INTRODUCTION
A Borrowed Country
The Poetry Of Ruth Knafo Setton
An introduction by Moshe Benarroch
CONTENTS
THE POETRY OF RUTH KNAFO SETTON
The morning after
The Password
River of Tea: Uji, Japan
Red Bamboo
Pear
Night of the Dead
Nightfruits
Mariekke
I Wore White
Honey Moon in the French Quarter
Gypsy's Song
Girl, Prince, Tower
Freak
Flicka, Ricka, Dicka & The Dark Girl
Dog Woman
Dad Discovers America
Cora
The Black Caf‚
Following Charlie
Chinatown Noir
After the Rain
Imagining Marcos
gay club marcos
cabanas marcos
soldier marcos
A flowering tree reached towards you.
biblical marcos
savior marcos
A Borrowed Country ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Poetry Of Ruth Knafo Setton An introduction by Moshe Benarroch Knafo Setton is the author of one book "The Road To Fez", a novel. Her novel lives in four continents and many countries. It is the story of Brit Lek, an American teenager traveling to Morocco to visit the grave of Suleika, a teenager executed in the nineteenth century for refusing to convert to Islam. The book is a journey as are many novels written by writers born in Morocco. Why? what are they looking for. It is a journey into the past, into a past that never was, into an imagined country lived in Ruth's childhood, a `Lego' country, a country that went on living in its own space of the imagination, in the mind of immigrant's, and most specially the mind of children that emigrated before they knew the world could change. Knafo Setton looks for a non-borrowed country but this country is not on maps. This country is in her poems and her novel. That's why "The road to Fez" is not the kind of book in which you start asking yourself why so many books are written, or how many trees were destroyed to make that book. You feel that the book is essential to humanity and to writing, it is the kind of book you should have read before it was written, because in some mysterious way the book was there all the time. Putting the words into paper and printing it is just obvious, like dreaming or like smiling, or like breathing. The country of Knafo-Setton is the country of all great poets and writers, the country of Edmond Jabes, William Burroughs or Charles Bukowski, it's the country of words. It is the country where words make sense or cause despair, but an independent country. A country without borders, not even the borders of the material book itself. You can enter it whenever you want and live in it as long as you wish, it's magical, it's like entering the mirror, and finding the little boy you were growing up in many direction, in many possibilities. hundred of parallel lives_ Get in, Marhabba_ Moshe Benarroch, Jerusalem,. Nov. 2001.
THE POETRY OF RUTH KNAFO SETTON The morning after ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The sabra man looks naked, black eyes and white smile, strong shoulders and chest. He slices the desert fruit and holds out his palm: sabra, red queen on her prickly skin, against his darker flesh. I pluck it from his palm, swallow it whole: cold, sharp, so sweet I ache, and turn back, glance at him. Laughing, he slices another and holds out his fruited hand. Doors blow open and reveal hidden numbers, Hebrew-raw and wailing-scrolls across the sky. I walk down Allenby past the blue bookstore, old men selling flowered dresses, the shuk ripe with purple figs and curved eggplants, vast stalks of mint leaves, luisa, kzboor. Past the grinning pimp outside the hotel. All roads lead to the sea, even the street of the whores, or the children, or soldiers. In Jaffa I climb stone steps that wind till they die, listen to bells ring, smell Iraqui bread soft and flat baking under sun. A woman swings a dead chicken at me, a man says: marry my son, a good boy, you could do worse. I could do worse than be here, in this land where stones wail, where the beast howls at the city gate, and the sea dazzles like blue glass-but warm as my lover's arms, as the taste of the flowers that grows wild. Poisonous, I heard-but can't believe it, no, not you, dizzying pink. I bite the petals down to your heart: the night was so long, and I am so hungry.
The Password ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Their mouths hang loose as they ponder the metaphor of Master and Slave, tale of the stranger who penetrates the woods, even though the Guard sweeps him back, back where he belongs: Don't dare darken our land again. Their laughter wisps, faint as smoke, through boards and keyholes, while we creep, tropic vines -- lush and tangled - around the house. Yellow-lit, windows boarded, doors locked, hedge thickening as we lurk. The moon, our sometime friend, rises and howls. A wild jackal - or one of us - keens in echo. I stretch my young body - breaks like branches, after being crouched so long - and give the signal of my ancestor: the you-you, pulsing index finger against tongue. Their watchdogs growl, house lights flare, beacons flash even as the first shot shatters black sky - only we are still here, shhh, coiled and panting, teeth cocked to rip the word from their mouths.
