sunburn

salt-stained and shivering,
the sun scorched playground
of several thousand
viscious Viking warriors,
pickaxes slicing, gnashing of teeth.
i swat them away like flies
investigating gangrene flesh.
whipped raw by wind and sky,
fire-chapped by some godforsaken
love affair between pallor and bronze
that no chapstick on earth could balm.
molting now, no snake-eyed temptress
but solemn priestess of aloe
slathered in chastity and vows of reclusion.
sister, russet-skinned goddess of light
cannot feel love for those blotched white ruins,
those monuments of earth, of skin
rising like stone casings from defeated kingdoms,
but in a kinder moment sends rain,
green globs of ice to blanket
wartorn winters with snow.

prince caspian

i saw Prince Caspian last night. that's probably the best movie i've seen in a long time; everyone needs to go see it. besides having (of course) a good storyline and almost exclusively extremely attractive male leads (minus the evil uncle), the christian parallels are subtle, yet obvious if you're looking for them. but they certainly don't push anything down anyone's throat.

i am madly in love with skandar keynes (edmund). personally, i adored him in the first movie while everyone else was gushing over william moseley (peter); the former was met with raised eyebrows while the latter was always met with raves and lightheadedness. i proved myself in the second movie, however. one english year did awfully a lot to make him acceptable for swooning over, and that is exactly what i did whenever he was on the screen: swoon. but i wasn't the only one this time, several of my formerly unbeleiving friends joined the Dark Side and left the rest to contemplate Peter's perfections. but oh! how could i forget the title character? Prince Caspian won the hearts of both sides of the debate; no one could dissent his beauty. in the final scene when he, hair blowing in the gentle Narnian breeze, Regina Spektor singing in the background, stepped out in his royal clothing: every girl in the theater shrieked, "he is so gorgeous!". i have a feeling we'll be seeing more of him in the united states, as beauty seems to dictate the success of many male leads.

of course, the movie would stand on its own, even without the ravishing beauty of edmund, peter and caspian. the effects blew me away, and the intensity of the battle seats saw us cringed down in our seats, clutching the railing. it's one to see twice-three times-four times!- and buy on DVD (even for me, the girl who only owns three.) how many stars is it possible to give a movie? there is no age limit or demographic for this movie. guys will love the battle scenes; girls will love the subtle, added-in romance between Caspian and Susan, the eldest Pevensie girl. i have only three words to summarize my raving over this film: go see it.

we're on different sides of the telescope

we're on different sides of the telescope
ignoring the sky and absorbing some dark
euphoric X-Rays from the other's single eye.
mine is paint splattered and fragmented
hazel.
yours structured, paint-by-number
kelly green.
your head tilting, framed by some halo of
artificial foliage.
seperated. we are kept safe by dark holes
shot in some paper wall between us.
by mindless incantations like Buddhist monks
or the times-tables.
our lead filled fingertips cannot collide.
they spark at touching.
your heart is sweet,
dark and waxy like sun-melted 230 calorie
chocolate.
you might understand me if i say we've
bonded covalently.
we're free-minded and incongruous
seated at opposite sides of
the proverbial turning tables.
maybe the glass wall will evaporate
if you dare to touch me.

summer aubade

the prefects, the lazy white dewdrops sun languidly
on sherbert-green leaves of an apple tree.
madamoiselle soliel smiles sheepishly her dappled smile
departing. she cups in the palm of her
hand a drooping skyline,
miniature cities of crooked plastic people and
bolts of ash-saturated sky-cloth.
i drink it down like fire-born liquor and
slosh it around in the pit of my stomach.
hair curls at the roots.
patchwork-quilt bark peels and smoothens, an aged
and defeated army.
the heady smell of wintergreen pine needles
dances its fragile ballet through my arteries.
i hold it carefully in my clumsy palm,
breakable like a soap-bubble baby.
no tulip or violet's pockets carry despair
or subway passes, only seeds.
no yellow rose has hopes or dreams to shatter.
with stems crushed in my fingers
i am no Realist.
with your scalloped thorns in my thumbs
i am Alive.

dear Mother,

without sudafed given to
unclog my nose,
and a small-car sized fortune on
novels and clothes;
without polka-dot bandaids
for scrapes on my knees
i'd be helpless.
(and rather more inclined to sneeze.)
from the moment i ripped myself
from your poor womb
you've been right on my tail
with your optical zoom.
from school and church services
to play practice and prom,
you've never been Rhonda,
but "Alyssa Duck's mom."
you'll mouth me the words from the
crowd when i sing.
(maybe that will show people
your own identity...)
the future is waiting,
not unlike the past.
we'll wear Pink Flamingos
and adopt 19 year old cats.
and when i get married, you'll
babysit my kids
and buy tupperware for us
with color-coded lids.
we'll always keep with us that
good old Duck Humor
(it runs in our blood like disease.
like a tumor.)
and no storm or crowbar will
tear us apart,
unless we're run over by
Beth Watkins' car.
we'll live for our God, but we'll live
our lives our way,
gawking at wrecks
and snakes in the Scott's driveway.
some days you'll be tired, and
some days i'll be grumpy;
but i'm still your baby,
and you'll always be Mummy. : )

