Not one soldier

but four

held the girl

down, the grip

tight as protests,

as the one who watched

lunged to claim

his prize. The girl

barely twelve, the soldiers

ordinary citizens now.

In Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy

of a little girl with extraordinary imagination

she could draw the way out of her prison

with chalk (first the outline of door, then

a slight teasing of stones

to push back the barrier

between here and the preferred

elsewhere) the world as she knew it

before she was shot dead

by her stepfather

was a world, given a ( Read more... )

Penniless and facing eviction,

Billie Holiday slipped into a jazz joint

with Travellin’ All Alone

and reduced the audience to tears.

Did I love as much

as you thought you did?

The stud next to me

belted out a Faye Wong’s number

in the original key.

Then an Anita Mui’s

about grief and the letting go.

The doctor said you could

die in five years.

Would I ( Read more... )

Parte Premiere

Un film par Andre Techine, avec les participations de Emmanuelle Beart, Michel Blanc et le beau homme Johan Libereau. Ce film raconte une histoire de l'epidemic AIDS en France.

After the breakup

with the guy you were dating while your already

eroding affection for me

was yet to be revealed, as in a confession of trespass

willingly committed, you broke down from the burden

of a rejection you never expected - But could you, in all honesty,

blame him for the fear

of contamination? Could anyone? - if ( Read more... )

Yi Sheng just informed me that three of my poems have been selected to be read at this year's Contradiction. Hmmm...

i

He stood in the middle of the aisle, eyes cast down

and closed, as if asleep, but swaying

as if a rhythm inside had taken over

the aged body, and the body was listening

as it had never listened before:

Do not… Do not… The spell

seemed to be working.

He was surrounded by breaths

of which his own was or had become

a forgotten detail

a speck

on ( Read more... )

Beginners in prayer, we

may say, are those

who draw the water

from the well.

St. Teresa of Jesus, The Similitude of the Watered Garden

Ceremony: Four Impressions

i

By the lake: shelter

shadow

built

by fire. Despite

all stillness       the waves

summon us -

The moon

a blind eye

describes

the wide expanse        ( Read more... )

Inspired by Andrew Holleran's heartbreaking classic gay romance "Dancer from the Dance".