The Fetish is Everywhere

May 6, 2013July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Today, a girl in a white dress missed her bus.

She ran to catch it, crowded though it was

—I am not one, well, I haven’t, her thighs.

Ay, this Lolita look is all the rage.

She ran to catch the crowded city bus,

I stepped aside, to let her pass me by—

Ay, this Lolita look is all the rage.

How she pounded, pounded on the gliding door.

I stepped aside to let her pass me by,

From the cypress came a falcon, leaden winged,

How she pounded alongside the gliding door,

I saw the bird’s black head, its heavy dash.

From a cypress came the falcon, leaden winged

To the median of this busy four-lane street.

I saw the bird’s black head, its heavy dash,

It ate from off its talons an impaled thing.

In the median of this busy four-lane street,

I watched the falcon eat around its toe,

It ate from off its talons an impaled thing,

The girl in the white dress had missed the bus.

I watched the falcon eat around its toe,

Her dress was also there, also the rage,

The girl in the white dress, her legs, the chase—

I can’t decide the meaning of it: “slayed”.

Her dress was also there, also the rage,

The falcon flew directly to the sea,

The girl in the white dress sat on the bench

And I was left, to hold the bird with me.

I step outside shaped like a rune

December 14, 2012July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

I step outside shaped like a rune, my hands up to feel for the sun’s rays and legs bent to scuttle away, to jump back inside my home if need be. If need be I can insulate myself from the weather, the endless weather, and be the same. The sane same, I can be. Today I am shaped like a rune, I’m curious and translatable, the sun touches all. I step outside and then I’m like a battery, my skin charges, two bars, three bars, four, and I’m warm. I’ll carry it away, away inside and in the car, my skin holds the sun. Bursts and waves, the sun. Radiated and clean, my skin. Caressed and beaten, throughout the day, the sun on me. Day of Radiance on the radio.

I step outside shaped like a peg, my arms at my sides, like a Donii, a woman-peg, laden with flesh and bouncing lightly. Bouncing lightly, the sun off the moon, and back onto the grass, into which I root myself. I point down and then all around, I write light to a camera. I am shaped like a peg, I’m unified and useful, the moon is enough in its changes. Just half, just a sip of moon, it’s enough, only leave me desiring.

I step outside and I roam, I’m off from the jamb-go and all the insulation of the house is packed onto my prudish body. I am off, turned on, I look through a visor made of packing tape, at the world or the new walls. Dense grasses and egret limbs overtake me. I have scared a blue heron and another condor retires. The nettles on the hill pull at my faux fur, the fibers drift up in seed pod smoke. Where there’s only a sheer backing left, the wind of all changes rustles over true skin.

My Sister Down a Green Road

July 12, 2012July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

I can see my sister walking down a green road in early spring. The ice is in its first thaw. The trees sway, remembering the breeze. The farmer’s fields beside the road are heavy with clodded loam and aching rotted twigs. Black birds flap chilled mist from their wings and swoop.

She is walking down that road, the fingers of one hand flared in the direction of the the moss. She is lumbering; her one foot turns inward with each step. Her head is foremost, propelled by an unwomanly hunch. Loose strands of hair caress her cheek and slap the collar of her jacket.

I can see her on this road, how others might see her. Her fairness encouraged by the fair wind, the heat of her and the cool of all forming their ruddy rouge, the unwanted sign. She holds back a tide with that brave hunch. Her dark eyes are stones, old and everywhere, unbefitting the sweet face.

I can see her walking down a green road, crouched from where I am, inside her pocket. Her fist is here with me, in the pocket. Her thumb is chewed and cracked – Beauty’s surprise. I study the pulse at her wrist, even, and test the clench of her fingers, odd.

The green road is a pile behind us. Past the lining of her pocket, past the sockets of my eyes.

Phone

June 27, 2012July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ 1 Comment

Hank Skeels stands at the entrance to Club Throb, the hottest, keeping watch over the VIP guests as they ooze in with perfect timing. The regular guests come wide-eyed as they please and Hank can’t blame them. He bars the inelegant riff-raff, the dirty phoneless.

