,
look like aged hazelnuts
with two dots of hollow -
Light and thin and crisp,
perfectly round, and mildly opaque.

It makes me want to hold your face
and smell your eyes;
feel the texture
of your utensils of sight -
And peer into your thoughts,
with the knowledge of fear,
Burri's trauma of painting,
and the dimensions of our universe
in riot with the moon.

II.

You styled your hair
with pomade and grooming spray.
Raised and spread out
the tuft
bouncing over your forehead -
In the shape of a Japanese fan at summertime,
or the plumage of a dancing peacock
in the middle of Monsoon.

Your face defies the lyric
of a cognizant businessman,
devoutly successful,
yet unhappy.

A herringbone print
see-saws over your coat,
but your jaws still hold 
fingerprints
of the last words you spoke
before the divorce -
Marge, I fucking hate you.
Give me the kids and leave.

III.

Yesterday,
on the 7 train to Bliss Street,
you were reading a book of poems
by Gregory Pardlo.
But in between the pages
was a pamphlet
which read in bold purple print,
MALE INFERTILITY? YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Was that for you?
I imagine your name is Blake,
or Theodore.
Do you intend to father children
yet cannot?
Do you imagine a daughter, Isadora,
and a son -Daniel,
with matching cribs in nurseries
hypnotizing them with sounds
of rhyme and laughter?
Is it awkward at family gatherings,
when they wonder about her ability to mother,
to be fertile or bear children?

How mysterious life is sometimes,
I wonder.

IV.

At the Waldorf Astoria,
We met by the registration desk.
You introduced yourself
as Afya Bora -
Your skin was as black
as an evening shadow,
and your eyes were whiter
than ocean pearls.
A lariat of diamonds
spun around your neck,
as tender as a Christmas hellebore.

What brings you here today?
You said,
I raise money
for young men and women
in my home country of Kenya -
Who get killed for being
homosexuals.
Here, you'll are so lucky;
Parents accept everything so easily.

I smiled
and remained silent.
And watched from a distance
an assortment of guests
toasting to marriage equality.

In February

I.

During our conversation
at the supermarket,
you said,
My body has betrayed me again, Tony -
A third time;
upon cancer
lining your menopausal ovaries.

I said,
But what if, Henriette,
this time around,
you
betrayed your body instead?

II.

Some day, Brandy Kay,
We will be on the road,
to Tennessee, Niagara
and the Adirondacks.

Under a clear blue sky,
cloudless and fragrant,
valleys and creeks shimmying
in the inconstancy of mirage,
we will hold hands
and talk of love,
adventure,
and endless possibilities.

III.

We made love
as teenagers
in the middle
of a Calendula farm -
by the bayou
in Galveston,
with Spring as our witness,
and disobedient winds.
Our breaths forming clouds,
our veins turning pink.

Since then,
we have grown 
a million miles apart. 

IV.

On nights when it rains,
and thunderbolts bisect
the pepper farms and lakes,
I want to tell you, Richmond,
a secret -
In the dark
so I may hide my tears,
my imperfections,
and the gullibility
that my face betrays.

I despise 
the color of my skin -
So much, that sometimes
when I look into
the mirror
standing in my living room,
I look through my reflection.
Trying to un-see
what faces me
permanently.  

Feeling Free

If I could,
Jeremiah,
I would hang from your name
carved in aluminum blocks.
Arms in O's
Legs like L's,
in vertical swings
like tuning bells.

Inverted lips,
like blanched peonies,
and a hat on my head
of mashed newspapers -
That once held articles
of Kennedy's assassin,
Obama's Nobel prize,
and the death
of David Kirby.

 

On Philanthropy

I.

Show us photographs
of the unfortunate children
at the grandiose ballroom;
Sometimes cancerous,
sometimes orphaned -
eyes hollow with AIDS,
ribs caged with hunger,
faces charred with indigence.

And it rouses among us,
pity - a derivative of Sorrow;
Which is
the universal mother of emotions,
as primal as a cosmic waltz - 
Pedigreed along the tree of life.

At the banquet today,
fill up our flutes.

Let us eat steak
and a basket of bread.
Make a toast
and take a vow
to better this world,
walk for causes,
and stamp names on circulated bulletins.

This is how we do
Philanthropy -
A ceremony of gift giving.

God bless America.
God bless the Queen.