Her hand, she flicks it gently,
and the fan expands.
Made of silk, lace, and embroidery
so imperiously it demands
with its gesturing towards me
then retreating demurely.
Ah, so alluring is she
I request a dance, "Shall we?"
My city of gold, called El Norte 530, has
beggars on every commercial corner
collecting change for their beer, and
small gold and purple plums falling ripe
in litter-filled fields.
Factory smells of olives and rotting peach,
women so beaten down by time and men
that the lines on their faces
are roadmaps with false directions.
A clean and sober living on every corner
of neighborhoods so badly known for drugs
the addict views his dealer across the street
from his so-called help and protection.
The cops are dirty and rascist,
CPS takes kids the way we take out the trash,
often and with little care.
My city of gold, called El Nort
Winged beast come
across the empty blue wasteland
of a cloudless sky.
We stand
sunken in grassy slope
surrounded
by our woodland brethren
whose roots crawl deep;
they are Mother's towering sentinels
weeping multi-colored leaves.
The autumnal sun, Father's glaring eye,
stares down upon us
eliciting droplets of sweat
between leather and skin.
Calloused hands beat furiously,
as furiously as our hearts,
pounding out deep, resonant beats.
Interrupted, then,
with a great sweep of wind
brought forth by the jewel-colored
expanses of wing.
Our battle cry erupts
ripped deep from our throat.
Although we are many
this day we are o
Bile brewed, bubbled, began to boil inside.
As foul as the glowing green puss of an
infected wound, or the vomit that leaps upto
throat--so noxious and odorous that it
seeped through organs to play havoc on the
bloodstream, turning it to muddy water.
Inflicting pressure inside, pressure so
dense as to start the countdown--ten, nine, eight
IMPLOSION. Contained only by force of
will or is it contained by stricture from
a violent, yet hypocritical all American society;
forced deep into your subconscious by constant
repetitive programming
or is it a personality flaw, this meekness,
this awareness that it is not socially
acceptabl
Wicked Rose, deny me not the sweet stench
emanating amidst ruinous skin.
Permit my touch, feast in the fevered whim.
Acolyte to the vices; heart banished, penned.
Shall I lift you above, set you aloft?
Create a pedestal to stand worship,
enameled in colors that are brilliant,
where you might view me from a prideful spot?
Pierce and embalm starved flesh; petals pressed
to reveal passionfruit juices disguised
as oil of roses. Bitter thorns do hide,
yes, but of sated senses I have dreamt.
Cold, soul-hungry wretch, why do you deny?
What must submit, be forfeit, called to loss?
Are you such that requires more than gold cost?
Perhaps
There was a young woman
from Tillabook Island
whiling away the days
by the bitter cold shore.
Every night she walked the
same rocky path down to
the abandoned south beach
with its trash-littered sand.
She sat on the same rock
on which she recieved her
first kiss from a sandy-
haired boy with saltwater lips.
She called out a hello
to every blue crab that
scuttled by, the same kind
she had caught as a child.
She stayed until the sun
came up and washed away
the gray skies with streaks of
pink, orange, and pale blue.
In the sherbert-colored
morning she could see the
high-rises to the east
and the west emptiness.
She consi
Her hand, she flicks it gently,
and the fan expands.
Made of silk, lace, and embroidery
so imperiously it demands
with its gesturing towards me
then retreating demurely.
Ah, so alluring is she
I request a dance, "Shall we?"
My city of gold, called El Norte 530, has
beggars on every commercial corner
collecting change for their beer, and
small gold and purple plums falling ripe
in litter-filled fields.
Factory smells of olives and rotting peach,
women so beaten down by time and men
that the lines on their faces
are roadmaps with false directions.
A clean and sober living on every corner
of neighborhoods so badly known for drugs
the addict views his dealer across the street
from his so-called help and protection.
The cops are dirty and rascist,
CPS takes kids the way we take out the trash,
often and with little care.
My city of gold, called El Nort
as long as;
whispers flow
freely-
hearts melting
into a puddle of
liquid nitrate
where an explosion
is imminent and things
are never quite what
they seem.
you can swim, across
channels-
and bleed in secret
hiding the pain behind
multi-colored sleeves
forgetful and rolled..
a shocked look and a hushed
murmur.
"move right along, miss smith."
forget what you saw here.
you wouldnt look past
the thick black liner
and the hints at
individuality
its liquid nitrate
one match, lit and thrown
creates an orgasmic system of turns
remember how i was? when i was young?
the same as i am now.
Didnt i express myself?
Werent my
The Lords And Ladies At Play by rudhira, literature
Literature
The Lords And Ladies At Play
butterfly fingers
tugging ever so gently upon leading
strings, and my heart-
began to ache, beneath the corset
laced tightly around and against
my ribcage,
pulsing with interest at every passerby
who cut there glances
just so;
along my apparent charms
and ogled, openly what i displayed
beneath layers and layers of..
fake propriety.
heated eyes lined with kohl
ashen sin against prim white-
and tonight, they sneak with slippered toes
into a rendezvous of uninhibitated dancing,
its a mirror like reflection,
exposing the tatters of society's reputation.
molded plastic creation is a parallel line
arthritic creek a simple sound, a reflecting symphony
of a word rolling along the tongue, rhyme pestering, as the tight bondage wraps 'round.
circulation, strangulation, the blood wells up easily..
flowers spill from underneath caressing the freshly cut..
lawn of flesh.
violets bruised, a pretty hued pain.
fascination begets a simple turn of the head,
eyes slanted downward with apparent interest to regard the sudden
rip
of
flesh
serenity was a fine row of stitches, just short of seam straight.
constant plucking for perpetual music, a symphony of stained
me
buried natural,
perhaps to
I shroud myself in the foothills,
let my stone blood-muscle beat
itself into dust. In a thousand years,
you may come to gather the iron ore
from my veins. Perhaps by then,
my heart-hibernation might have been
breached by the pine roots and my shale ribs
will lie exposed to bleaching by the sun.
I could see the breeze swaying,
teasing the silver pipes of a wind chime
while I sat, unmoving, in my
grandmother's favorite rocking chair
on the white-washed planks of our porch.
The liquid notes soothed me
as nothing in the city had.
They bathed me in celestial tranquility.
Then, as fickle as a woman,
they burned me with intensity as the wind shifted
made voracious by the breath of Poseidon.
I could smell the salt of the Atlantic,
taste the crabs scurrying along the sand,
feel the temperature drop in concordance
with the slow ascension of the moon.
I began to rock with the steady tide
and the beat was as familiar to me
as