River of Tea: Uji, Japan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I didn't eat green tea candy, didn't touch the old fisherman whose forked beard rose and sank, like the phoenix whose Temple I sought. A man with thick glasses hummed as he mixed and poured "exactly what you need" into a cup that fit in my palm. Heat surged through my chest, jolted me back onto the street: clouds of red umbrellas twirled past, pilgrims seeking the magic bird. They winged me behind them. When we crossed the bridge, I breathed in the greenblack scent and soared to the brass phoenix. I rubbed my burning heart against his until he sent me crashing down - Icarus to the throbbing earth. Fields and fields of tea, and branded in the ground: his trail of green tears. Deepening, darkening, as I looked back. The town rose from the river, like steam.
Red Bamboo ~~~~~~~~~~ My sweet, you belong in a Chinese postcard, the kind where they paint the sky blue -- deep Communist blue -- not here, in chillgray winter -- where paint won't help, nothing will help you hide. Even bleached the color of a heart turned inside out. Even shaking your thorns at me. As if I would betray you. Listen sweet, my arteries too stalked the sky, searching for home. After many years, I went back and the guardian of the gate knew me at once: "Your soul is our soul." Do you hear me? If I prick your tender shoot, where it shivers above winter river, will your blood spurt, faded and thin as Jaindl's barn -- or glossy and lacquered, a forbidden city?
Pear ~~~~ I bite into a soft pear: juice bursts, spatters my fingers. Rub my mouth with my thumb and see him watching. Like a tree, he remembers: ringing our way up the leaf-smashed driveway to the ship-house at the top of the hill. Now we sit in the car, behind windshield wipers that cry with each stroke. A shame you can't see the windows, like portholes. His gold-freckled cheek, solid yet sagging. I used to dream of sailing from the roof. Sticky-sweet, his cheek, translucent and hot. We shouldn't be here. Heavy and ripe, his hand drops to my thigh. Skin cracks open, and flies swarm the car, squeeze behind the wipers, smack the windows. Breathe our fruit.
Night of the Dead ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am the perfect tourist, observing fiesta through slits in my mask. No one knows me, cares who my father is, or why I have no wedding ring. I wear the locked mouth of Death, but a small hole lets me swallow spiked Sangria and pulque - the gods' drink. Thick and clotted as saliva, it coats the tongue, refuses to go down -- then burns throat to chest. Like tormenta, the storm that shook through town: aftershock remains. Branches -- stunned -- cling in my hair. Earth trembles, not knowing why. Everyone eats, laughs, drinks against redblack sky, but huddles close. No one wants to be alone tonight, when the dead ride the ferry back to us. Pulque blazes down to my thighs, weakens my knees. I am not one of the dead - but I have never been this young, this desperate, toes gripping the mud. They bite into sugar skulls, chew pan de muerte, pull caramel into bony threads, devour chili'd chunks of cana. Burnt corn falls like teeth. Fried pork twists, tornado on a spit. Oil cracks: a child's cry. The last mariachi serenades a pack of red-eyed dogs. A young man strokes his mustache and stares as he guards a mound of rotting mango peels and bones - a shrine. A red-cloaked Devil bumps me, stinking beer. Almost midnight: they're coming, do you hear them? Ferry slices through water, scatters fish and garbage. Butterflies glimmer and cluster over our heads. We can't see them, can only hear whisper of wings, smell water, my mother's tears drawing near. A small hand rubs snot into her dress, touches me, palm up. Senora, she pleads. Madame Lady. I feel for my mask. They're here! Voices scream, long fingers grasp, noses suck me in. I grab her hand to keep from sinking in the mud. A vein of light slashes our touching fingers.
Nightfruits ~~~~~~~~~~~ I held the front door open and peeked out: wind smashed my face and chest, pushed me back but I rooted my feet, tried not to hear Mom singing behind me, or smell gold and green spices simmering in the agate pot. "We were nightfruits," she shouted over flamenco. "We bloomed in the dark!" Dad yelled, "Shut the door! I'm freezing!" I slammed it. Fast and hard. And stood on the porch. I searched the coiled and nubbed snow for a splash of fruit, glint of sun and blood. Pinkblack, silent, it waited for my rubber boots to crunch. Tim Unger hid at the corner, ready for ambush. Cars smoothed past, sealing ghosts inside, moving their heads to music I couldn't hear. They snapped, red as toreadors, as they turned the corner.