A step inside the club, Ben leans away from Betty’s gooey lipstick advances as they stride in. She’s already at my neck, Ben says into his phone, which is shaped like a stubby black billy club, or is it a small baseball bat. Betty’s phone is in her clutch purse, a pair of lips wrapped in pink satin, buzzing.

Enter Judy and Jim, strolling, his arm at her back. She swats it away with a glance. I’m on the phone, sweetie, she says, and he removes it. Jim can’t take his eyes off of his wife’s shape in her gown, the way her slender fingers grip the roundness of her armadillo phone, commanding an underling to get it out by tomorrow latest. He left his fork phone at home, charging.

The young actress-waitress, daughter of the club owner’s brother, Shayna holds a tray of champagne glasses and circles the room, smiling with perfect teeth in the roaming laser lights, wishing she could get back into her locker in the employee lounge to peek at her phone, a disco ball.

In the alley behind Club Throb, two men and two women are deep in an angst-ridden discussion about phones in society, a conversation that started when one of the guys Tim mocked Bill’s older model. The two friends had almost come to blows, when the woman Aisha quietly suggests that they smash their phones, right here and now, as an act of self-liberation.

Tim, Bill and Aisha do it; they crack the outer cases under their feet, spreading the remains of a red handkerchief, a blue handkerchief, and a dried flower onto the pavement. They separate the inner motherboard from its wires with their heels. Silicone and bits of glass ground into the grime of the pavement make them feel wild, accomplished, for a moment. A thread of loneliness tightens. They watch mutely as Bill struggles to light the blue curlicue cord on fire, a wet fuse of a bomb. The remaining friend, the one who couldn’t smash her phone, Aparna, jogs to catch the bus. Her hands grip tightly inside her pocket around her phone, which is a tin of mints.

The Anderson family – Mom, Dad, Penny, Michael, and baby Alex – stand in a group within the main crowd of guests by the podium, waiting patiently, each holding green pear phones. Penny and Michael are embarrassed to be seen with their parents, who are underdressed. This place is packed, Penny whispers. Michael holds his phone like a platter to his chin, in loudspeaker mode, and says, I think they’re about to get started. Mom texts Dad about Penny’s weight problem. Dad tells her not to worry, in so many words. Baby Alex is in Mom’s arms, her phone covered in slobber.

The beautiful and normal-looking people have all gathered by 10pm, when Hank Skeels hears his boss speak into the phone in his ear, Close the doors, it’s starting.

A cascade of synth bells falls over the eager audience. The dais is positively cinematic, mouths Judy into her armadillo. A large platform, its floor painted in thick black and white stripes and covered to extravagance by a mound of dark red roses. A black velvet cloth has been draped over a glass case that sits atop the flower mound.

That is it, the thing we’ve all been invited to see.

The percolating silence is deafening, maddening, here’s everyone’s attention. They set their phones in camera mode, fingers hovering over the button.

Hank Skeels takes the stage, hands clasped together in front of him, and looks over the crowd. They think he might speak but he does not.

Taking her cue from the silence, the model, Po, emerges from the employee lounge. She is naked, her body painted entirely silver, up to her hairlines. Her nails and lips are a lush red. Shayna, standing in the hallway, gasps when she sees her.

Po enters the main area. Her gait is slow. Slow-motion bullet of a woman. I am a juggernaut, she thinks to herself. Slow, but lacking any inertia.

Po ascends the dais on black and white steps. She turns to face the audience, orienting herself to the street outside, the city beyond, as the boss has instructed her to do in his superstition. She bows to them.

Everyone bows back, even Mom and Dad, though it is not their custom.

Po takes three steps backwards to stand beside the covered case. She lifts her silver arm and places her hand on the black velvet. In a slash, she whips the cloth away. The lights swirl and land on the case upon the dais.

It is a new phone.

Its body is chrome silver and gleaming with a dark radiance, like mercury, molten in the lights. It is wider at the base, then narrows into a soft point. A bullet.

Loud clicks of photographs being taken.

The light of individual phones pulled from above the heads of the crowd, down to the chest, dispersed in messages, reaching out to the other side of earth.

Hank Skeels stares at the bullet, motionless. I believe you’re in love, Hank.

