Melissa Eleftherion's Blog, page 17
April 23, 2013
Heart Spell (co-opted from ad I see in the subway)
A heart with wings
A heart for discover.com
A heart for the gluttonous
A heart for the homeless woman
with two kids and a heart
saying “every little bit helps”
A heart for the lonely, hungry
A heart for the oil companies
A heart for cancer and its bodies
A heart for virus and survivors
A heart for bankers
A heart for farmers
A heart for mothers and soldiers
and fathers and children
A heart for teachers
A heart for plankton
A heart for baristas
A heart for anarchists
A heart for capitalists
A heart for the sea urchin
A heart for the shark
A heart for algae
A heart for tree bark
A heart for cosmopolis
A heart for socialites
A heart for the housewives of New Jersey
A heart for poets
A heart for Boston
A heart for prisons
A heart for free bodies
A heart for binaries
A heart for the dialectic
A heart is comfort
A heart covers the wound
A heart for the paradox
Heart spell co-opted from credit card ad I see in the subway
A heart with wings
A heart for discover.com
A heart for the gluttonous
A heart for the homeless woman
with two kids and a heart
saying “every little bit helps”
A heart for the lonely, hungry
A heart for the oil companies
A heart for cancer and its bodies
A heart for virus and survivors
A heart for bankers
A heart for farmers
A heart for mothers and soldiers
and fathers and children
A heart for teachers
A heart for plankton
A heart for baristas
A heart for anarchists
A heart for capitalists
A heart for the sea urchin
A heart for the shark
A heart for algae
A heart for tree bark
A heart for cosmopolis
A heart for socialites
A heart for the housewives of New Jersey
A heart for poets
A heart for Boston
A heart for prisons
A heart for free bodies
A heart for binaries
A heart for the dialectic
A heart is comfort
A heart covers the wound
A heart for the paradox
April 22, 2013
questions after hypnosis
Did I disappear myself
Under the sea
I felt vanished
Did I open the door?
To heal or be healed?
I was one once
My image as ever
Mountain
Accepting and giving light
April 21, 2013
Field Guide for British dragonflies (Odonata)
Mesothorax –
Large energy heart field
At the attachment
Swollen segments
A yellow sun, a black sun
Between the wings yellow
The length of imago
Denticulated at basal half
Dorsal longitude
A nymph’s inconvenience
A collection of pet insects
Generally speaking, among the tentacles
Specimen –
Fossilized species
The contents are granular
Changes of skin occur
The larvae, the pupae, lacunae
Thoracic atmosphere
The insect is exhausted
Weak and feeble light, wings glissant
April 18, 2013
in the forest
in the forest
new shades of gnarled
curling, the trees
shape their wounds
wrap around
each other
like comfort
false translation
I thought it would be fun to practice doing false translations, so I took the writing prompt from NaPoWriMo as a jumping off point for Day 16. But, I’m posting it today because life.
Since I first learned about this exercise while studying with Diane di Prima, I’ve become more compelled by this idea of the vagaries of translation: from language to language, from perspective to perspective, from identity construct to identity construct. How all we are and see and do alters our perception so that really, everything becomes a translation filtered through our human, our animal skins.
I do not especially like this poem. In fact, it irritates me and I almost feel shamed by it. I’m posting it anyway because fuckit. (original poem follows)
Bimbo, nestled placenta
Bimbo, in cup of media
Morbid curtain of Pele
Enduring the putana
Rose red, flame of what disgrace
Red of your bloody body tongue
Appending the fat
Bimbo, ladled out there.
Bimba nella
placenta, bimba
sotto coperta,
nella corteccia
morbida di pelle,
indurita dal
bosco, rossa
come scottata,
rossa che nuoti nel
tuo sangue,
appena fatta, bimba
qui scodellata.
© Elisa Biagini
From: Cappuccio Rosso
Publisher: Einaudi
April 17, 2013
Dictionary Poem
Cleavage appears first
Any member a mouth
Developing indeterminate isotopes
The sea squirts, the fish in layers
A penetration of epithelial
A substance of killing
To draw in water
A baby, a cloud
The edentate
Colorless material relating
Latitudes for the sidereal
Established for the treelike
Used furs a number of ornamental loops
Haunt of the ferocious
Armor from the splinters
I made my own scaffold
Deracinated
Granular anthems the shrub of a genus
Sometimes used as a gemstone
Married, transparent, from rendered fats
April 14, 2013
Dinner with Phoenix and Aphrodite
My son (6) asked: “where do people go when they die?” I explained that no one really knows, but that people have different theories – sometimes based on which religion they believe in, and whether or not they believe in God. He quickly maintained that he does not believe in God, which he’s mentioned before. So, I asked him what he believes in. He replied: “I believe in you. I believe in love. I believe in the goddesses.”
The mother of love says go on give it open up
The crown heart thrush rises – to overlook precipice
Take aim, glowing out light embers
Cicatrix phosphenes in the fire radial
Belly was the boulder belly the chasm
Upright stone slab – a storm of grey wanting
She lifts, fragments:
Membrane wing,
two breath, flesh devour
Spiny, comb bearer, little ring
Ungulates
Love says: look and I am you.
April 12, 2013
Hereditament
I.
In the garden
I water I watch
The lace-winged labor of play
The animals loll and swat at plants
Fur rubs the sidewalk
Camouflaged skins burrow inside
Fur lines the flesh light
II.
In the gnawing chew of sidewalk hum
I played street games
The sun a vector I hid in the cool dark
Aimed cue ball at bruised knuckles
My father taught me
How to hurt
How to be pennies
III.
On the fire escape I grew like a dandelion
Greedy for pigeon talk and flowered skirts
I wanted to be a garden
So I doused myself with hosewater
Painted my arms with thorns
In the wandering dusk
How to be a fortress
Tenement of my red mouth
How to be quiet
Dig under the belly
Lift the stone slab
(from a writing prompt by Elizabeth Treadwell and anthologized in “Hereditament”: http://secretmint.blogspot.com/2013/04/hereditament-flash-anthology-no-2.html)
