Say this body
Drawn from occurence.

*

Save this body
Drowning in valences.

*

Eyes wide, mouth
Open, wings spread.

*

Who, what, where,
When, how, why?

*

Pronouns can't dance.
Pronouns won't apologize.

*

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Open Palm Press (an imprint of Meritage Press), is pleased to announce the series:

Hay(na)ku for Haiti

-- a fundraiser for Haiti, edited by Eileen R. Tabios and blessed by support from chapbookpublishing.com.

Poets who write in the hay(na)ku form (about which more information is available at http://haynakupoetry.blogspot.com) have consented to create hay(na)ku for helping Haiti's recovery efforts. The results are to be released as "pocket poem booklets" by Open Palm Press. Each will be sold for $3.00, reflecting the hay(na)ku's three lines, with all proceeds to be donated for Haiti relief.

The first five of the series are:

#1: PARTICLE AND WAVE and FROM THE CHAIR, two hay(na)ku sequences by Jean Vengua
#2: On A Pyre: An Ars Poetica by Eileen R. Tabios
#3: Hay(na)ku for Haiti by Tom Beckett
#4: when the earth moves by Lars Palm
#5: After René Depestre’s “My Definition of Poetry”, as translated by Edwidge Danticat, with lines at the end by Lafcadio Hearn by John Bloomberg-Rissman

Over time, more releases will occur as it is anticipated that Haiti's relief requirements will be prolonged and deep. Poets interested in exploring the hay(na)ku through this fundraising effort may contact the series editor at MeritagePress@aol.com

"H for H" booklets are lovingly produced by chapbookpublishing.com (http://chapbookpublisher.com/) on lilac-colored paper to fit, at 2.75" x 4.5 X 2", on an open palm -- ideal for giving engagements.

To order some or all of the series, please send checks made out to "Meritage Press" for $3 per booklet and send to

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

For more information: MeritagePress@aol.com

*****

Windows

One finds
oneself by
repeating oneself.

Others find
you in
your reiterations.

*

I Am Not Protected

I am not protected
Against 500,000 definitions.

I am a mouth
And an asshole.

I am a series
Of interruptions.

I am a vanishing point
Of semblance.

I am left over
And left out,
The remainder of
Something divided.

I am too much
To believe.




I am you
And you are me.

I am leaking.
I am a witness.

I am listening.

I am too many
Assumptions.

I am
No one.

I am (pick
Your descriptor).

I am not
Italicized, not
Enclosed within
Quotation marks,
Or am I?


I am
A price
Of being.

I am
A type
Of (fill
In the blank).

I am the product
Of many collaborations.

I am
Already forgotten.

I am
A broken fence.

I am defences.

I am
All appetite.

I am
Yawning widely.

I am
An unsteady beat.

I am
A kind
Of understudy.

I am
Three chords
And a chameleon.

I am
A robot.

I am
A lined notebook.

I am aroused
By the unknowable.
(You, for example,
Dear Reader.)

I am
A sentence.

I am
A problem,
An inconclusive postscript.

Left work 2 hours early today. Wanted to get a start on another round of snow shoveling. Also just wanted to be away from work. After almost 33 years in the same job, I have a level of comfort but am also a bit weary. Sometimes I think that working in local government is a sign of my commitment. Sometimes I think it is a sign that I should be committed (to, you know, a mental institution).

There's so much anti-government sentiment out there right now. Sentiments rational and not. It is not tyrannical for government to insist on environmental health standards and food safety. It's not tyrannical to say: hey, think about your neighbors and those fellow citizens you don't know.

*

Read Don Delillo's latest the other day. Now I want to see 24 Hour Psycho.

*

Award Porn

The Poet
moves toward

a microphone

and into
the film frame.


*

When you
asked to see
me naked,

I knew what
you wanted
was for me
to see you.

*

Acceptance is
never absolute.

*

Shuffling papers,
improvising a joke.

*

Passion Fruit

A sexual fantasy
Models the terms
Of an argument.

*

So-called simple binaries
Aren’t so simple:
Male-female,
Emptied-filled,
Possessor-possessed,
For example.

*

Derrida’s notion
That all others
Are absolutely other
Seems relevant here.

*




I’m a continuum.
Are you?

*

We need
To ask
One another
More questions.

*

Is desire
A hole
Or voice
Or conflagration?

*

Beauty is not
A rare thing, Ezra.
Compassion is.



*

I/You:
At least
2 rivers.

*

What do
You want?

Who are
You, anyway?

*

First person
(always plural).

*

When is
Being saying?




When is
Saying knowing?

*

The music
Of smooching.

*

What’s
A performance?

Is a dildo
Merely a noun,
A banana
Only a fruit?

*

Dear _____,

Don’t know



How to
Respond to
Your inquiry.

What do
You want?

Sincerely,

Blank

*

Can’t imagine
At this
Moment any
Thing other
Than this:

A public
Speaker begins
By saying
That it


Is available
For sexual
Activity at
The conclusion
Of its remarks.

*

Remarks is
A strange word.

*

Have come
To abhor
Quotation marks.

*

Is grammar Grandma?

Grandma, by the way, rocks!

*


Who wants
To be
Entered
By whom?

Who wants
To enter whom?

*

How intertwined are
Art, religion, desire?

What gets warshopped?

*

Can we
Exchange scenarios?

Call me you.

*




What belongs
To what?

How does
One decide?