Barbara Heard at the Lake

June 27, 2012July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Sporty windbreaker, fitted pants, strap sandals, trader joe’s bag and a canvas bag, cane with a strap, large sunglasses

“Protect our fair streets of Oakland

Isn’t she beautiful, isn’t she fair

We must do something

She’s so beautiful

And those who die

Physically and mentally

Will be lifted up by the

Lord of the people

Into the hands of the Asian race

Except there’s always pussy

Isn’t it beautiful

It’s always pussy and

Don’t you think mine is beautiful

And Barbara

They thought hers was beautiful and

She’s in the prison

Locked up in a cell

San Quentin Santa Rita

Pussy isn’t remembered

We must do something for Barbara

Isn’t she beautiful

Pussy forgotten, cock stays around

We must do something

For Barbara

Locked up in San Quentin Santa Rita Napa Sonoma

From the streets of Oakland

Barbara isn’t she beautiful”

Mother’s Day Poem

June 27, 2012July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

While I stood trimming
The little pale pink roses
I noticed some blossoms
Had new green buds
Poised & ready in their centers
Like girls who emerge
Wearing the manes of their mothers.

Alien Prayer Flag

November 17, 2011July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

_I.

_{For those who’ve heard a loved one gone}

_{To visit that city and take the drive that got them lost}

_{Visit here}

_{The city has a name, but it’s different for everyone}

_{I pronounce it in this way:}

_{Ning like ning – that’s easy}

_{Bo like bwuoh – that presents a challenge}

_{You may know it in another way entirely.}

_{Ah, the billion nameless hungry faces}

_{And one lonely greasy girl steps forward}

_{“Stay here while I fetch you a drink of water”}

_{“Make yourself comfortable”}

_{Drink it fast,}

_{The cup won’t last long…}

_{Faster, I mean it!}

_{“This is the city of the thinnest paper.”}

_{Once there, she’ll ask you to please}

_{Not to disrupt the ritual}

_{With your visible, drippy sobs}

_{Eat any food that is offered to you and you’ll enjoy this}

_{First contact, congratulations, explorer!}

_{In this moment you are a superhero – God Grief – that’s it}

_{Serious, staid and steadfast over all things human, in the famed city}

_II.

_{A shortening. A quickening.}

_{Hot throat and all the internal vomits}

_{The effect of speed on the inner ear and the return…to…stationary.}

_{The ocular lens-clock tightens}

_{Makes any music inappropriate}

_{As sense bandwidth is strictly rationed}

_{By burlap monks with spiny fingers, dirty nails}

_{They crave silence and nobody minds skin irritation}

_{They work on narrowing, calibrating a beam of laser light}

_{However an occasional peek at cartoons is forgivable,}

_{Especially since the one who is dead cannot be reached via laser}

_{These negotiations continue}

_{While flash is as small as starlight}

_{“This is what it feels like” is stupidum say the monks}

_{Torture, torch you’re, the tortured}

_{Blank plank adrift upon furious frothy action}

_{Then the risen smack of the real moment (y) and real place (x)}

_{God Grief is lost in Ning (ning) Bo (bwuoh)}

_{Stretching his hamstrings like an oblivious runner}

_III.

_{My sister is too beautiful for most}

_{Her goatherd tragedy spoken in smooth lines that dilate}

_{I weep to hear her latest news}

_{She walks around the blind city}

_{A city of too many rabbit holes}

_{“This is the city of the most ways to get lost”}

_{She is my walking talking potential eternal sadness}

_{The child whose smiley-face egg, once broken, shatters me}

_{The huddled woman whom God Grief has sworn to protect}

_{One glance into her eyes deletes the Hero’s mechanism}

_{And sends them tumbling down a taxi-cab, flying in a light cascade}

_{One glance spits them out into the river}

_{(Escape is a delicious apple}

_{A moondance Gravitron whirl of limbs}

_{Wide, wide open to the free flow of esteem-less sex}

_{Drink to smoke to breathe to bathe}

_{Negating pent up penthos pours}

_{If all are lost along the way, that’s fine)}

_{Grief visits Beauty}

_{The combination is deadly swollen}

_{Each offering the other’s knife sharpener}

_{Metal running along stone}

_{The city towers were never so high as tonight}

_{Each one wears a different fascinator}

_IV.