Mariekke ~~~~~~~~ So you can find me, she says, smiling behind her eyes, behind her knees. A scribbled map on a napkin flutters to the floor. She told me once as we stacked books: I hid in an attic in Amsterdam. "Like Anne Frank?" I mocked but she smiled, the same knee-jerking smile, and said, Anne was my friend. Like you. Max nudges me. "Every year the same: she hands out invitations to a birthday party she's throwing for herself." Such a good time we'll have: saltines, pickles and ginger ale. As we leave work, I pick up the fallen trail. "You're new here," says Jan, "don't know she's wacked, the map a joke, party a dream." Still at night I search for clues, landmarks, house, streetlight where time and space intersect. Leaves whisper, shoes beat time, woman screams. I don't know this corner, this house, but over watch repair and pawn shop, I hear her call: Come in, my friend! Come in and be warm! She is so much older in her home, leering eyes slanting into sin, browns and reds reaching back to dams, trains, forest. My teeth clack, so cold. She wraps a blanket around me, hoods me in and sings: Happy Birthday to my little girl. Now saltines! She smells burnt wax, the blanket horsy and fierce. Don't you- want- I'm up and panting --to-see- I race down stairs --my photos? -stars ticking --my friend- the wail, siren tracks me, pins me against the wall, pierces my wings-Anne.
I Wore White ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I wore white And he wore white too. I followed the road to the sea. My wedding? His funeral? Walked behind him, six paces, as if I were veiled, and not he. My husband, let me see your face. He didn't turn, walked faster. The muezzin called the faithful, but I am faith less, she of no faith that when he turns, he will restore the garden: gold pears and silver wet figs that dropped, one by one, blooming breasts into his waiting hand.
Honey Moon in the French Quarter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Just married?" she asks, brushing scarlet nails against your arm. You smile your secret sultan smile. Hands off! I wanted him a thousand and one nights ago when I was a girl and he entered my garden and hid in a tree with ripe fruits, watching his wife, the queen, open her robe to the naked slave and kneel before him. The king's thighs clenched around a branch. "Don't kill her," I begged, "come to me. I- I would never cheat on you." But his eyes burned through the next page. I tried to keep him there: beautiful, doubting, before he fell from the tree. The North Wind blew the pages-I kept him locked between my thighs- he bumped into me on the street, and I knew him at once. She sits on the counter and points long bare yellow legs to the floor, arches toes in gold sandals. You don't breathe until I grab your arm and pull you outside. It's raining, slow and thick as honey moon dripping down my breasts and belly. You push me against a wall, slam into me, again and again. "I don't want her, only you, do you hear, only you." Bourbon wells up in my throat, sax burns my ear, a cat yowls, wet wind stings.
Gypsy's Song ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Roland with his old man belly and stubborn short-shorts, Darryl pocked and stunted at twenty, and pretty Louis aka Twiggy. Oh yeah, and me. I read palms and wore large gold hoops. The boys called me Gypsy. The four of us ate at Rube's, darksweet Chinese. Crossed Hamilton Street, arm in arm, singing We Gotta Get Out of This Place. The white lights of Arner's Diner dazzled: all the leftovers were there, hunched over coffee and Mary's blueberry pie. Tyrone, A BLACK MAN. Charlie, the spy sleaze. Old painted, saggy tit Gladys. We slid into ripped seats, dragged on our cigs, flipped the pages of the jukebox - as if they'd changed the songs since last night. Roland chose It's a Man's Man's Man's World. Twiggy and I bumped hips bony as winter chickens. Debbie the slut stopped at our booth and held out her hand. Plump pink palm, stubby fingers like toes. I traced the love line - a smooth highway direct to Hollywood. Twiggy jeered: not without Sugar Daddy, Miss Girl. A cop walked in. Debbie scooted away, and we giggled through our fingers. "Hello Officer, and how are you this fine evening?" "Shut up, Roland! Rolie Roland," whispered Darryl. I leaned forward over my coffee and glimpsed my face in the mirror. Behind me: cop thighs, black belt, gun in holster. Fear jagged through me. A nickel bag and gram of crystal meth squeezed in my jeans pocket. James screamed: the world ain't nothin without a woman or a girl! "Amen!" cried Roland. Cop thighs moved on. I opened my palm: tires treading back and forth, not sure which way to go: lines that changed their mind midway, dead-ends, broken fjords, cracked wadis, routes that split, faded, reappeared on the frontier, near the edge of the world. "You're going to die before you're twenty-three," said Twiggy. I didn't look up. He needed my smile to keep him Twiggy, just as I needed them to keep me Gypsy - tightly pressed in a diner seat, smelling coffee and cigarettes, laughing at the crazy crisscross of roads, highways, streets and alleys that had led me to this moment, now, in the heart of my borrowed country.
