Author: gabrielsmy

Expecting

What my heart first waking whispered the world was.

I picked these summer roses because
they looked so disgusting waiting there
wanting the bees to come and fuck them.
On this lonely afternoon what is left
of my youth gushes up like a geyser
as I sit in the sun combing the lice
out of my hair. It is June seventeen
but the sun keeps going in. Rabbits
die of indecision when an experiment
forces them to be forced two ways.

I need a house, a husband, money,
a job, friends, furniture, affection,
servants to look after the children, clothes,
a car, a bicycle, a destination.
I see now I was the one-too-many.
I was the mistake. The circumstances
in which I find myself are marginal
notes, never the text. In the thick hedgerows
the summer flowers like their rapturous
lives that have nothing to do with me.

(From Elizabeth Smart’s diary, June 1943)

The last ten days of Ramadan

I never said a proper goodbye
to the city where I grew up.

On the second day
I phoned my cousins.
We spoke about cancelled exams
and pilgrims stuck in Mecca.

By day four
my cousin could barely speak;
the family were all on the ground floor,
she was too afraid to shower.

A trousseau for a bride,
red slippery glittery tobes,
perfumes, dainty sandals.
Kilos of pistachios,
bags of sugared almonds,
boxes of Turkish delight –
all this would be looted.

The sky over Khartoum
was lit with savage fire,
smoke billowing at dawn.

On Eid day
I dragged myself to the mosque.
I hugged other women and cried.

Eid mubarak.

This time, they didn’t pick up.

(From 5 Sudanese writers on the country’s nightmare conflict)

May

When I die I shall go to May.
It will be green, the colour green
in all its thousand shining faces.

Every day will feel like Christmas Eve
when I was ten. Every green leaf
will be perfection exactly as it is

and yet will grow and change
every time I turn my eyes to it.
Every moment will be like the arc

of a diver breaking the waters
of a green lake. I know this because
this is what May is like here and now.

Almost unbearable. It does not hold
for half an hour. Yet in the shifting,
growing hymn of light and colour and leaf

is the still, simple reason that I garden.

(Monty Don in The Ivington Diaries, 2010)

The sun keeps climbing

Even nature wants to pay homage
to the mothers who feel unhappy
because they can’t realize
the desires of their children.

Dona Teresinha came to visit me.
She gave me 15 cruzeiros and said
it was for Vera to go to the circus.
I’m going to use the money to buy bread.

Yesterday I got half a pig’s head.
We ate the meat and saved the bones.
Today I put the bones on to boil
and into the broth I put some potatoes.

Night came. The stars are hidden.
I lit a page from a newspaper
and ran it over the walls. This is the way
the favela dwellers kill mosquitoes.

My children are always hungry.

(From Carolina Maria de Jesus’ diary, Mothers’ Day 1958)

Catching color

In the afternoon, he took us to the mosque.
The sun darted through, and how!
We rode a while on the donkey.

In the evening, through the streets.
A café decorated with pictures.
Beautiful watercolors.

We ransacked the place buying.
A street scene around a mouse.
Finally someone killed it with a shoe.

We landed at a sidewalk café.
An evening of colors as tender
as they were clear.

Virtuosos at checkers. Happy hour.
Louis found exquisite color tidbits
and I — was to catch them.

(From Paul Klee’s diary, April 1914)

God help me

What I will bring to that altar
is this nauseating sack of guts—

selfish, small, lecherous,
a mind like a whorehouse,
a tongue like a longshoreman’s,
a soft mousy body that seeks
always its own comforts,

a will deluded by hyperactive desires.
Poor wreck that I am.

Can I give over to God’s service
only so little,
and that so badly damaged,
so in and out
of sin and desire?

(John L’Heureux’s diary, April 1966)

Villainelle

Opt for the treadmill, you’ll be running in the nude,
My cat slept through a blizzard in Florida this year.
One person says something that sounds true.

Install a fake microwave on the wall you never use;
Surprise! If a funny looking cat appears,
Opt for the treadmill, you’ll be running in the nude.

Sleep in the middle of the room;
Just wait until the third of April when your friends hear.
One person says something that sounds true.

Have a tortoise deliver your package for you,
Flowing through the water in a reindeer.
Opt for the treadmill, you’ll be running in the nude.

Prank: put your name on a balloon.
Putting your car keys in the freezer;
One person says something that sounds true.

Don’t be surprised if it sings Happy Birthday back at you.
In my house, there are porcelain ponies, I swear.
Opt for the treadmill, you’ll be running in the nude;
One person says something that sounds true.

(From AI generated April Fools pranks)