The Showcase

Weathertown


I will not leave for Weathertown,
will not Desire –- its spires,
for though I like the weatherman,
I've yet to catch –- his Lies.

The TV and the radio,
they never ride my wave –-
and when I search the web for rain,
I always fail to save.

And people! though I took no vows,
I comb the hermit's fill:
my wilderness, a shuttered home,
my hieromonk, a pill.

For past the weatherman's vane charms
you chickens are a chore –-
aside from belts of blood and breast,
this business is a bore.

Or rather, how I dread romance –-
to Love is like a storm!
And cities, hated opposite,
great droughts –- past all alarm.

No, I'll not leave for Weathertown,
and treat the Self applied,
for Truth is not a gale without:
I'd rather Live –- a child.
 
Giulietta degli Spiriti


1
Leaving my philandering husband Giorgio, I quickly set out
to make a mistress of myself to Sangria---
that is to say, as I boarded Jose's rickety boat
to Spain, I got myself
roaring drunk.

2
Who rides a boat to Spain?
Me and Gabriella took the train --

3
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really still Giulietta
as I sit up smoking after love.

4
Me? I know I'm no longer Giorgio –- now, you call me Giorgina.
One night, after love,
I dreamed my sex was being pulled off of me bloodlessly,
like a stub of tallow stuck awkwardly between the legs.
That was the only change. Yet still, you and all others
acted as if I were finally complete,
as if I were your sister, fulfilling your dream
of a thirst quenched.

5
The first thing we did once we reached Barcelona
was visit that famous unfinished cathedral,
Sagrada Familia. The name alone
made me shed a tear,
although I remember
it was not one for sadness.

6
That business trip I took –- I actually flew Gabriella
all the way to Hong Kong for a painting,
"Interior d'un Cafi". I told her seeing Paris
captured through the eyes of a complete stranger,
a revolutionary
who fought against Spain's stranglehold
over his country,
was better than actually going there.

7
I told Jose I did not want to live by the sea again.
But he refused, insisting the salt
would help clear my lungs. That was my problem,
he said, becoming breathless
over every little thing.

8
In fact, my plan was
to go to Tunisia –- she complained
with your voice, when she learned.
Why take the long way? she asked.
Why not go by boat?
I said I wanted to retrace the steps
of our ancestors the Romans, reenact the farce
of the Punic Wars, eventually
of Aeneas leaving Dido.

9
Leaving you, I thought the spirits
would stop haunting me. Didn't I conquer them,
if not in this world of phenomena
then in the world of my memories,
your films? But they returned
one night, after love.
Neptune again rose from the sea,
again brought with him his great barge
of decay---

10
Then Venus appears in her golden veil
and tight bikini –- then Bacchus the young god
with the girlish black hair and the over-shaven face
and the white breasted raiment that in your memories
still didn't distract from his sex –- then Pluto
or maybe Saturn burning your favorite doll –-
then Jupiter your grandfather the lord of the heavens
flying through the mists to his
mistress Parisienne –- then what again?
Now I don't remember. That story you told me,
explaining why you were so breathless
after your brief visit to the neighbor's,
I wasn't really listening.
 
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Ariel Herself


Swimming through seas pf books
and substanceless souls, I encountered
my fellow swimmer Leviathan,
core of my nature, half-woman
half-whale, head helmeted
with crown of woven hair –-
I readied my blade
and tore through her breast.

Reaching the shore, walking through woods,
finding a feast –- upon the table,
goblets of wine, platters of bread,
bowls of honey, spits of limb –-
a lion a bear
Behemoth appeared before me,
with claws, copper neck
overlong, face compressed
into a horror, hair
extended into horns –-
I readied my blade
and tore through her breast.

Climbing the tower
and resting curious in the astrologer's lab,
crown of my nature, Ziz the woman the swan,
swooped down to scratch me to kiss me
from the stars or perhaps from their reflection
upon the mirror the lens –-
I readied my blade
and tore through her breast.

Returning to the library and parlor, I remembered
my lover Babylon, mailed to me by an angel,
cloaked in white yet crowned with red,
surrounded by the masters –-
Caravaggio boys and Gentileschi girls,
Titian gods and El Greco saints,
Bosch and Brueghel, Watteau and Wright,
the burrs of Blake, the homilies of Goya,
Cole's landscapes, David-Friedrich's landscapes,
the symbols of Dore, of Moreau,
the Ophelias of Millais, of Waterhouse,
the anguish of Munch, the ardor of Schiele,
Vereschagin's vivid portraits of war, Vasnetsov's fantasies,
the bastards of Vrubel, the fables of Bilibin,
Kuindzhi's studies, Nesterov's contemplations,
the contemplative sensualities of Kramskoy,
the innocent seductions of Borovikovsky –-
still, I readied my blade
and tore through her breast,

then found myself awaking again,
naked wet alone,
uttered practiced prayers, thick saliva vapors
like Lady Godiva
on Spirit's back Truth riding, peeping Tom
now forgiven.
Oh God, Oh Mighty, Oh Immortal –- consume me.
 
