Jokes aside by JAC (click here)

Jokes aside,
Between us
Silence

Sunk inside,
Between us
War

For friendship's sake,
This isolation

But truth be told
Between us
More.

The Great Figure by William Carlos Williams

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

2 poems by Edgar De La Piedra

|| UNTITLED ||

En el rincón que me ves
llorando-- alli mi vida se esconde.

Quando ya no esté
mi rincón se convertira,
poco a poco,
en Tú rincón
de lagrimas.

:: English Translation ::

The corner in which I stand,
as you watch me crying-- my life
is hidden there.

When I am gone, my corner will become,
bit by bit, your corner
of tears

|| UNTITLED ||

Si me acompañas
Seras mi Tierra
Si me dejas
Sere tu Luna

:: English Translation ::

As my companion
You are my Earth
If we’re apart
I'll be your Moon

Written by Edgar De La Piedra 6-18-04
Translated by me

sugarcoated

It took a moment to go down,
with an awful burning.

"That means it's working," he thought. "Killing
off the bad. . ."

The pain was the only sacrifice,
but not really,
not in this case.

It's only the initial taste
he would later complain about
saying, "The bitter truth
is better taken
with a bit of sugar."

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.

One year in every ten

I manage it--



A sort of walking miracle, my skin

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,

My right foot



A paperweight,

My face featureless, fine

Jew linen.



Peel off the napkin

O my enemy.

Do I terrify?--



The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.



Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me



And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.



This is Number Three.

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.



What a million filaments.

The peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see



Them unwrap me hand and foot--

The big strip tease.

Gentlemen, ladies



These are my hands

My knees.

I may be skin and bone,



Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.

The first time it happened I was ten.

It was an accident.



The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.

I rocked shut



As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.



Dying

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.



I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I've a call.



It's easy enough to do it in a cell.

It's easy enough to do it and stay put.

It's the theatrical



Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute

Amused shout:



'A miracle!'

That knocks me out.

There is a charge



For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge

For the hearing of my heart--

It really goes.



And there is a charge, a very large charge

For a word or a touch

Or a bit of blood



Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

So, so, Herr Doktor.

So, Herr Enemy.



I am your opus,

I am your valuable,

The pure gold baby



That melts to a shriek.

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.



Ash, ash--

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--



A cake of soap,

A wedding ring,

A gold filling.



Herr god, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.



Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.


23-29 October 1962

Because the hole, by Richard Fox

-


Because the hole

left by the stone
in my halved avocado was smooth

& undamaged & perfectly round
I could ignore fashion

& step out on my own. I would ape
neither image nor text as I had before:

would be the very best of friends
my own best man:

no dog
no boy
no love
no moon