Girl, Prince, Tower ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ She eats words as if they were untamed stars: eats words as if they were you, you a word, the word, first word, bending to hold you in her palm: grain of sand. Or -- imagine this. City street, rain glint. She runs, but you follow, touch her yellow slicker. Her face luminous. Oh Holly, you cry, enfold the cat and her in your arms. Or -- the blue woods -- she knew nothing, remembered less. Hid behind a fir and listened to you: strong-worded, fierce syllables rushing, a waterfall. She wanted to drown in you -- who taught her language -- Or -- watch her braid dreams, fling them out the tower as if they were hair. Sing notes that form a staircase. But hurry! The dwarfs pound through the woods, the witch poisons raspberries. Time's running out. You slice through hedges, bite off coils and webs until you come to the tower: her song, the dwarfs' whistle, witch's cackle -- you stare at the split ends, left to dangle in the mud: wish they were roads. Or -- there, where you stood: a tower of words. A squirrel, rat-eared, gnaws at the base. Pages, moth-eaten, drift over mice, already burrowing. The screech is unbearable, the sound of her pen -- scratching, scratching.
Freak ~~~~~ Snake-Tongued Man beckons from the mural, between World's Tiniest Woman and Two-Headed Raccoon. Their images unroll, a biology lesson in deformity and pain: Half-Rabbit-Half-Armadillo, Mummified Boy with Shrunken Head, Babies in a Jar, Pig with Elephant Trunk, Serpent Boy, and Scaly Woman - see her squirm and writhe to scratch herself in those hard-to-reach places! Raving Mad Drug Addict, purple-eyed with pointed Vulcan ears, laughs in lurid color while Monster Frog emits dragon flames - the tape belches, rewinds, tinny music starts, a man's voice blares: "Come One Come All, the Freak Show is here, fresh from its Triumphant Tour of America. Are you ready to be amazed? Are you ready to be stupefied? Come close, my friends, I have things to show you tonight - yes, you heard me right - things, I said, though you may call me cruel - but what will you say after you have paid your dollar and stood in front of Snake-Tongued Man and watched him lash out his forked tongue at you - haha, don't be scared, Ladies and Gents, it's all part of the show, a show that I consider the most exciting and daring in the world today. That's right, you heard me. Where else can you see human and animal oddities beyond your wildest imaginings? Where else but here, in Jack Frost's Show of Freaks - hush my mouth, we don't use that word anymore. You judge for yourself. Maybe you'll want to take the Two-Headed Cat home for a pet, but you will have to invest in two bowls - haha! Oh Ladies and Gents, we're all created under the same sun, the same god _" the voice drones. A fat man bumps into me, spills my birch beer. He's dread- locked, in vast jeans that sweep the ground. He doesn't see me: intent on the mural and the taped announcer, still extolling the wonders of the show we are about to see. Kids race past in blue light, mothers wheel strollers, motorcycle chicks and tattooed hillbillies. I smell funnel cake and frying meat, animals in a barnyard ("The World's Skinniest Pig - if you can see him and not weep, you need a heart transplant"), sicksweet smells, formaldehyde and manure, shoofly pie and cinnamon. It used to be a live announcer, a parade of humans who didn't quite fit the mold: remember? Bearded Lady? Oh lovely and Germanic with ice eyes, but that pesky mustache and beard chased away suitors. And Pygmy Boy, tiny and freckled, red roots of his hair peeking out from black dye. But most haunting was Rubberman: he twisted himself into coils and loops, Houdini of the body. The music grew louder and his dance more feverish. He pulled out his chest and let it snap back -- human rubber band - contorted arms and legs, bent them backwards and around, spun himself like a top, whirling whirling until I shut my eyes, and waited for the music to stop. The tent hushed and stilled, and I opened my eyes. Rubberman loomed in front of me, panting and smiling, sweat pouring down face and chest - redgold skin burnished and gleaming. A genie from a lamp - larger and more beautiful than any creature I'd ever seen. Touch me, he ordered. Giggles from the crowd. A gasp. Stomach clenched, I reached for the hairless magic chest -- pulsing, alive, a man. Don't be afraid, little girl, he said. I touched the tip of my index finger to his chocolate nipple, and the crowd in the dusty tent screamed. A dim sea of denim overalls, flushed cheeks, open mouths, braided beards and pockmarks. I tasted blood. Don't cry, he said. It's only me.
Flicka, Ricka, Dicka & The Dark Girl ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Who let this dark girl in? How did she get past the Guardian of the Gate? Behind her lurks the family: fat gypsy mother, baby at her breast, the father, tall and crooked, and scrawny kids who smell like mud. If the blonde girls enter her house, the borders will crumble, smear and crawl down the page, and they'll never find their way home. They hand her strawberries from their basket. Eat! they mumble. Take! they shudder - and stumble over their clogs to the next page, far from the night. Arm in arm, the blonde girls skip to a new adventure, safe in their cobbles and mortar. A hard town for a dark girl to seep through. I eat another strawberry before going in to share with the brood.
