this poem has been through many phases, and still i don’t think it’s ready, yet. your edits and suggestions are welcome. the ending is best when read out loud. xo, ava
Through a looking glass I seethe swaying tails of grandfather clocks,dust on the spines of old books, goldon the hands of lovers in […]
“Five Daisies” appears in Spoon River
http://www.litline.org/Spoon/Issues/spoon282.html
“Sketch for a Love Poem” appears in the current issue of Rainbow Curve
http://www.rainbowcurve.net/TOC.html
Begin here with a sari made of fire.
Begin with a boy made of thread the color of blood.
Begin wtih a girlmade of sitar radioon a Sunday.
Begin with small planeshovering low over rice fields.
Begin with a turquoise quillfilled with the ink of sadness.
Begin with the poemthat was never givenas a wedding gift.
Rubies fall in the mossyhair […]
from the siddhartha series
Can you see with eyeswho do not housethe ghost?The runesof the fortune tellerare the closest tothe truth.The bodyis bornby apparition.When you dieif you have no Godbefore whomyou kneelyou might be afraidof the fierce deitieswho visit youin the willowroom of death.Take this as warning:choose a mentor in your lifewho you can keepin the […]
from the siddartha series
I went to a masterwho lived on onlyalmonds and riceand had taken a vowof silence.He put his handon the crownof my headand tucked meto the earth.He poured ricein a circlearound me.I was not allowedto movefor seven days.In my mindI went throughthe sixty four artsof love.I was not a deer.I was a horse.I […]
after “Orchards in July” Zbigniew Mahej
This was pulled from beneath:the young girl’s slim anklesand her snakeskin shoes.Patient, unceasing,she is overcome in white granite,folding in layersfrom a hungry artist’s anvil.See here, how when she disappears,her family comes out from their woodenhuts to abandon themselves in the revery of loss.They go themselves into the blackestterrain to find […]
There was every kind of color. The ruby color of apples in the fall. The orange slippers of the sun. Green color of parrot’s wings. Blue the color of morning. Yellow like grandmother’s summer roses. You could dip your hands into such color. You could imagine a hundred […]
from the siddhartha series
I was never this thin.To passtimeI countcanoesonthe river,water buffalodippingtheir headsin the streams,theslowbeatofcraneswingsastheypassoverhead-Howlongmust Iwaitfor my masterto return?How many leavescan the pipaldrop?How manytimescanthe monksunraveltheyellowyarnofLotusSutrabeforethemagicisfinished?Thinking like thishas mademethin.The prayer wheelturnsevokingstrangememory:forty daysunderthe shadeof a banyan tree,the fleshof this bodyrots,theelementsstrikebonesto ash-Did you wonderif I founda comforting signin the darknessas my lungsbeganto compress,as my liverand kidneysfail,as the signsof […]
Are we sugar in a glass flute-the weightless marrow of Moet,ice figurines carved in a snowy field,Chopin’s Nocturnesbubbling from a phonographimagined to be playing in a scene from a postcardtaped to the bathroom wall?
Is it always the same red rosepinned to the black lapel,always the same dusty roadsidewe stand on, the prickof your hands cinching […]