_{The crowd forms}

_{A long line on the sidewalk}

_{It must be something good}

_{For them to wait so long}

_{Take a look through the shop windows –}

_{Ah, but the sun’s glare.}

_{One girl in line}

_{Erupts in laughter}

_{Throws her hand on the shoulder of the old man in front of her}

_{And bounces bounce her bosom bounces}

_{The old man chuckles}

_{At the girl, heaving}

_{At her breasts as they heave}

_{At her buckteeth}

_{At her breasts, at her buckteeth}

_{At the reveal of skin}

_{Above her pants below her shirt}

_{Laughter belting out past}

_{Her buckteeth and pouring}

_{From her forged chest}

_{And now everyone’s laughing}

_{See, the sign on the door says:}

_{“No More -This Is The City of Not Enough”}

_{God Grief holds a Chinese churro}

_{Dipped in soymilk}

_{Barely tasting}

_{Sweet, empty flavor.}

_{Grief’s luck is strange like that…}

_V.

_{I held a shirt you wore and}

_{All the time you wore it}

_{A brooch was pinned to it}

_{I removed it and put it on me}

_{It is a heavy ceramic bust}

_{I’ve gone through your things so many times}

_{Look at me, I}

_{Jingle with your many cameos}

_{I found a hideous shell you liked}

_{In your chest of things}

_{Its spiky section hurt to hold}

_{I’m starting to remember things about you that were less than friendly.}

_Still,

_You.

_{The dead flesh speaks in conjugated color}

_{Yell oh}

_{Yel laugh}

_{Yell ow}

_{God Grief lost his ride along the Inner Ring highway.}

_{Now he walks, carrying carrion.}

_VI.

_{Urgency emergence in the final tally}

_{The march away from me}

_{My last moment to haggle:}

_{I would die for you, who is dying}

_{I would live for you, who is dying}

_{I cannot, so}

_{I accept the quoted price}

_{I’ll look for firm confirmations later}

_{When it’s still –}

_{The dam bursts and floods a vein of ochre}

_{Mud coating all}

_{The thinly coated citizens}

_{They hug and scratch and even dance.}

_{My sister is gone}

_{Beauty is again, ready for anything}

_{She lifts her new hand with a whir of pistons}

_{God Grief mumbles about a sacred cleanup}

_{Hopeless to the last transaction,}

_{He wanders the city of Ningbo alone}

_{Leaves the poem}

_{Leaves, the poem, the city}

The Walk Home (a fable)

November 13, 2011July 8, 2013 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Shanghai, 2008.

A young girl of nine (nearly ten) stands at the metal gate of her school. Her hands are free, her feet sweating in plastic clog sandals punched throughout with holes shaped like Mickey Mouse heads. Her backpack is bubblegum pink and dotted with floating shiny red lips and black high heel shoes. It is heavy with books. She stands at the gate and watches her schoolmates as they’re retrieved by their parents and grandparents, one by one, skipping happily away.

She is alone, which is unusual. Grandmother wasn’t waiting for her at the school’s gate today as she usually does, and although she knows the way home, can trace each curb, drain and slab of the sidewalk leading to her building, the disturbance of the daily, the lifetime routine is puzzling. No one told her; Mama didn’t say mention anything when she dropped her off in front of the gate this morning on her way to the office.

She can feel that her left pigtail is sagging, so while she waits for the corner crosswalk light to show the white walking man, she tucks her sweater between her legs, grabs sections of the hair in her hands and pulls. The tightening of her scalp is oddly comforting. She stands up straight. The light changes.

She takes her sweater from between her knees and crosses the street quickly. The bun vendor looks at her lone figure oddly, and she squeaks at him as she passes, incapable of saying a word. Grandma always bought a custard bun for her after school. He is a nice man, she thinks as the steam from his cart leaves her nostrils. He could help me.

Ah, you don’t need any help, she says to herself, snorting. Home is this way, you’ve walked it a thousand times before.