Dog Woman ~~~~~~~~~ In the mountains God sings. Listen, said Takame. I heard a howl. Dog Woman, he said, singing to her children. But her song cracked my bones, sizzled flesh. Yellow flower, sour, flaming. We knelt at the spot where she became woman. He burned her dog-skin here, said Takame. She came to him on four feet. When he gathered food, she swept and baked tortillas. He saw her shed the skin. Naked and gleaming, she rose high as the roof, taller: a star sparking walls with her nipples, fingers. He stole her dogcoat, set it on fire. She roared in pain, shook the earth, screamed while he fed her skin, piece by piece, to hungry flames. Until nothing was left. Mama! I called. The howl took a lifetime to emerge: blast through bones and flesh, explode in the yellow sky. Takame recoiled. I howled again and leaped.
Dad Discovers America ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I watch from across the mall: Dad reels, slaps his palm against Mr. Bulky's red heart window, as two teens push past him to get to CVS. Back then, we Americans swept forth, swallowed concrete in our silver and white '57 Chevy, never deviating an inch from our route. Mom and I wore polka dot dresses, Dad's dark glasses masked desert eyes. How many times down this road before we turned black and white? "Call me Penny," I announced, "or Ginny." My brother snorted, shoved a photo of a snake in my face. When I screamed, Mom yelled, "Daba tra'abuk!" and we slunk in the back seat. At the end of the road, out we tumbled- bursts of wild fruit, sea-salt and sweat. Last year I returned to Cape May, trolleyed down the loyal road--but at the last minute, my husband turned- before the splinter of boardwalk-Tom, the old waiter who smelled like fish, Taylor's Pork Roll, Skee-ball and tee-shirts. "No!" I cried. "That's not the way!" But he wrenched right, tore past the frayed wires, peeling boards, squinting sand. We stopped at a red light and stared: a walking street of shops and cafes, exploding tourists, a country parallel but never touching ours- I buy Dad a pretzel at Auntie Anne's. He chews slowly as we turtle-crawl across spinning black and white tiles. Last year he whirled me round and round in the pase doble. Now he presses against the wall. I touch his shoulder, he turns, holds out his hand, as if we are still dancing.
Cora ~~~~ - 1 - The Cora mask smells me, tracks me to this anthropologist's house in Mexico City. Try it on, she says, holding him up. He is grotesque, snake-eyed and fang-toothed, demons sprouting from his head. She claps the mask against my face. Dust motes explode, a glued feather stirs. I sneeze. Then all is silent. He waits. Slowly releases his paint fumes, horse hairs, resin and wood until I am lulled by the mask smell, until I lower my guard, and then he strikes: reptile flick, punctures my tongue. I gasp, he presses against my nose, eyes, expelling harsh black smoke. My tongue swells, nostrils jam up, he's everywhere: black smear killing dreams, hope. I want to die, will die--can't breathe-- with my last strength, push him off, both hands pinch, twist, throw him at her. Priceless mask, she says, smiling with horse teeth. Oh yellow world, I can't stay here. I never knew: now I know the smell of evil. But of course, she says, happy I understand at last. It is evil: the mask of the Jew. - 2 - In the desert is a gate that opens to a garden, if I can only find the key. I lost it years ago, when I was a child who still sang. In the aviary we sang as we worked, the songs of our fathers. But they frightened me with their furrowed wings, their iron pallets. I needed to move and see the world. I forsook the tribe that birthed me and became a nomad. No one knew me, yet in one land they draped a flag around me and bowed before me, called me saint but trapped me in a gold cage and ripped my feathers. I sang until my throat was scraped and dead, and I had no more voice. They starved me but a girl opened the cage. I croaked my thanks and hobbled away, could no longer fly. My voice is dead, one leg crushed. I roam the desert, searching for my lost tribe: only they remember what came before and who I am. - 3 - My crazy aunt, henna'd hair tangled and wild, bleeds through my childhood, follows me down city streets like the one I'm walking now and screams: Dirty Jew! At night I hate myself the way no one else can, and in the dawn, stare yellow-eyed at the oozing wall. Evil pricks me, a thousand pinpricks: how do I know the smell of evil? Every year the Cora name one man Jew. He wears the mask and plays the part, runs through town as the others chase him, beat him with sticks, leave him broken-- even dead--to pay for their sins. Until next year. The next Jew. The mask waits. The townspeople sin. Men fear. Women bleed. Every night I remove the mask but the smell burns my flesh, lashes me under the sun.
