Frida 2

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It looks like Velcro
and roughs her skin. She hangs silver mirrors
from her earlobes, and paints the endless
Mexican desert behind her pupils, unlit.
She purses the red tin of her lips.

This face invents her
as she sits potted
before the mirror.

Outside of the frame
her hands are cupping the sun and
shifting with its hours.

Frida

A rectangle of shadow is beneath
her bottom lip, a gray patch, as if
placed there by her own hand,as she invents
a face for the mirror, with an immense look,
like the endless Mexican desert is behind her pupils, unlit,
or like a funerary portrait, the dead eyeing
death. She sits almost potted, there.
Her lips are tin painted red.

Evesdropping On Penn Students

"I wish that my Uggs
Had rock salt super-glued
To their soles so that
Ice would just melt
Wherever I walked!"

Evesdropping On 6 Year-Olds

"You're blushing"
"I'm always blushing,
My cheeks are just
Like that - I was born
Blushing, something
Must have embarrassed me
In the womb."

Tallis, Scarves, Condensed

Six hundred and thirteen knots
mark holiness. Six hundred
and thirteen braids
hanging down a back in shades
of brown (coffee, caramel,
timberland boot tan) the colors
tied in a cast down the arms of these women:
"Scarves for sale", feathers for sale
from these migrant birds, soft
and heavy on their wings spread
wide in display until
police come and they run like pigeons
from the foot of a child,
fringes scattering around the corner.

The world's richest fifth:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish
Consume 58% of total energy
Have 74% of all telephone lines
Consume 84% of all paper
Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet

Thinking About Leaving,

Things to always remember about home:
How the kitchen was, is, will always be yellow and chipping.
The couch pillows being really really dirty on the underside.
The TV antennas that point in all kinds of directions without ever picking up a signal.

Watching Carlos' Kitchen from the Sofabed

The blue shaded noon light
on the tiles, their golden edges
look like frames wanting paintings.
The microwave knobs are sun dials,
the cabinets are great white columns.

(The way things begin to look
after a few days in Rome.)

Recent Thoughts - Overwhelmed

Left hand spread wide
to cover his own face,
as he runs crouched, all knees,
eyeballs peeking between fingers,
a hood and a bandana and the night,
anything dark to hide behind.

One person makes a thing and another person makes another thing and everyone wants everything. The peace and order of society becomes more important than the relief of the miserable.

He sprayed a can of red paint
in her face, that's what the blood
looked like, a perfect circle
of aerosol rose. It took 140 stitches
to put her nose back on.

"Criminals get sentenced, but not the machine that keeps churning them out, just as drug addicts get sentenced but not the lifestyle that cries out for chemical consolation and an illusion of escape." - Galeano

Bodies gathered in line to be casted
in the single mold of consumer society.
As we wait our turn, we argue the statistics
of a quarterback, the mechanics of sex.
We emerge from the plaster to become
military men and McDonalds fryers,
even Adam Smith knew: "The man
whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations
generally becomes as stupid and ignorant
as it is possible for a human creature to become."