Paper.
The howl of the last person to put their pencils in their pencil box.
In this truth, I experience.
Paper within paper.
You could boil it.
And boil everything gone.
And eat the leftover mashed paper.
I have several sparkly pens.
They are just so nice.
If I could write for a few hours at a time…
I would turn off the stove and order take out.
Splashing around in the words.
Laugh and turn the paper into a crumpled ball.
I don’t think anyone really does these things.
The weariness, the scribbles.
Paper strains all water, if it gets dunked in.
I miss my sister.
She likes things like magazines, and books.
And me.
I’m a paper mache girl!
Wild, and made of scraps.
Looks real, so real.
All that paper can be.
Dramatic denim blues
Shredded like teal tears
Nothing to lose but blood
Too broken to face fears
Experiences emerald emerge
Like a ghost from within
Refurbishing old cemetery poems
Papers fly like drones
What am I to you
An old art or a new heart
Full of prophecy and propaganda
Created in His Image
I think teal heals
But nope that’s user error
My brain explains in terror
Only the blood can do that
Grandma’s face on a paper mache’ dog
What could be better? Nothing she thought.
Her overfed dog looks a bit like a stuffed hog.
We could not believe what the sculpture brought.
Behind grandma’s back we laughed our petootsies off.
In front of her face tears ran, as we tried not to cough.
It was the craziest thing I had ever seen, no contest.
She left it to me, for I was the one who lied the best.
Gorgeous origami dress made of paper but not mache’
It is colorful and bright, with art so clever and gay.
I watch her walking toward me and my cousin May.
Wondering if she and that dress might blow away.
I have fallen in love with a winged dragon alebrijes,
Have to buy it of course, is it signed?
What artisian created this piece of bright gorgeousness?
I look for a signature.
This phantasmagorical creature has none.
No matter.
She is from Oaxaca, the ultimate home of the alebrijes.
Pedro Linares had a fever in the 1940’s.
His fever dreams turned into fantastical creatures.
Made first of papier-mache, painted in Zapotec patterns
Circles, dots and stripes.
Did he know he was starting something big
when he made up the word alebrijes?
Colorful folk art made more famous by
artisians like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Arturo Cabellero
Alebrijes are hybrid creatures carved in wood, painted in
bright colors.
Representing animal totems or familiars,
they are part of the pop culture of Day-of-the-dead parades.
Horns representing earth, wings representing air,
fins representing water and dragons representing fire.
It makes sense I am completely drawn to the winged dragon.
*Image of Freedom Pub
Freedom Pub
Marred fictions of emus, ostriches
dip their heads neath, were hailed
by Ancient Rome's false divination,
of individuals, whose conquest of
enshrining their implied role.
Emancipated exacters, whereto,
the subjugators of the unlearned
majority, daily context by untruths,
orientations hard-pressed, by
tainted thumbs of paperwork,
loads conveniently,
mache for obvious design.
Decaying precursors demonocracy,
aptitudes knotting promotes,
a panache promenade of quilted
quids, as characters clash with
reality quarrels, as a shoreline
of sculpted castled sands, drift to
its emptiness of their costly
noted, S.O.S.
The absence of freedom is a true
reinvention for the masses, to
rummage and further wander, its
lineage of class enumeration
liken to some zombie apocalypse,
clueless beginning.
Lo and behold, its keepers adrift,
salty surges hath rise o'er, the
fresh living waters.
2023 January 07
*HM*
Freedom Pub
~~Joe Maverick: Judged 2023 January 09
Ocher and quince wads
pack gaps in particleboard walls.
Yellow newspapers underlay linoleum.
The apartment is smeared by nicotine
When it rains, a paper-Mache atlas of a blotched sky
can be read on the ceiling.
The window-sill slants, he dares not lean out.
He listens to street fights; imagines gore
seeping into inky basement wells.
Saturday nights bleed into Sunday. Sometime
amid the gray hours he decides to leave,
to wander vomit blitzed alleys
to search a doorstep and steal a Sunday paper,
then he returns to the grimy room
to read of better places
where better crimes get clean away.
He has a girlfriend, one he sees only once a week,
they sit on the narrow bed reading the news.
She tells him that her apartment has thin walls,
that at night strangers scratch upon them
as if writing to her.
Finally He lands a job in a hotel as a night porter.
His allotted room is pure white and sterile,
more a cell than a living space.
If he puts the light on, all that white hurts his eyes,
in time he gets used to it. His mind slowly
sheds layers of brick-dust and smudged print.
Lost in this quicksand of serenity
caught in a death grip I begin to sink;
Falling deep inside I can’t find the edge
trapped within a web of thick emotion;
Is it me or is it your residue
staining my face with this outlandish smile?
Peace feels foreign and uncomfortable;
I kind of like this paper mache mask,,
each layer hardens applied long enough
to change my face into a serene state.
Differences are born in skin, blood, pride, and envy
Each scratch upon the artist’s page
Each flaw etched in black
Each scream plotted in every line
Anyone is allowed to create
So why must we create such ugly things?
Torn and stitched
Flayed and taped
Nothing made whole or complete
But recycled from garbage
Made to look human
Drawn with non-dominant hands
Messy collections of flesh and hatred
Am I truly nothing more than how others have made me?