The Black Caf‚ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I saw you in the caf‚ through a black wash of light - lace-edged, filigree'd. The line of your throat hard and fresh as a branch I loved once. The parade marched past and through me, smashed me to the window - drums and horns and thighs like mountains. You looked up and saw a butterfly squashed against glass, a rare speciman caught, coded, crashed to earth in a tornado of wings and mango jolts. "You hurt my eyes," you said, "you burn my throat." Stand now and come to me: see my limbs stretched, eyes bug-large in terror. Stroke my wings with tender finger. You prefer me behind glass - veiled, gasping for air. The parade jangles and moans down the street: what is there to celebrate? My wings shredded mango Your finger trembling stay, stay - don't let me wake again.
Following Charlie ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Beyond him, across the street, the sky is not shattered. He fills my eyes, my ears, tolling his head back and forth, he howls like a trapped cat, eyes and mouth gaping, he sees me and screams, points at me and screams. The Salvation Army lady rings her bell, harder, my chest tightens. He brings a paper bag to his mouth, throws back his head, drinks. Years pass. He lowers the bag, blinks, moving his head to the bell, tongue like a clapper, forming words that aren't words, sounds of terror. In front of McCrory's 5 & 10, even my dreams leave me locked behind the gate. I was fourteen, I knew nothing. Dolls danced in department store windows, twirled in circles over and over, while a monkey banged his drums and a lion played a piano. Those nights Charlie and I soared through Congo and Amazon, we helped the poor, cured the sick. I was Cigarette, dancing barefoot on sand for the Foreign Legion. Charlie watched me like Aznavour, troubadour from Armenia, while I sang La Boheme to his record, stop and scratch and start again. I sing it by heart, in French, and the world is a door, the key between my teeth, held like a rose, walls fallen, shiver of waterfalls, birds clinging to my hair. This is the key Charlie dropped, yesterday, in front of Hickert's house. I fished it from the crack in the sidewalk when he left. Long brass, glittering against my palm. It opens his heart, I know this. I know he is not what he seems. Eyes and hair colorless. Short and frail, face so pale. The paper bag he carries under his arm. He is not what he seems. I have proof. The scrap of paper he dropped: Susan 434-3221. A man answered. He is a spy, I shout, my breath forming snowflakes that rust as they fall.
Chinatown Noir ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where red meets gold east west, wind crashes into moon, he chases me through Chinatown, past Hello Kitty and squirming squid, porcelain tea sets and smears of soy sauce, the fortune cookie factory next to Dim Sum Palace, opium dens and the alley where Sam Spade ducked from his enemies. Somewhere far away a man opens his mouth and a sea bursts forth - without fish but with deep hard longing - the Fifth Brother, or the Third? Ping swims past, in the boat with the eyes, on the Yang-tze River. Eyebrows - black slashes - V his forehead. Hair pulled back with chopsticks, so tight it pulls eyes and mouth. Lips painted red: an O of rage, spitting dragon flames. I call for help: Son #1, Lotus Master of the Fourth Way, Eddie the greasy waiter at Hop Po's. Sam Spade, bring your saturnine ass here to this alley, this corner, this concrete, this San Fran. Listen: I know the way out of Alcatraz. I've been here before, spent the night in a cell, dug my way under- ground, fighting sea, rats, knives - and I'm here to tell you how to make it out of this alley: turn around slowly, spit the toothpick out - you're not John Garfield - walk fast my brother - fast, faster - past the corner where red meets gold, porcelain tea pours over Charlie Chan's head, Buddha grins jade and ivory, past where egg rolls become cannoli. Go to Turk Street. Slow down. Pull up your collar, stick the toothpick back in, light a cigarette, throw the chopsticks from your hair and flatten the rolls and ripples with a gray fedora. Wait outside a building until someone comes out. Fight him for his keys. Set up shop on sleazy Turk, drink bourbon and sit back, shoes on the desk. Watch the light slant through the blinds and dance across the walls. Wait till seven. Open the door. When Gary Put His Hand On My Knee that day at the races, or football game, and it was bitter cold, or sweethot summer night, and his eyes were blue--or brown, it was crowded, or pretty empty-I remember clearly: we sat on the bleachers, he stared straight ahead, watching the action while I watched him: streaked khaki hair, pockmarked cheek-pale and ruddy, straight little nose, profile proud and strong-as if he knew he was posing for me: beautiful boy with his blazing right ear and shaggy hair. We didn't talk much, did we? If we did, what did we talk about? You loved racing cars, and you had a huge Harley-Davidson. Here was the bet: one fall day, it rained people and gold leaves, and we were high-or am I blurring you with someone else? Did we get high, Gary, or were you before high, before trees died and wept leaves? I danced on that tear-filled road while you said, "Let's go for a ride." Somehow we had a horse. Your bike purred. The horse gleamed redbrown, auburn as my hair, the bridge of leaves that stretched to me, peering at them that fall day. The choice shivered through the leaves: I knew it was life or death. I had to choose the right one. Horse: