Israfel Sivad's Blog, page 8

There Was No Need for Symbolization

Yesterday, I didn’t know what to do. The unemployment’s starting to get to me. It’s the days. They wind on while I sit in my apartment looking for jobs, working on this, reading books and watching movies on Netflix. It’s gotten to be too much. I took the Metro down to Farragut West and dropped off the checks for my old 401(k) with some online brokers to deposit in the new IRAs I’ve opened to avoid paying taxes on my minuscule retirement funds. On the way back, I realized I was passing through...

The Hallowed Halls of Academia

The Hallowed Halls of Academia
By Israfel Sivad

What did you say,
you hallowed halls of academia?
That our questions were mere
blasphemies?

Is that what you would say to us,

teach to us, your servants,
faithful and true, respecting
you and the order
you would teach?

Our reply is to challenge.

And if you reject us
yet again, we will move
our operation
underground.

Listen to me. All of you listen:

There are two people
who write for me,
but I can’t tell
you their names.

They are my secret yin a...

Nobody Had Ever Written a Poem for Her Before

The last time I was unemployed in Washington, DC, I had a girlfriend as well – Ariel. But things were so different for me back then. I was 30 years old. Ariel was getting ready to head back to grad school in International Development at Columbia University. I decided I wanted to go back to school, too.

I’d been having dreams back then I’d relapsed and gotten drunk during my senior year of college. In my dreams, I’d never finished school, which hadn’t actually happened. But dreams were very in...

The Jungle

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The Jungle
By Israfel Sivad

More muscular and aggressive,
this is the time of our lives.
Our bones are thicker, our feet –
larger. Our necks won’t keep us
from the front line any longer.

Our eyes are armored. Our manes
are black and mature. Your music
has grown flat; we’re blind to the
birth of your Lord. Move to provoke
us again, you who slaughtered our children.

In Sumer, we reached maturity. Prehistoric
peoples merged themselves with us, turned
us to the steeds for 18 of your gods. We
des...

Love

Love
By Israfel Sivad

I love my pain.
It keeps me strong.
It keeps me whole.
You can’t have it!

I will never give
what makes me ache,
my heartbreak, to you.
I am the sum of my pain.

Do you understand?
I don’t think you do.
I tried telling you,
but you won’t listen.

I think I’ll have to kill you.

I hung your painting on my wall.
It’s sickly, with five forest rectangles
spaced throughout. Two make eyes.
One is a nose. The others – a mouth.
It’s a crooked face. The paint fades out.

It looks an...

Posters

Posters
By Israfel Sivad

You’re a poster, child…
Explosions, bodies, the stench.
Somebody wants to kill you,
and that’s not very funny.
It’s not funny at all.

You’re a civilian, honey,
wrapped in red, white, and blue.
Red stands for nothing.
White melted blue. I’m nothing, too.
Melt me blue, through and through.

Do you feel madness, baby,
creeping into your mind?
Madness from frustration, anger,
the pain of something you did not do,
but that you did just the same.

We’re losing, my friend,
lo...

White

White
By Israfel Sivad

My face is
so pale it’s white, like
a whale, as bright as

the underbelly
I saw last night.

Ahab ain’t got nothin’
on this motherfucker.

I’ll tear through
every wave, deeper
than that peg-leg bastard
was ever willing to go.

I’ll take everything on:
Death, hate, fear, the loves of
lives repressed by straight white lines,
lives depressed by little white lies.

I’ll smack that shit upside
the head, send it running,
screaming, like the screams
from a dream of paper

and frigh...

I’m So In Love With You

Cora and I are sitting here at the IHOP in Columbia Heights on Irving Street NW, Washington, DC. It’s Saturday, 3:00 AM, two and a half weeks after I lost my job. We’ve had a great night – dinner at this chic ramen place down on H Street NE that’s owned by one of the members of Animal Collective. Cora’s been trying to get me to this place for over three months now, but it’s always full. They don’t take reservations, and the last time we tried to get in, it was a three hour wait. We wouldn’t h...

The Hermaphrodite

The Hermaphrodite
By Israfel Sivad

Teach me to love.
I will teach you to hate.
Together, we can make a change.
With your love and my hate,
we can make this world a better place.

I’ve always wanted to write a children’s story.
Do you think you could teach me to speak?
Maybe then, you will love me
for what I’ve given you. Hate me
for what I’ve done to you.

Okay, I’m ready to do it now.
I picked my pen up off the desk.
My notepad is open to this page.
Take a deep breath, I’m going to begin.
The...

The Story We All Hear

The Story We All Hear
By Israfel Sivad

As the man said,
I didn’t get it then.

I was driving in my car.
A song came on the radio.
That was when I knew,
I wanted to tell his story.

It’s the same story we all hear.

It said:

Your whole life waited,
moment to moment,
seeing things you don’t see,
hearing things you don’t hear,
thinking things you don’t think,
dreaming things you can’t dream.

There are no nouns.
The world is verbs.

If only we could speak that way,
then feelings and thoughts
would...