Where I found Our Mother
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry
He found Eve by a motel,
smoking her first cigarette,
munching on an apple,
standing in high boots,
And filth.
She got in a car with him.
She was one woman, who
often replaced the apple with a dick,
and took pleasure in it like sin.
Asked him, “is your cum toxic?
I hear your pregnant women get nauseous often.”
She got close enough to catch his scent.
Noticed, men’s cologne smells like sex,
And wondered if its made that way
because men hesitate to spend on anything else.
He pushed his way up her shaved pussy,
And it burnt.
Called her Mamma,
as he urgently dug his way back into a womb.
His sweated face almost resembled a babe in tantrum-mode,
while he realized he is still an infant,
but nothing but a fringe fits anymore.
He came inside her,
like she was a house.
Never rung the door bell, claiming he did not know where it was.
But his wife had told him a thousand times
That it was right at her clitoris.
She had collapsed in a puddle of her puke in a public bathroom a few days afterwards.
The pregnancy test showed a plus sign.
She figured she was positive…
Happily pregnant with his twins,
Thought of naming one
“Garbage”,
in honor of a white trash heritage.
And the other
“Aids”,
who would get the best of both worlds –
A name that meant relief,
but when capitalized implied death. She thought it was deep,
so he’s the one she decided to keep.
Rest assured, death does brings relief to some.
She finally decided to dispose of the life the man had disposed inside of her.
Garbage cried for his Momma as the trashcan cradled him.
He cried loud, but with no sign of arms,
he grew quiet
and died.
She walked into the dark.
I had found her,
hitchhiking her way back to the motel,
munching on an apple,
headed back to where it had all begun.
One night in one city
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry
That evening the sun ducked its head between the wet and the bent thighs of hills.
With the dimmed down lights…
the city knew what it had to do.
Its residents hurried out of houses in glamorous colors,
shades,
suites,
dresses
and hair-does
to clubs, street corners, bars and pubs.
The city knew it had to make a noise.
It had to make a beat -
For the baby making,
For the booty shaking,
For Mr. Duncan, the drunkard on Orchard and Stanton, who dances out of his shoes,
For my blues.
As for the buildings on the hill,
you could see that the night had transformed dicks into light switches
Turned on and back off.
The blinking of bedrooms was proof of the heaving ecstasy that the sun had caused.
And so in the dim of this world,
On his balcony, a woman walked up to him.
Composing Jazz with her bare feet,
like a gypsy or my midnight heartache.
That night was a special one,
because there was no weight in this world but a see-through shirt on her back.
He pulled her in.
she swayed her low pitch against his upbeat,
Asked him to find his grip on her tempo.
She said, “tonight,
we should dance our cracked hearts into glory”.
He had nothing but memories of Nina Simone from the day before
and black coffee in his stomach,
Hell, he wanted to dance…
Man to woman,
because truth be told
no one but Gaye fans know how to put a quivering end to a debaucherous night behind the grapevine.
And so they danced themselves into dirt.
but there was time still…
There was time to get pealed, naked and sweet.
That night between the sheets,
he took her B sharps into his mouth like two pomegranates.
He told her “this is the end of Stevie Wonder,
because I might run my lips down your harmonica
But today we aint calling to say we love one another.”
She whispered to him in quavers;
“work your grandfather clock pendulum”
he said, “ I want my hands on your hourglass.
Lay your soul between my guitar strings,
And lets make something more everlasting than sweat.”
…And as the last orgasmic sand grain slipped through her frames
they ended,
intertwined on the cold floor like a treble clef.
untitled
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry, Print
One day
I was sidewalk cracks,
Pick pocketing midnight freaks with drunken feet.
These men danced with the rain,
She was nickel of theirs that got stuck between my teeth.
Weird…
I never prayed for a man to leap over me,
Every once in a while,
I like dare myself to feel what it means
to be down-to-earth enough to get stepped on.
Whatever shine a nickel can have
I have downed in one gulp.
Whichever moon I craved
She has grabbed by its hair
And stapled on.
I think I’ve come to know her,
Better than I know myself.
I know
She is a revolutionary.
She wears her past on the dark side of her face
She has beheaded many men.
But made sure she stayed long enough to own their tales.
She has too much Venus specks.
She complains of stomach burns
Too much heat…
The supernova in her blood,
Kept her on the run
Until she got into the habit of stepping out of her footprints
Just for the sake of it.
Today,
I am high.
I live like crescents.
I stay away from falling out of grace
by biting on to the sky, and holding on..
I gurgle whatever darkness is out
Open my mouth just to taste its magnificence.
I’ve tried swallowing the heavens in breaths before
But last night I choked on stardust
in the static moment
following… “I love you”
I waited for the aftertaste of everything
…it wont come to me.
I might sound awkward
But some days…
Even when its undeserved
all anyone needs to be to someone
is something worth looking up to.
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry, Print
1. You are a thunderstorm.
2. I am a mouthful of rain.
3. I like it when you hold my hand under street lights. Our shadows aren’t gender biased.
4. I used to have an obsession with disposable razors. I don’t like talking about it.
5. I am a doughnut. Aren’t all women that way?
6. I think I belong in the space between your palms and your chest when you pray.
7. You don’t pray often enough. I wish you did.
8. I lost a friend 3 weeks ago. She thinks I’m too proud. I think I’m too tired of pushing. I love her. She used to make me happy. .
9. I have tasted my sweat a few times. It wasn’t fulfilling.
10. I like tucking people in bed. It involves beds and passion, but no one will be calling me a mistake the next morning.
11. I always leave.
12. The only time I ever feel complete is wiping off the wetness you leave on my neck after you break down.
13. Last night I put you back together. I knew where each piece goes.
14. 7 months ago my sister hoped my transcontinental flight crashes. I’m not sure I’m as alive now as when I boarded it.
15. I like long roads. I often fall flat on my face. I swallow the gravel. The flavor suits me…it’s an acquired taste.