huge eye, tail flicker, subtle snort, waiting. Harley: a man's toy shiny as the horse, black and sleek, growling even though it stood still. My heart beat fast. He lowered his hand to my knee- didn't touch, not yet: I stared in agony, his large square hand, looming like fate, a heavy tear. When the bike roars to a start, I put my arms around his waist, press my face against his back, and breathe in his neck, hair, leaves and woods. The horse stands regal, unblinking, as we hurtle past. Gary lowers his palm to my knee. His hand burns through my jeans: dry leaves burst into flame. Merman You come to me in rain, when the world stops in green hush. Glide to me, tilt your head, wait. I don't want to see you, don't want to open again: already the black beads inside ache, already I am sinking. You are coiled tight, locked in your own grief, rough-carved and grating as raw silk across thorns. But when you move, your tail splits in two, winds around me. Hair, lashes dripping against wet flowers and bark. Rain starts in a torrent- lime-hard, greener than the hush. You grip the marble pillar with both hands. Your knuckles are broad and ancient: I want to suck them, bite charcoal-red fingers. Every part of you callused and scarred, dammed shut. You close your eyes, press forehead against marble. It must feel cool, must make you forget me, standing in cold rain-from tropics to Arctic. I creep along the trees and hide from you. In mud and lime juice, I crawl, crushing plums and slugs. My hair grips my skull the way you grip the pillar. Are we dead? alive? what do you want? Your shadow blocks the sky, you squint down through a veil of water. Your tail shoots out and wraps around me, drags me back. I thought I forgot how to swim without breathing - but you never forget. What I must remember: you loved me first. Whatever you say now, you came after me: you needed me.
After the Rain ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Stars pulled me to Catemaco, where monkeys are pigs, and witches sell drugs, umbrella leaves roof us, but I smell rust: dreams warped and twisted, curling in defeat. The male witch hits me with leaves dripping rose water. First he took off wool poncho, then tight gray jacket. I brooded in the doorway to his hut: What's the difference between a witch and a drug dealer? Eating the monkey god, or fried pork? Pigs squirm pinkly in mud. Yet I stand weightless as wet leaves flap, brush like mosquitos against my flesh. Wealth, he croons. Power. Long life, happiness. He sounds bored, my fate of no interest. Once I watched a monkey through bars. I laughed: he grimaced. I messed my hair: he patted his head. I gave him the finger: he gave it back. The leaves have worked their magic: I've turned to mold, soggy loaf left in the rain too long. The witch presses a brass monkey deep in my palm: The last one. Like me. Like you.
Imagining Marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ... I'm a queer in San Francisco, I'm a woman riding the metro after ten... I'm everyone, I'm no one...you're all wearing a mask, you just don't know it... --Subcomandante Marcos gay club marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marcos strips down to tiny black briefs, but keeps on the ski mask. Makes a great show of lighting a pipe through the slit in his mask, and puffing as he dances for us, Army fatigues crumpled down to his work boots. By the time he lifts his arms above his head and weaves his hips around, we're all yelling, "Take it off, Marcos!" Every last one of us, but they want his cock, while I want the face. cabanas marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marcos enters the Hospices Cabanas in Guadalajara, with its thirty-two courtyards, and he is transported back to a Mexico he never knew, that exists in his grandmother's tales. He thinks: if someone opened my mind now, he would find worlds superimposed on each other-a dig uncovering yet another buried town, points where streets intersect, you enter one building and exit another, where the green farm of Erongaricuaro turns into the park of Chapultepec in Mexico City, where you enter a synagogue in Brooklyn and find yourself in the convent on the Via Dolorosa where Pontius Pilate judged Jesus. And if you follow the gray tiles over layers of dirt, you find yourself in a mosque, intricately bordered with mosaics that wind in an endless dance, opening onto a small enclosed courtyard- green, hushed, smelling of oranges- and before that sends you off again, you grip a marble pillar, take a deep breath. You are here. Cabanas. Guadalajara. Mexico. America. soldier marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Words. Nothing but words. When the truth is the pillar you still grip, round and smooth against your cheek, startling as the icy mountain stream you waded with your fellow soldiers- all laughing, splashing, rifles held up high to keep them dry. A flowering tree reached towards you. