The Quick – a haiku
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
My flesh knew a laugh
once. (1) Shake. (2) Serve… for old time’s sake.
It’s a piece of junk.
Guiness
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
My gums flare into a fleshy axiom
You mount as a crown upon the queenly head of beauty virginal.
We told her, to roll her eyes like thunder so far up as to appear haughty
And she drooled with consent but did not flinch the flinch of freedom;
She was always a payne in the glass anyway.
Believe you me, that year winter left quick as a teenage father
Returned with several more pregnancies that the seasons
Reared into: peonies, no look backs, and something a kin to nostalgia
But which didn’t require as many professional mourners.
I fell in Lolita with the first two,
They were so ungroomed and took to the nakedness of wisdom as easily as expected.
I told them nothing. I gave them suck. They liked the lie of silence.
The latter I adored with all my dwindling optimism.
It loved the secret of my ankles and for that I told it:
“I know I can narrow my gaze, growl my desire, lick my fangs like any trained predator,
But when you hold me I want you to feel innocent, my blood.”
That was as close as I could come to “I pray to God I don’t turn you.”
But I did and when it died
It pumped its final breath out of an opium pipe.
I mixed it with magnesia and to old age be true
I have lived a hundred lifetimes in those last words.
The river of analyses, I’ve played in. Pon de river. Pon de bank.
My head beat like laundry against the rocks and I thought
Of ironing boards and getting everything straight
But I fell inside the wrinkle of another dream’s forehead.
In the trench war – memory versus records- I met Athena
And I’m telling you she couldn’t weave hair (or victories) worth a damn.
She was no virgin, she slept with my rage and I swore not to tell my religion.
When crossing my fingers
I am fickle as a mojito with a twist,
And in the peaceful decadency of Old MacDonald’s rolling pasture
Surrounded by lilac blooms, fastidious bumble bees
And the dainty cough of summer
We lived for the damnation of doing so.
Here’s to choice!
Here’s to the bacchantes!
To the laugh!
To what’s all the rage in the black-eyed skull of night!
To the corpse, she river-dances!
And life’s yawning zipper!
Childhood- a haiku
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
Child is mama.
Knee surgery – woman. Aged
happiness
blind, blind, blind.
One Night
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
The night fought with itself
like a thing that fights
in the night.
It could not see who it fought in the dark.
All it could see was it was dark,
Could see the skin of the dark.
The night fought the moon with a night stick
in the dark
One night, two moons ago.
Two moons ago, one night
the moon fought the dark.
It was a pale moon.
The moon looked like a moon
full of rocks.
The moon loved the night
It threw itself at the night.
The moon got its rocks off.
The moon hated the night.
Threw rocks at the night.
It was a Palestinian Moon.
A big pale Palestinian moon.
The night was not.
The night was black.
The night was a nigger.
A nigger named Night.
A muslim named Moon.
So basically there were two men in the night
under the moon fighting love…
But men love fighting, so were they really men?
Fine.
Two women in the night
Under the moon fighting love.
Women love to fight.
Especially over lovers
Especially about love.
Two women in the night under the moon fighting about love.
It was a love tap
It was a love punch.
It was a punch, love.
Run in the morning.
No, I stick to the Night.
It was a love slap.
His hand felt like a night stick.
He hits what he loves.
So long as he doesn’t leave what he loves.
Men don’t love love.
Men fight things they don’t love.
So it was two men in the night fighting love
And men love a good fight
and never leave a good fight.
Two women hating the fight.
But loving the men.
And women never leave a good man.
So there was hate and love one night under the moon
Two moons ago.
