3 Bearded Ladies

thecurtainfell — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:57:36 -0400

The Anniversary Gift

thecurtainfell — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:51:27 -0400

—when you woke me up midmorning, 
put a pot of flowers on the nightstand, 
set down two humble cups of coffee, 
and handed me a mango.
 It was hard and I held it with the same grip
 I hold dreams when I awake to feel them
 miscarrying inside me. 
I don't know how to pick them, you said,
but it smells sweet, we can wait for it, I know
it will take you to a place set deep inside.
It was firm and unready, sapless, store-bought—
in Pittsburgh, there are no mango trees, no wild
nectar, but inside still is the need to taste.

Elle

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:33:12 -0400

Change of Course

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:32:46 -0400

Crowning

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:31:55 -0400

a single crest of carlights
across the nevada brush
gold and glowing
like an august fireline
hazing the low skies
and lead-heavy cumulus
with smoldering amber -
an exhausted passage
of lamps in american dark.

A Valley and a Wolf

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:31:20 -0400

It was my first time riding in a helicopter and I was anxious. The pilot was giving me the orientation: never walk behind the helicopter as the rear blades are low and almost invisible. Keep your head low. Never approach the helicopter from high ground. Since I’d started the job in the spring I had heard over and over the gruesome tale of the geologist who was decapitated by a helicopter just the season before. “His girlfriend was with him and saw the whole thing,” I was told.

Striving

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:30:39 -0400

Lemonlight

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:29:57 -0400

Did you know it gets cold here
Enough for sweaters and shuddering
For fingers to raise gooseflesh along the arm
Winter’s got me again
And the moon is as cool here as anywhere else
In the backyard, an overturned boatload of shadows
Light on the white hull
And the still-forever-green plants
Lean over it
Watching
Quiet lemons among the leaves
Are cooling
Metamorphosing
Absorbing moonlight through their big pores
It condenses around the pits
Who knows what will happen if I don’t go to sleep
A thud of frozen fruit
Lemonlight on the ground

Shape-Shifters

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:29:13 -0400

Last year, in an Indigenous Literature class, I did a lot of reading on shape-shifters. The most interesting character is probably the archetypal "trickster figure." The Trickster not only appears in many Aboriginal stories, but throughout myth in general. Some call him Whiskey Jack (or Wasaygachuck); others call him Loki; some call him Pan. In fact he has many names, but one essential personality that figures prominently in life, literary or otherwise. The Trickster can be perceived as good or evil, depending on the effects he has on the mortals he interferes with.

Soul Angel

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:28:05 -0400

Aretha Moon

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:26:44 -0400

"Things Just Make Sense Here"

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:25:13 -0400

“Things Just Make Sense Here”
neatly painted on a sign seen from the car
in the outskirts of this prairieforsaken town

the mini
mall is
full of
gawking locals
who appear
never to have seen
two women
traveling by car
maybe lesbians
hard to tell

or they have, and
it ended badly
you can see why
so many horror
flicks start this way

we seek refreshments
but suddenly i need to leave
leave now!

& take my non-
sense far
from here

Dilemmas Choice

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:56:57 -0400

Thus Everything as Accepted

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:56:17 -0400

I Offer Capitalism Half my Tim Horton`s Turkey Hero

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:55:13 -0400

I offer Capitalism half my Tim Horton’s turkey hero.

Our books are propped up back-to-
back, riding backwards on the 6:15 to Toronto.

International Business. Precarity (a Medley).

His watch has one single diamond. I am dressed in
half handmade / half sweatshop.

He is boring-hot. That clean-cut-blue-eyes kind of guy
you glimpse over a folded down page definition: The cogniate class.

“No thanks,” he stumbles (you hippie freak). And it’s back-on-
ear-plugged with an ipod.

I am kind of hungry, I think. But figure
Capitalism’s gotta eat.

Senegal

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:53:45 -0400

One AM. It’s dark, and humid. There are people all over the place, some of them may be picking my pockets. My thoughts are racing: “I’m in Africa, I can’t believe I’m really in Africa.”

Fortunately Magueye, the director of the volunteer program, meets me at the gates as promised. I don’t really know what he looks like, other than a side-profile from a small photo on his website, but I have to trust that this is him.
I’m in Senegal. Volunteering, technically. But I take so much more from this experience than I give.

Bored Waitress

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:53:04 -0400

In Prague After the Iron Curtain has Fallen

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:52:28 -0400

The printed sheets paint
the twin beds
a vulgar
swirl of colour,
the only bright colour
in this dorm-cum-hostel.