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While everyone joked, trying not to think of what would happen soon, if not tonight then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then the day after, you held up your rifle with one hand, and with the other, strained towards the tree. Fingers outstretched, harder, harder, knowing you had to have that flower, if you didn't-- terrible things, better not think- Frigid clear water swirled between your legs-- uniform trousers and boots soggy, clinging to your flesh, to the rocks. You touched the tiny white-pink blossom, pulled with all your strength, captured it. Almost fell in your relief. The others still fooling around, no one noticed you cradling the flower in your palm, breathing it in, laughing sharply at the insane beauty and sweetness, and pressing it inside your pocket. Wet, fresh and wild, it bloomed against your dying heart. biblical marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rain stick. Tiny clay flute. He plays with rocks, stones, drums. Ice splinters, a waterfall cascades. Footsteps thump and approach. He beats palms of hands flat against leather tom-toms. Blows into an enormous seashell- song of fog and mist-he remembers the ram's horn, blown at Yom Kippur. Ever since he was a child, the long, penetrating wail of pain carries him to a hillside in the Bible. He stands next to a shepherd and silently stares at the red setting sun. savior marcos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Night, alone in his room on La Paz, he plays the clay flute. Piercing notes float in a wave through the open window, over the city. Watching them take shape--bubbles blown from a child's pipe, escaping through the window, he thinks: we're an island, and my song will keep us afloat until the next tormenta reaches into my heart and yanks a chord, plays it loud and true. Standing at his window, he watches the peaceful wave of music drift over rooftops and down the street, on people's heads and through their arms and legs, and they begin to smile, not knowing why. Only he knows, standing in the dark, hidden by the shadows. The effort to play tires him. But he can't stop, and he knows he can't stop. In bed, eyes wide open in the dark, staring at the mustard ceiling, the tormenta rages, battering him like an ancient wooden ship, cracked by roaring waves until at dawn, grounded in the sand, he closes his eyes, and blessedly, feels and hears nothing. All Poems Copyright (c) 2001 by Ruth Knafo Setton
Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
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The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
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. REMEMBERY: EPYLLION IN ANAMNESIS (1996), poems by Michael R. Collings . DYNASTY (1968), Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . THE WIZARD EXPLODED SONGBOOK (1969), songs by KJ Gerken . STREETS (1971), Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . BLOODLETTING (1972) poems by Klaus J. Gerken . ACTS (1972) a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . RITES (1974), a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . FULL BLACK Q (1975), a poem by KJ Gerken . ONE NEW FLASH OF LIGHT (1976), a play by KJ Gerken . THE BLACKED-OUT MIRROR (1979), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . JOURNEY (1981), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . LADIES (1983), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . FRAGMENTS OF A BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1984), poems by KJ Gerken . THE BREAKING OF DESIRE (1986), poems by KJ Gerken . FURTHER SONGS (1986), songs by KJ Gerken . POEMS OF DESTRUCTION (1988), poems by KJ Gerken . THE AFFLICTED (1991), a poem by KJ Gerken . DIAMOND DOGS (1992), poems by KJ Gerken . KILLING FIELD (1992), a poem by KJ Gerken . BARDO (1994-1995), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . FURTHER EVIDENCES (1995-1996) Poems by Klaus J. Gerken . CALIBAN'S ESCAPE AND OTHER POEMS (1996), by Klaus J. Gerken . CALIBAN'S DREAM (1996-1997), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . THE LAST OLD MAN (1997), a novel by Klaus J. Gerken . WILL I EVER REMEMBER YOU? (1997), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . SONGS FOR THE LEGION (1998), song-poems by Klaus J. Gerken . REALITY OR DREAM? (1998), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . APRIL VIOLATIONS (1998), poems by Klaus J. Gerken . THE VOICE OF HUNGER (1998), a poem by Klaus J. Gerken . SHACKLED TO THE STONE, by Albrecht Haushofer - translated by JR Wesdorp . MZ-DMZ (1988), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . DARK SIDE (1991), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . STEEL REIGNS & STILL RAINS (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . BLATANT VANITY (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . ALIENATION OF AFFECTION (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . LIVING LIFE AT FACE VALUE (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HATRED BLURRED (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . CHOKING ON THE ASHES OF A RUNAWAY (1993), ramblings by I. Koshevoy . BORROWED FEELINGS BUYING TIME (1993), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HARD ACT TO SWALLOW (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . HALL OF MIRRORS (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . ARTIFICIAL BUOYANCY (1994), ramblings by Igal Koshevoy . THE POETRY OF PEDRO SENA, poems by Pedro Sena . THE FILM REVIEWS, by Pedro Sena . THE SHORT STORIES, by Pedro Sena . INCANTATIONS, by Pedro Sena . POEMS (1970), poems by Franz Zorn All books are on disk and cost $10.00 each. Checks should be made out to the respective authors and orders will be forwarded by Ygdrasil Press. YGDRASIL MAGAZINE may also be ordered from the same address: $5.00 an issue to cover disk and mailing costs, also specify computer type (IBM or Mac), as well as disk size and density. Allow 2 weeks for delivery. Note that YGDRASIL MAGAZINE is free when downloaded from Ygdrasil's World-Wide Web site at http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken.
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