The Reading


She drew six cards and formed the cross –-
I found it all arranged.
I sent them back and went the course,
but fate had me detained.

And there it was: the death of me
and all He left behind,
the woman by the waters still
determining the line,

the devil's curse returning lots,
the tower falling down,
the comet blazing through the sky,
and howling come around.

But horror struck me not because
of such a brilliant fall,
it was that I'd no agency
even in standing tall.

For since the Endor-Witch declared,
I acted without choice,
at first the hero so accursed
then afterwards her voice –-
 
Rubber


The pathologist poured wax plaster
over the peaceful face of the woman
who drowned smiling in the Seine,
afterwards saying, "Her beauty was breathtaking
and showed few signs of distress
at the time of passing – so bewitching
that I knew beauty as such
must be preserved."
If he'd lived now, he would have poured latex, instead.

Juan Luna, meanwhile, used oil
paint, splashing and pouring it onto the canvas
like light striking a piece of film
to create his masterpiece, the "Spoliarium",
apparently a thinly veiled protest
against Spanish oppression.
Some of us now would use a camera,
arranging the composition on a stage
with a dozen living models, but most others,
knowing to achieve his same expressive effect,
would prefer acrylic.

Here in the Philippines, his magnum opus
hangs in the main gallery
of the National Museum, where the gigantic scene
of gladiators cloaked in chiaroscuro
pulling away their dead for the next entertainment
would be the first to greet visitors' eyes.
I've only ever seen it in the pictures,
though this girl I like once told me
seeing it on a screen
was completely different
from observing it in person,
intimate, feeling one's breath
bounce back from the canvas.
I nodded, then showed her the next week
my coffee table book on the Tretyakov.

Sometimes I wonder why I've seen
all the sights of other countries
but not my own. And then I remember:
her father owns a rubber plantation
down south, in Davao. Just west,
in Cotabato, rice farmers
a few weeks ago went to rally
against a governor who refused to give them food
in the middle of a famine, not knowing
the reserves were already being sold
in the markets of Manila. Their bodies
still lie on the streets, I imagine,
their brothers too afraid to pull them away.
Nothing ever changes.
 
The 120 Days


1
getting hard to parse through people nowadays –-
quite a surprise, to see
how alike all girls' asses are.

not teeth, either – seems
they get them braces before boyfriends, as if,
to their stock, the subtleties count.

hair and eyes, perhaps? how hard their hair sticks,
how wet their eyes get –- for I've learned
it's not the air that really gets me,
it's the moans, the groans -– then the crescendo
of screams, sobs –-

2
know what, this time we'll make the rules simple.
regardless of how swayed you seem,
you will die –- for in these modern days,
who isn't a convert already?

oh come on –- don't cry, not yet, not yet. our sex
still lies hidden, unready beneath the sheets.
besides, if you were really worth saving,
you'd enjoy all this –- twice we libertines
have lived and died, each time
the fires of hell
succumbing to the succulent
smell of the roast.

3
you know, one of the whores -– excuse me,
Sunday school teachers –- tells us
God also loved the smell, when he was nothing
but a child –- turned it into his consolation,
after drowning us in one of his tantrums.
I suppose that's what we're trying to capture here,
the arc of the rainbow
formed by pools of drying spunk –-

one more subtlety to count. tell us,
Renata, what exactly did you do
when we married you to Sergio?

shut up. i didn't really ask you anything.
that was obvious. one more demerit.
Anubis would not enjoy this.

4
stop shivering. it's not as if
one hundred and twenty days
were not time enough to prepare.
and those nails we stuffed into your dog bowl
really turned your teeth to shit.

stop looking at that brand. Sergio deserved it,
as he was the one with the sword. you shall get
a far subtler knife –- instead of steel,
maybe a candle. and maybe
we'd stuff it up your ass,
once you're dead, let the putrefying flesh
absorb the wax.
 
Le Iugement


Apparently, the teacher who introduced me
to the pleasures of Caravaggio
and the crises of El Greco
died today –-

just fell a few steps
and hit her head, four years
after she last gave birth, three years
after she handled us, two years

after I'd set off for college –- about a year ago.
Usually, this sort of news
just pops up on the internet,
but this time I had the luxury

of being called. I had to make an effort
to sound like I was on the brink of crying,
as it was in the middle of class –- Analytical
Chemistry, I think, the one I failed that year.

I think that was also the year I started writing.
 
Iconostasis


Piety turned
my heart to stone.

Now let me cover this rock
in gold leaf, in the delicate
browns of flesh, in flashes
of red and rich azure:
let it not remain gray,
empty, almost modern,

ultimately the kinder home to moss
which knows only compromise.
2013-0324-sunday-orthodoxy.jpg
 
McKinley Road


On McKinley road, the devil
waits for me with eyes
and legs open, ready to devour
what should first be fried

on the asphalt. Your glossy
screen, your glassy green
(but artificial) eyes,
your burnt to beauty skin –-

somehow, the joy of finding you
alive summons lightning
that strikes the golden shower tree
from which I hang. How the blue

sounds like hounds. How the priest
dipped us in the Jordan to our deaths
knowing that gills should sprout
from our necks. How we rest.
 
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