The young girl is on the left side of the main road. Up ahead is the long alleyway leading east to her family’s apartment, three blocks north. The bun vendor is the first bright post in a series of small food stalls on this block, one stall sidled up alongside another in an archipelago of stainless steel, dark dirty wood, buckets of water, fallen bits of greenery, old rusty stools and makeshift tables. She navigates the scattered path as she has so many times before. The smell of niu rou mian (beef noodle soup), frying bread, vinegar and the smoke of roasted animal fat lean on her, beckon her, and she becomes aware of her hunger, normally mostly satiated by a steamed bun at this point in her journey. She slows down her pace, considers the variety of each stall’s snacks. Maybe I’ll get something, she dares, quickly calculating that she carries more than enough coins for a snack in a small zipper purse in her backpack. For the first time she can remember, she is without a chaperone, and the world offers her its bounty.

She stops to stare at a young man frying youtiao. He is sweating along his temples, and his oily hair is spotted with flour. She watches him dip the long, oversized chopsticks used for frying into a large wok of yellow oil, rotating the long sticks of sweet bread. The thin golden loaves resting on the rack looks crispy and delicious. She licks her lips and watches him grab two with a hand gloved in plastic clouded with grease, swing open a brown paper bag with another hand and shove the youtiao in, bending them in the middle as they’re placed inside.

He pushes the bag of bread towards her and she steps back to allow a customer standing beside her to take it. His hand shoves again, and shrinking, she realizes he’s looking directly into her eyes, that she’s the customer, and she should pay.

With a thrill, she takes the bag. His hand, with its long pointed thumbnail, crusted with dough and yellowed, becomes an open palm. She swings her backpack around and rests it on her knee to access her coinpurse. How much is it? The youtiao is hot in her other hand. She’s scared to ask. A steamed bun is always one; she awkwardly places one coin in his palm. He pulls it back, stares down at it and furrows his brow, sticks his palm out again.

“It’s two,” he says, bored. She is slow to react, bag of bread in one hand and coin purse in the other, backpack hanging from her elbow. She wonders if he is trying to take advantage of her. It doesn’t seem worth it now…

With sudden speed, the greasy fry cook extends his arm and puts his thick fingers in her coin purse and digs around. She watches, stunned, while he, sensing the right size and weight, clasps the correct coin and pulls it out. He shows her the coin – he only took one – and adds it to his palm, which tosses them into a small tin on his counter with a dull clank.

She stares at her purse, zips it up with the hand that holds the bread. Without another move, she runs, her backpack hanging heavy at her elbow, knocking into stools and other diners slurping noodles, oblivious. She runs until she feels her arm will fall off, finally sitting down to rest along a small retaining wall just outside the entrance of the small local park, where she’d visited with Grandmother and her parents all her life. How strange she feels now, sitting outside of this park, an extension of her home, alone. She zips up her bag, replacing the coin purse inside, and puts it back on her back. Staring at the youtiao in her hands, she takes an enormous bite and chews. It is crispy on the outside, soft and doughy on the inside, just as it should be. Renewed, she gets up and continues walking home.

Turning into her alley, she smiles at the guard, who’s really just Mr. Gu from upstairs with a red armband on. She runs down the alley at top speed, and when she’d normally have to wait for Grandmother to catch up, this time she can just go right in. On the stairs, she begins to worry…what happened to Grandmother? Why didn’t she pick me up today?

She opens the door to the little apartment. “Grandmother, here I am, I’m back. Grandmother?”

She hears a faint voice. “In here, dear,” she hears the voice of her Grandmother say.

She enters the bedroom, which faces south and is full of light in the afternoons. Grandmother is seated at the edge of the bed, looking out the window to the white haze of a sunny Shanghai sky. The girl goes to the old woman and sits next to her.

“Why didn’t you come pick me up today? I waited for you.”

“I couldn’t come because I wasn’t feeling well today.”

“What’s wrong? Where is it uncomfortable? Did you eat something bad?” the little girl puts her hand on her Grandmother’s back.

“Yes, maybe that’s it. Did you get home without any trouble? You must have done okay huh. You got a snack on your way!”

The youtiao is still in her hand. The girl feels embarrassed, but she isn’t sure why. Everything felt small next to the presence of her Grandmother.

“Yes, it was nothing, I knew the way.”

“I knew you’d be fine, little one,” Grandmother pats her knee. “I knew you could do it by yourself.”

AMY K. BELL

Author: admin