The dullbrown radiobox
sternly installed on the wall
concurs with the furnishings.

We giggle,
take turns barking
soviet dictates, pretend
that our rasped orders
crackle from the carpeted speakers,
imagine a burly comrade
in her beige skirtsuit
listening in
as we push
the two wobbly
beds together.

I stretch over you
and we connect
violently
as I reach
one arm up
to the bright bulb
that bears down on us
and my other arm

The Temple Burns

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:51:26 -0400

To let go completely is one of the most visceral ways to change. The Temple’s purpose was to physically anchor human sorrows, and it was destined to burn before our eyes.

Obstacle! Make a Decision

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:49:02 -0400

I Understand

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:48:11 -0400

While I’m on the bus
watching the pines volta with the sun in water,
I understand why you want to live here,
under this unhazy sky.
Even though your wit must
stoop to kindness
in a small city where people know your name,
but not the names of the books you’ve read,
where all surprises are in the forest
and the stores on Main Street
close if we stay in bed too late.
I understand
when my eyes span the half-frozen lake
glowing with the sky’s deep, perfect gradient,
darkening slowly enough
to be watched for hours.
Islands of ice
become islands of earth

Sisters

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:43:51 -0400

Beyond Body

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:41:36 -0400

Little Gray Socks

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:40:07 -0400

Maddie was six years old, but she knew some really good places to hide important things. The best spot of all was inside one of her socks, because she only had one pair and they were always really stinky. She didn’t mind having stinky socks because nobody would take off her little scuffed shoes and try to smell her feet. Besides, it gave her the best hiding spot ever. That’s where she hid the most important thing she had ever been given. That’s where she protected it.

We Are not Birds But

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:38:21 -0400

Febrile, dizzy and tipping against the porcelain edge
of some woman’s tub: here I am.
This not my home.
Kwaku, five dogs, a grandmother live here
and I am cough, wind, smell — passing. And thankful for it.

Against my mirror my eyes scan
places familiar with his touch, land always
on the lobe, and sit waiting for noise. Call me. Say this:
I still smell you here; quiet, small, asleep.

Today turning a corner I reached to embrace some man
with the same chin, same hard fists swinging near his knees.
Only the hot dust of city came full in my mouth and the poetry faded.

Change Was Yesterday

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:37:00 -0400

I’m at a loss about where to begin. I have many questions.
But somewhere is always a good enough place to start.

What does somewhere mean to you?
Not here. Gone. Beyond my reach. Somewhere is away. Somewhere is where I’m not letting myself be. Where I haven’t found myself yet.

Do you feel the need to go somewhere?
Always. I’m naturally restless. Always in search of something to do and somewhere to do it. I’m hardly ever comfortable with where I actually am—those places I find myself in, physically and mentally.

Do you seek fulfillment in other places?

One for Los Angeles

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:32:06 -0400

whose pastel paints dried in the sun
and flaked off of storefronts and taquerias.
for a summer of burials
in the cemetery of the stars -
interments of the working wounded
the damn finest soldiers ever digitized.

i’ve bathed myself in all your tributaries:
the plaza fountains, the hotel showers,
and the complimentary bottled water.
purified myself of san francisco santeria,
and come ready to be incensed.

Was Trudeau

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:30:51 -0400

Twelve More Hours

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:28:55 -0400

Greyhound

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:28:00 -0400

That was the summer Rachel and Jonah spent three and a half days in a bus, all the way from Toronto to Victoria. In Perry Sound the bus had to be cleaned, so they sat on a hill next to the bus station talking about what it would be like to finally get out of Ontario. Fifteen hours later they pulled into Thunderbay. Sitting on wooden boards behind a dilapidated building across the highway from the station they kissed until they were worried the bus would leave without them. They held hands and didn't talk the entire breadth of Manitoba.

Istanbul Change 8

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:23:31 -0400

Istanbul Change 7

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:22:42 -0400

Istanbul Change 6

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:22:12 -0400

Istanbul Change 5

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:21:45 -0400

Istanbul Change 4

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:21:11 -0400

Istanbul Change 3

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:20:42 -0400

Istanbul Change 2

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:20:13 -0400

Istanbul Change 1

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:17:29 -0400

Untitled (boat)

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:16:11 -0400

Untitled (airplane)

thecurtainfell — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:15:21 -0400