Missionary Effect

As Gabriela Reads Baudelaire (I)

 

 

If your wallet bulges like MacArthur’s ego

and you expect to dine tonight

 

with a companion affable and fit

for sharing a 1967 Chateau d’Yquem

 

then “you forget everything—

But there are days when the insults

 

of all the idiots fell your mind”

until a beggar’s chance for breakfast

 

hinges upon geometric angles

traversing connections between red

 

and green traffic lights at

the intersection of Sacramento and Clay

 

whose N-E corner props up a father’s palm

cupping wrinkles beneath a gray sky—

 

Once, I smothered inch-high candles floating

with de-stemmed lilies in crystal water bowls—

 

Sometimes the dimmest flame holds

the power to irradiate the Ilokos mountains

 

by torching suppressed energy, like my hands’

desire to load all 24 rifles awaiting commission

 

from my father’s and brothers’ gun racks

after learning coal and diamond miners

 

sacrifice canaries

to test for the existence of lethal gas

 

in subterranean caverns—I was looking

for the English name of a tiny bird

 

with a purple breast and orange beak—

Why must a new vocabulary

 

require me to hand out hacked bits

of my “Innocence”

 

which Mother once preserved

so that all of her daughters could

 

inherit this would-be-paradise called

“Earth”—the pages of my inheritance

 

continue to crumble between black leather

embossed in tattered gold as “Holy Bible”—

 

Wedding Veil

            While Gabriela Watches A Vow Occur

 

 

If it was woven

from man-made fabric

 

whose process increased

atmospheric carcinogens

 

its transparency

and skeletal structure

 

still would tantalize

a man into fondling

 

the air a half-inch

over a blushing cheek—

 

I recall the scent

of milk

 

between your

testicles—

 

I swear my memory

is not influenced

 

by the cream

effluvium

 

you used to remedy

my thirst—

 

“You have become cruel

to please me”—

 

I shall paint a floor

with my hair

 

until I am backed

into a corner—

 

When you approach

to grasp my throat

 

your footprints shall brand

“gestures” to complete my painting—

 

Step heavy:

“no such thing

 

as a sonafabitch

in this poem”—

 

Only beauty,

Beauty—

Ellipsis

            As Gabriela Stares Down An Empty Boulevard

 

                                                (--after the paintings of Eve Aschheim)

 

 

If I believe

any bird circling

 

over a parched valley

casts a vulture’s shadow

 

then purple precedes

red as much as

 

red precedes purple

and walls define space

 

like a scratch

creating a stage—

 

Under a stone slab

lies simulacra—

 

Simulacra lies

despite the “forlorn”

 

thus “more affecting”

limp carnations

 

shadowing alabaster—

I am searching

 

for a frontier not doomed to obsolescence

for a perfectly-choreographed lightning storm—

 

I am craving

with a bent spine

 

for an ellipsis

bulging

 

to imply arrival

not departure or division—

 

The Effort

            As Gabriela Considers The Price She Pays

 

 

History sculpted

my current face

 

its complexion rougher

than pineapple skin

 

Weren’t you the advocate

of sunscreen?

 

That was a narrative

device, I tell my Muse

 

mocking me, smoking

through lips smeared

 

with “Geisha” lipstick

while jousting with nights

 

of metallic teeth

at the West End Bar

 

when jazz still

rained and reigned—

 

I was poised to succumb

before radiance

 

to discover if

light can be held—

 

Curiosity taught me

to bait

 

handcuffs and whips—

After I fed the blind

 

-fold with sodden thighs

and sunset cheeks

 

I learned to forego

sunscreen and other

 

filters of illumination—

When my Muse turns

 

serious, I hear

Commitment costs—

 

If radiance penetrates

to enable its caress

 

the price can never reach

blasphemy—

 

Torch me

as the sun hides

 

against what I barter

for Lucidity—