dear Mendeleev,

oh! for some cat-eyed korean
with glossy blue-black hair
to unravel these knotted
ropes before me.
aqueous? precipitate?
you, aluminum, with your 2+ charge
might mate with friendly twin
chlorines.
but love is fickle,
and you choose the silver nitrate.
oh! for you, blessed Korean,
to translate these garbled syllables
and symbols into intelligible language,
i would give up every bite of Pocky
and pledge to drive Toyotas
for the rest of my days.
these redox equations swim before me,
sad-faced,
mocking their apathy and my misfortune.
chemistry, that two-tongued monster
that holds captive all reason
between its razor-sharp lips.
Mendeleev, i have let you down.

samson

tongue clicks once, twice
scalene scales and slithering eyes
she bites.
russet colored blown-glass skin
stabs when splintered.
dangerous games
in the fiery snake-vixen's eyes.
she'll hold you in her watery gaze
till your head throbs with your chest
the stagnant tick, ticking
like the biological clock of a barren woman.
she is Gaia, shushing Siren.
aphrodite with shoulders sliding.
tongue slick with anesthetic
she strikes.
black bile-filled fangs into unprepared
white flesh..
you stick straight like a fruitfly in a
spiderweb, strangling on saccharine
ruby-red cough syrup promises.
samson couldn't break those silk spiders' strands.
water-eyes turn amber,
you can't
bring those columns down.

baby lust

deciduous leaves and an empty
bag of french onion potato chips.
nest-ready,
only that nauseating smell
found on everything processed
and human-related.
who planted these prickly trees?
foster hollys.
if god had made a place that squirrels
would never dare to climb,
would never think of raiding,
this would be it.
isn't it lovely, my fair robin,
with the silky-smooth feathers
and half-inch eyelashes?
she flies away.
tulips unravel their pink-and-yellow
petals in mock sympathy,
glossy blue baby announcements in the
mailbox of a barren woman.
twins again!
wrong, wrong, wrong.
my fair robin, perched so delicately
on the railing, head cocked
to one side. i puff out my chest
and you fly away again.
humans on the porch, giggling
like banshees, systematically
reproducing.
lovingly patting the protruding parasite
in her belly.
shriek at them!
flap your bright blue wings in their
sickeningly saccharine faces!
claw at their eyes!
they with their carbon emissions
and french onion potato chips
so unfortunately cradling what your
itty-bitty bird hormones so crave,
that irreplaceable original which
robin-egg-blue crayons so unfittingly
try to recreate.
disgruntled. flap up into your foster holly
and snap irritably at the big-eyed
babies on the porch.
mother robin in the cherry tree next door
clicks her tongue at you in
disapprobation,
looking for love in all the wrong
places.

the strangest surrogate pleasure

the strangest surrogate pleasure
in treetops and on concrete blocks
of a public school playground.
your eyes wide;
dilated from sunshine or lidocaine,
like children or insects
when frightened or startled.
you've grown since september.
your peach-fuzz face and arms
cherry-red sunburnt,
patted affectionately by the tiny
low-income-housing Hispanic children
laughing, clambering on your
sweat-sticky back.
the bright blue air intoxicates on
sunny days like this in May.
we could almost beleive ourselves
to be perfectly happy.

ariella

ariella, you're yellow
in Moscow with mum.
you're seven. you fidget.
your legs are quite numb
in the pews of St. Basil's.
your head nods in sleep.
you're innocent now from
blonde head to small feet.

ariella, you're green
in Manhatten. The sky is
all weathered and battered,
as blue as your eye is.
you sit on the steps of the high
school and swoon.
you've peace, but you know
you'll be gone from here soon.

ariella, you're silver
in Avignon. Habits
form silently, tracing the backs
of our eyelids.
the country is russet, your letters
blank pages.
you can't stay forever, so
you try to erase it.

ariella, you're violet
in Stockholm with Aunt.
you're twenty-two. you want
to stay, but you can't.
the swedish boys haunt you.
they tear you to pieces.
you giggle when they take
a swipe at your breeches.

ariella, with Nonna
in Lugano. you're red.
the church bells ring out
sixteen tolls for the dead.
your conscience fades quick
with terra-cotta tiles.
will you tarnish your memories?
can you bear now to smile?

ariella, you're blue now
in Boston alone.
there's a boy on your loveseat
who's answered your phone.
you've grown up and grown
out. can you feel
your face?
dirt's smeared on your collar.
what's one more damned space?

ariella, you're white now.
the boat still is docking.
you stand on the shore in your
white linen stockings.
you smile as Tel Aviv sand
eats at your feet.
in the place where you started,
you've finally found home.

carnage

love is not battlefield.
its a rush of blood
like nothing you've ever
read in bible studies
or English textbooks.
you never realize that
it eats your heart out;
never feeling as though
anything occurs,
distant drops of poison
frogs that seem vague and
harmless until they begin
to tear at your throat.