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Roxane Aristy Poem
to my son, Tito
A handful of sand in the angel's palm,
how often you strummed and sifted the metaphor
of Long Beach (since you were four and rolled
and unrolled and jotted down the specks of time
as if you knew what was behind the flimsy skies
that threw your quantum song asunder).
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
THE IMMORTAL
“Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.”
Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree
You will go to the land of Oblivion to remember. You will bring in the hands the faithful document of your calligram and the children's bread, as always, under the arm. You will turn to see, and there will not be a column of salt that will martyrize you the rest of the way. Your map is the snow, but, it is in the forest's fire that the Silverstein's tree awaits you, on its stump, sit down, your feet burn, your heart goes out through your mouth. Do not be afraid to take it out and lull it like a meek bird that trembles wounded. These things are and were written, but not as you will imagine the journey to the center of the seed. Go with peace, the root of your flesh and my flesh is hollow. Sometimes you will see orchids grow from their venom, but don't be afraid to take them to your chest and rub them as a symbol of your purity, they are helpless, they wither. Don't believe me a single word, shut me up with your back and follow the voice of the river peeking in the distance. Upon arrival, observe the water twitter, and the water birds that simulate fish but that nobody has seen and you will doubt. Perhaps it is an illusion, a deadly rant that collapses to mourn over the grave of heaven. A cold, cold in the neck, which strangles in the brain stem, and yes, produces a fine rain that transcends ghostly pain, and there, incline to its throbbing. Don't leave, the night waits intermittently, it loves you, it needs you in its orbit because you know its tunnels and without wings you fly. But it is not all. The absolute flash of a star at death is that; a poem that opens in solitude, in loneliness, and then, who reads?
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
When I reached the edge of the abyssal night,
in plain view of the condensation of stars,
when "us" was impossible
to carry rolled in my school backpack,
and it all became a fact,
without step back,
the conversion of yesterdays
closed in my bones,
It no longer mattered how I felt about
my crowning
that fetus in a beaten belly,
helplessly birthing
into a deafening white noise...
When all is set and done
there is a crossing,
at the bottom of a creek
into yet another unreal future.
I'm about to take a leap
into the unknown
into the void remotely
here
writing you a poem.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
To Jules Verne
A man feeling drowse at the top of the mountain, fell asleep.
He dreamed dreams
emanating from floods of seas.
In remote droughts,
he gave his fruit of smoke
on a simple altar.
Curd quartz opened
solidifying thousands of stamens,
they glowed
like the warm reflection of the stars on the sand,
the man kept close watch of the r.e.m. hour.
life is the strife of one baptized
in the depths of all his memories,
yet he forgets before awakening.
Founding himself face to face
with another man holding a frozen fish
and a bucket,
they begun the climb down,
What do you fish when you fish,
he asked,
for a bolt of fire, said the man
as he released the fish into the ground
and rubbed his hands,
cryogenics?
no, fisherman.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
A poem to close your eyes
"I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted. In this case I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer—not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, not-five, etc.—is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists."
Jorge Luis Borges
I
My name is Shannan Gilbert,
as the night befalls,
an angel or a creature.
I smell like pricked stems of roses,
silently gnawing in your ears.
My name is Shannan Gilbert,
backless,
flipping leaves
stuck in my throat,
they rattle,rattle, rattle
like a strange broken toy.
II
The dagger of the day dazzles
pierced pale lids dangling in the balance,
attentive, the birds stopped their crying,
light and shadow.
My name is Shannan Gilbert,
an escort gifted with an angel's voice.
wide-eyed, what I?
My name is Shannon Gilbert,
-envoy-
the birds have taken flight.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
To Israel Kamakawiwo, IZ
Tell him the sea has receded and the stars are jumping on its bare bed.
Tell him that history was a seagull hungering our names.
Tell him, if he is silent, if he isolates himself, God appeased the volcano,
created for us this island.
Tell him that I wait for him under the almond tree, barefoot and still tousled,
with shimmering hoops. Hawaii, Izzy surfing clouds, playing ukulele.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allan Poe
The crowd approached the lens of the mega camera. Its gnawing rose up in the smoke of 5,438 cigarettes encircled in the density of that afternoon. Moisture brought a stench of copper and old gold and bits of coal intermingled with splinters from -what at simple glance appeared to be- a human jaw. When it rains, Palenque is as fragile and shifting as mirages in the desert.
The euphoria had taken over the town and made of the palenqueros, clairvoyants. The exorbitant pressures on their optic nerve reached the braking point of their vessels. Seeing was no longer possible, now with bloody pupils, in the immense darkness, they became seers.
The hour advanced in highs and lows precipitation. The cloudburst couldn't wait; heavy drops rushed down and some ran with paper bags on their heads, while others made a circle gripped by the handles of their coffee cups. In the distance a haunted chant:
OTRA, OTRA, OTRA!
The mantle of the night caught fire and the howling resounding swindled like pinwheels. The strange music of pain. In a defiant effort, they aimed at turning their heads like tourniquets as they marched on, insanely saints.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
"Blushing is the color of virtue."<\em>
You're done.
You melt like a sigh
on the lips of angels.
You've drained
the paleness of injustice,
your own hands tangled up,
aw, the square stare of the truth,
impassable duel of the pupils.
Your hands are filled with the face of our tragedy,
witherering among the sidereal flowers,
a cursed sunset,
a lamp lit in the wee hours,
no truce is better than advancing to the edge of yourself,
throwing yourself into the fire of the stars,
crossing the hard core time;
with flimsy memories
descending into a blessed hell.
You want to die with the lamp lit,
not talk about anything that gives you away
when you smoke compulsively,
tramontane and bold,
you know how pliable is the scroll of fear.
You are bad, Diogenes,
with your airs of moldy poet,
twitching the neurons of those who feel
that Truth is even more pliable,
Come here, my ox, my friend.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
I
ELIAS
I'll climb to the crest of the clouds
- bare heart -
I'll climb to the Morning Star
from the very edge of deus ex machina.
I've left in the pulpitum
my offering of bewilderment
my embroidered cape - imaginería -
the mere crumbs of my fears.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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Roxane Aristy Poem
Historians are mere men.
They sail in the high seas of people
To catch a glimpse at the elusive whale of peace.
Yes, History is not just,
It is the poor outline of the book of Life.
Everyday historians climb their intellectual mountains
And observe their nation like the news chopper over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Down are the flipping pages
Like fresh fish caught from the pond.
The children of the World are born naked,
They will be dressed with the garments of their Culture,
They will be indoctrinated by the idiosyncrasy of their Society
Schooled and fed the yellow marrow of their History,
Except for the marginal and exploited children,
They will be consumed like shrimps in Chinatown.
All the children without exception will be made to choose
Between their consciousness and their Patriotism,
Between Humanity and their religion.
Early, the superimposed mind will be placed
Piece by piece in their initiation ritual,
Crowned with a montage of thoughts,
Others' thoughts.
Copyright © Roxane Aristy | Year Posted 2019
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