Thursday, May 31, 2012
jackal's advice for unravelling [hari alluri]
jackal's advice on unravelling
if you’re the type of son
who still hasn’t admitted to the time
you erased the wordperfect document
in which your father was trying to distil
the lessons of six religions into two dozen catch phrases,
you might already know enough about disdaining
failure. perhaps you could stop yelling on every court, your anger tempered
inward, like the fear your lover’s softness.
and if you’ve ever mistaken a clip of a vampire
octopus for a silken nude falling gently
upward, you should probably apologize now
for all the times you pictured your own body naked,
beyond touch, shaped like that of the norse
god of thunder instead of mine. get down on your knees,
boy. remember, your martial art is named after the goddess
kali. write this one like balm: poetry is a form of violence.
and if you imagine funeral pyres at the crossroads indicate
a sign of hope couched in the inevitable lie
of your nanamma’s sati, so what if your lolo at 7 years was hustling
miracles at a few centavos apiece and your broken heart
reminds you of aerial roots that never got to hold
the earth, bent and whole? this has always been your drawing of home:
the multiple trunks of a banyan tree on fire, knotted rings
burning slow from the outside in.
--
who still hasn’t admitted to the time
you erased the wordperfect document
in which your father was trying to distil
the lessons of six religions into two dozen catch phrases,
you might already know enough about disdaining
failure. perhaps you could stop yelling on every court, your anger tempered
inward, like the fear your lover’s softness.
and if you’ve ever mistaken a clip of a vampire
octopus for a silken nude falling gently
upward, you should probably apologize now
for all the times you pictured your own body naked,
beyond touch, shaped like that of the norse
god of thunder instead of mine. get down on your knees,
boy. remember, your martial art is named after the goddess
kali. write this one like balm: poetry is a form of violence.
and if you imagine funeral pyres at the crossroads indicate
a sign of hope couched in the inevitable lie
of your nanamma’s sati, so what if your lolo at 7 years was hustling
miracles at a few centavos apiece and your broken heart
reminds you of aerial roots that never got to hold
the earth, bent and whole? this has always been your drawing of home:
the multiple trunks of a banyan tree on fire, knotted rings
burning slow from the outside in.
--
made with the words and inspirational collaboration with dionne brand, ching-in chen, evangeline ganaden, anna griffith, kimiko hahn, vanessa huang, mel morrow, paul ocampo, amir rabiyah, bushra rehman, sade, leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha and melissa ray sipin. after li-young lee. part of the collaborative manifesto remix project, convened by ching-in chen and hosted at the sunslick starfish blog: http://chinginchen.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/8-15-11-locating-our-unexpected-words-collaborative-generating-8/#comments
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
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