Finding recycled parts of ourselves in others
Reminded of how beautiful we could have been
How gorgeous the world could have built us
Yet, rotting away in a shell of borrowed sins
Smiles plastered on like paper-mache
Like a doll modeled to fit aesthetics
Stuck high on a dusty shelf,
I sit with limbs stiff and empty
Waiting for the day my creator gifts me my own share
Of skin and blood
It appears to be a smile
Adorning my facial features
Until the mask peels off
Revealing tears rolling down my cheeks
It's easy to parade a facade of strength
Despite feeling weak deep down
But eventually the cracks appear
In the towering monolith I'd like to pretend to be
And when it all comes crumbling down
What was it all for
When every endeavor and ambition
Leads to heartbreak and suffering
They say trials and tribulations
Should make you stronger
But I'm tired of quests to build character
With my paper mache personality
So easily set on fire when things get tough
For every step I take
It feels like it's so easy to fall back
And while I've momentarily defeated my demons
They're swarming below a narrow bridge
That could collapse at any moment
And I'm just so terrified
When I finally get to the other side
I'm going to ask
What was it all for
Se te yè dimanch
Jou fèt Sen Valanten
Nou wè kap pase anpil fanm chik ki gen
Ranch anfòm, yo abiye an woz e wouj
Kote anpil anmourez kap mache men nan la men
Menm jan ak aktè sou enfrawouj
Yo tap souri ak ri anpil. Kòm si yo tap pati
Yo pran direksyon pou yal patisipe nan yon bèl seans nan paradi
Manman Lanati te an woz e wouj tou, kalm e an lapè.
Le lan denmen aprè fèt Sen Valenten
Bagay yo pa rete menm jan
Jodi a, nou tande apèn mo dou sa 'Mwen renmen ou'
Kap repete nan lari ki trè pezib. Tout moun
Te aji kòm moun fou yo te ajite kòm si yon bonmb
Nan kèk segond pral eklate tout bilding ak kay nan vil la
Oh! Bagay yo chanje ak zetwal e gwo kout peta
Nan syèl la plen moun ki pè, ki gen kè sere ak nwaj yo ki brouye
Lanmou kontinye defye letènite ak espontaneite
Ki dire sèlman kèk èdetan ki pase vit, pasajè e efemè
Apre fèt la, pafwa se yon defèt ki ki penib ak yon lagè ki anmè kwè fièl.
P.S. Pou site pwovèb ayisyen sa: 'Aprè bal tanbou lou'.
Translation in Haitian creole: The Next Day After The Feast Of Saint Valentine's Day.
Copyright © fevriye 2021, Hébert Logerie, Tout dwa rezève.
Hébert Logerie se otè plizyè koleksyon powèm
Renmenm kounye a pandan ke
Mwen ka renmen ou an retou
Renmenm kounye a kant, a volonte
Mwen ka limen epi etenn dife an
Renmenm kounye a pandan, ankò
Mwen ka respire fasil kom yon chantè
Renmenm kounye a pandan ke
Mwen ka wè bote ou byen klè
Pa tann demen oswa yon lòt jou
Lè mwen pa ka wè lakansyèl yo ankò
Lèm pa ka mache pou kont mwen sou twotwa a
Ak lè mwen pa ka santi bon freshè le maten
Pa jis renmenm 'nan Jou Sen Valenten
Renmenm tou mèm lè kem vinn devye
Renmenm kounye a oswa jamè
Pou mwen ka beni ak chans san fen
Kèlkeswa eta mwen ak atitid mwen
Kontinye rete dosil e trete ak jantiyès
Nanm mwen, kè mwen
Ak kò mwen, anvan kem di orevwa.
P.S. Tradiksyon 'Love Me Now Or Never'.
Copyright © Fevriye 2022, Hébert Logerie, Tout dwa rezève
Hébert Logerie se otè plizyè koleksyon pwezi.
In loving memory the saga goes,
or so they say when feint reminder culls a piercing interlude.
Remnant of an unfinished sentence,
broken shadow haunt awash with grief,
snapshot at the edge of a well.
Parachute of blinding insight on queue or on song,
paper mache angel deep within.
Verses, scrolls, smudges from that pink enamel claw,
whose back fold clip appearance left one reeling,
like some
tree house dweller rattled by a swooping hawk.
Gimlet sipping voyageur
adrift on ice pack yacht,
in need of solace,
yet wishing it to the bottom of his rusty bucket list.
Fragile human being torn apart,
funeral bound,
that once upon a time surreal biker skirting mountains.
A priori stunt man metaphysically divine on rocky ledge,
dare devil prayer when it suits.
Feat performance activist a sleight of hand jester,
yet despite this vapid mask of dumb amnesia,
he wanders blindfold down
an alpine peak while chasing after dim and distant keepsake
Date posted :31st January 2022
The frosty men of Company mine two thousand and sixty-three
Were way ahead in futuristic thinking than the likes of me.
They decided to disguise themselves in photos on the wall.
I remember seeing the first one in 1985, a gentle fall.
They were wearing frog heads, formed out of paper Mache’
It made them look debonair, fanciful, and particularly fey.
In the tradition they took like-minded shots in ninety-two.
They wore giraffe heads for this photo, one was painted blue.
Why do they always hide themselves in their photos Uncle Will said.
They do not want people to mourn them or be sad when they’re dead.
They want their survivors to smile and say “Look at that!”
Which is why this year we have photos shopped on each face a cat.
Its shape was humanish
sounds and gestures could convince
the similarities could confuse
but echoes travelled through
slight was less than before
could have been so more
but nothing at its core
still it filled the space
the paper Mache puppet
twists and turns
bends and breaks
crackled and crinkled
looking in the dead doll eyes
nothing in here
no surprise
Related Poems