Respect

Respect
is a loaded term
an important word

Respect the food
Respect the earth
Respect other people
Respect the animals
Respect
respect
respect

Shouts, curses
rent
rip
load

the air

My stomach curdles
innards turn to ice
turn to mush

I tremble. I cry

rent
rip
load

the air

with sobs
and shudders

For that wasn't
a respectful thing

to do
to say

I'm sorry I feel this way.

Aunt Flo

Filled to overflowing
hurting
hurting
turgid
swollen

(like the banks of the River Nile)

one prick
one push
a nudge
a pop

and out it flows

flowing
streaming
gushing
seeping

out out out

water
milk
blood
mucus

urine
sweat
shit


out

out

out



until there isn't

anymore

Strip

Strip away the
layers the
scales
the masks

Store them
Junk them
Burn them

Expose the vulnerability
(Take the risk)

There is nothing too
dark
too
hideous
too shameful

to hide.

To My Former Lovers

You were all perfect in your own right

You made me feel warm and protected

But it isn't the same.

How do pastels
compare
to vibrance?

Would you take calm comfort to
unstable rollercoaster--

wild
hot
heart-thumping
pulse-racing
weak-kneed

passion
passion
passion


It doesn't make sense.

It never was

supposed

to.


And apologies

never

suffice.

Trophy Life

The Queen of Hearts
(such a lucky damsel)

but underneath the veneer
is a carcass

beneath the gloss
is decay

Tisn't always a perfect life
for a trophy wife

But can I have it
anyway?

Baptism

Douse me

Submerge me

Flood me

(but
not
quite)

Remove me from my familiar my

haven

Welcome me to the strange

Hear me scream
and

rejoice

Settling

Love does not
pay
for the utilities
pay
for the frills

Life
without
love

is possible
is workable
but is a day-to-day
subsistence

beyond existence
above breathing

Life
without
love

is settling
for
prestige money power
without
sheen luster brilliance

Life
without
love

will keep the heart warm
but
won't send it
smashing out
into

a million pieces.*








*(last stanza)adapted from Jeanette Winterson's Passion

The First

You were my first
love
my first
kiss
my first
everything

does that even
matter?

in a world of
closets
there is no
light.

perhaps we
are
too ensconsced
in the darkness
to unfold
in the
light

Moulin Rouge: A Venture into Relativity?

One night, my friend and I heard Ewan McGregor’s and Nicole Kidman’s duet of “Come What May.” It is an old song, and I grew up listening to it. It turns out it is much older than I realized. For my friend says she grew up listening to it. It turns out that the song “Come What May” is not even originally of Baz Luhrmann’s make . Most people who know old songs recognize “montages” from other songs—such as The Police’s “Roxanne ,” Patti LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade,” Eden Ahbez’s “Nature Boy, ” Elton John’s “Your Song,” Gloria Estefan’s “Rhythm of the Night,” “Elephant Love Medley” which borrows a lot of familiar spots from "All You Need Is Love" and "Heroes" straight on to "I Will Always Love You ," Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” coupled with Madonna’s “Material Girl,” even Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” (when Satine tries to hide Christian from the Duke), Patti Page’s Come What May, and so on. Thus, as with the songs, the concept of Moulin Rouge—that is, a musical-type film—is not original. We can hark back to Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I, Sunset Boulevard, and other musical greats on the silver screen.

But what is the point of this entire exercise, you ask. My point is that trends are cycled, more often than not. We see this in the trends of today being from my generation’s parents—aviator shades, culottes/skorts, love beads, platforms, bell bottoms—I think you get the idea. Moulin Rouge’s idea—a self-proclamation of a “rebirth” in musicals in the cinema—is that: a rebirth and NOT an original idea. My question now is, what IS original now? Are there any new, groundbreaking trends/ideas? I’m not talking about science or technology, but even that can sometimes be already questioned: some advancements are echoes of what Chinese/Incan/Indian/Middle Eastern (? Sorry, no concrete evidence for this) scholars and astrologists pre-divined, or had already made rough prototypes of in a bygone era. So yes, my question remains: what IS the innovation, or what ARE the innovations that our world, our era has given?

Can we perhaps say that the only original input we have offered are our ”personal touches,” the subjectivity to the objectivity?

Sources:
http://www.epinions.com/content_26334236292
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N27/Moulin_Rouge.27a.html
http://www.music-critic.com/sdtrks/moulinrouge.htm
http://www.epinions.com/content_26334236292
http://www.answers.com/topic/come-what-may?hl=come&hl=what&hl=may&hl=song
http://custance.org/old/noah/ch3t.html

Ask For More

Hold me,
thrill me,
kiss me.

I would fight you
ordinarily.

But take advantage
of the weakness
in me.

Hold me,
thrill me,
kiss me,

and I will cling
to you
and ask for more.

Pride Before The Fall

Composure is key.

Breakdown is anathema.

Back straight, chin up.

Never show pain.
Never show the fire (beneath the ice)
the darkness (under the light)

The mask must remain
to hide the raw
pulsating flesh
beneath.

A Perfect End

She wants to die--

not alone
in a nursing home;

but to die

violently,
dramatically--
by
cancer,
tumor,
knife-stab,
gunshot.

It would be

a
perfect
end

to

a
nondescript
life.

Reason for None

Must there
truly
be

pain
for
pleasure?

melancholy
for
bliss?

Creatures of
Darkness

are

as much

Creatures of
Light.

My Old-New Shirt

The
green
shirt
has been
lying,
curled up neatly
inside the closet

for almost a year.

I'll wear it,
I say,
when I lose
weight,
when there are no
bulges,
no
creases,
to mar
to mark.

A year has come and gone.

The
green
shirt
is out--

on myself,
with bulges
and mars,
creases
and marks,

but not as much.

Rice Steamcooker

I watched
the rice bubble
up and up
rising to the surface
only to sink back,
regress,
then surge back,
feebly
pop.

Nothing.